U.S. congresswoman, staffers shot at event in Tucson
Paul Koring and Chris Hannay
Washington— Globe and Mail Update
Published Saturday, Jan. 08, 2011 1:58PM EST
Last updated Saturday, Jan. 08, 2011 5:11PM EST
U.S. congresswoman, staffers shot at event in Tucson - The Globe and Mail

An outspoken Democrat congresswoman was gravely wounded after an assassin opened fire with an assault rifle at a grocery store in Tucson, Ariz., on Saturday.

At least six others were injured in a burst of gunfire in what may be the first shooting of a federal politician since former president Ronald Reagan was shot two decades ago in Washington, D.C.
Emergency officials work at the scene of a shooting that authorities claim involved Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., Saturday, Jan. 8, 2011, at a Safeway grocery store in Tucson, Ariz.
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Pictures from shooting in Arizona
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U.S. congresswoman shot in Arizona
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Aftermath of Tucson shooting

Gabrielle Giffords, 40, an Arizona congresswoman, was shot at close range in the head, according to eyewitnesses. She was greeting constituents at a grocery store. Some of her aides were reportedly among those wounded. At least one was reported killed and a child was also among those shot.

Ms. Giffords was in surgery, according to a spokesman at the University Medical Center in Tucson. She and nine others had been taken to hospital, a hospital spokesperson said.

The gunman, described as a shabbily-dressed white male in his 20s, let off a burst of approximately two dozen shots, according to eyewitnesses.

He was reportedly tackled at the scene and is in custody. Police identified the assailant as Jared Loughner.

A YouTube account and a MySpace page have been linked in reports to Mr. Loughner.

Ms. Giffords, who is Jewish, was shot at close range from behind as she hosted a “meet and greet” at a Safeway grocery store in Tucson, according to one witness.

The event was part of a series called “Congress on Your Corner” that Ms. Giffords has been hosting since she first took office in 2007, according to her website.

U.S. President Barack Obama called the incident “an unspeakable tragedy.”

“We do not yet have all the answers,” the president said in a statement. "What we do know is that such a senseless and terrible act of violence has no place in a free society … I ask all Americans to join me and Michelle in keeping Representative Giffords, the victims of this tragedy, and their families in our prayers.”

Ms. Giffords is married to astronaut Mark Kelly, a former U.S. navy pilot.

She was outspoken on controversial issues including immigration and healthcare reform – both extremely contentious in a mostly conservative state where unlawful immigration and the presence of hundreds of thousands of undocumented aliens arouses strong passions.

Ms. Giffords narrowly won re-election to a third term last November after a hard-fought campaign against Republican Jesse Kelly, a Tea Party candidate, who won brief national attention for slamming Sarah Palin for endorsing some he felt were too moderate.

Ms. Giffords had been one of 20 Democrats “targeted” on a Tea Party map that identified those Democrats it especially wanted to unseat using icons of gunfights overlaid on a map of America.

In a race dominated by contentious immigration issues, Mr. Kelly said, “Gabrielle Giffords has betrayed southern Arizona by refusing to secure the border.” She insisted she had pushed President Obama to deploy troops along the frontier with Mexico but Tea Partiers demanded much tougher action.

Last March, vandals stoned the front of Ms. Giffords' Tucson office – one of several Democrat storefronts attacked – when at least 10 members of Congress reported death threats and attacks over the contentious health care reform bill that was the centerpiece of Mr. Obama's first two years as president.

Ms. Palin posted a statement saying her “sincere condolences are offered to the family of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of today's tragic shooting in Arizona.”

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said she was “deeply saddened by reports that Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Chief Judge John Roll and others were attacked this afternoon in Tucson, Arizona.

There is no place in our society or discourse for such senseless and unconscionable acts of violence. Gabby is a steadfast representative for southern Arizona and both she and John are dedicated public servants.”

Ms. Napolitano, a former Arizona governor and the Obama administration's point person on immigration and border security, added: “My thoughts and prayers are with Congresswoman Giffords, her family and staff, and all those who were injured in this difficult time.”

Republican House Speaker John Boehner said it was a “sad day” for the United States.

“I am horrified by the senseless attack on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and members of her staff,” Mr. Boehner said. “An attack on one who serves is an attack on all who serve. Acts and threats of violence against public officials have no place in our society. Our prayers are with Congresswoman Giffords, her staff, all who were injured, and their families. This is a sad day for our country.”

__________________
"Patriotism means being loyal to your country all the time and to its government when it deserves it."-- Mark Twain

"Inter arma silent Musae"--when the weapons speak, the muses fall silent.

An't nanum hearm deth, doth hwaet ye willath.

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished
unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. -Voltaire

Economic Left/Right: -3.88
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -4.36

Profile: Representative Gabrielle Giffords

FT.com / US / Politics & Foreign policy - Profile: Representative Gabrielle Giffords

Sworn in to a third term in Congress just this week, Gabrielle Giffords, 40, was one of the few Democrats in swing districts to survive a Republican sweep in the November elections, narrowly defeating a conservative Republican opponent.

She represents a district in southeast Arizona stretching from Tucson to the Mexican border that is at the center of the debate on U.S. immigration.

A relative novice in Washington, Ms Giffords is already regarded as a rising young star in the national Democratic Party and a possible candidate for the higher office in her home state.

The US political website Real Clear Politics named her one of its “Top Ten Rising Power Players in the US Congress” after the 2010 elections because of her influence on immigration issues.

“She is certain to be a major player ... when Congress again begins to consider its options on the issue,” Real Clear Politics said.

Ms Giffords compiled a moderate voting record in the U.S. House of Representatives, supporting most of President Barack Obama’s initiatives, including his signature health care reform.

She is a member of the so-called “Blue Dog” coalition of Democrats who push for conservative budget and tax policies and served on the House’s Armed Services, Foreign Affairs and Science and Technology committees.

Ms Giffords differed with many Democrats on issues such as gun control. A long-time gun owner, Ms Giffords supported the Second Amendment to the Constitution on the right of Americans to bear arms, according to her official biography.

She has described the US immigration system as “broken” and advocated a comprehensive reform compromise combining tough border security with a long-term path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

Ms Giffords criticized Arizona’s tough anti-immigration law passed last year, saying it would do nothing to secure the border or stop drug smuggling and gun running spilling over into her district.

“Arizona is now known around the world for enacting an extreme immigration law in response to the federal government’s failure to act,” she said in a statement after its passage.

Ms Giffords is married to a Nasa astronaut, Mark Kelly, and is an avid motorcycle rider, who said one of her dreams is to ride a bike all the way to Argentina.

© Reuters Limited

__________________
"Patriotism means being loyal to your country all the time and to its government when it deserves it."-- Mark Twain

"Inter arma silent Musae"--when the weapons speak, the muses fall silent.

An't nanum hearm deth, doth hwaet ye willath.

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished
unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. -Voltaire

Economic Left/Right: -3.88
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -4.36

U.S. congresswoman shot in head

By QMI Agency

Last Updated: January 8, 2011 4:06pm

U.S. congresswoman shot in head | World | News | Toronto Sun

A U.S. congresswoman from Arizona was shot in the head during a public event at a grocery store on Saturday, reports say.

Gabrielle Giffords, in her third-term in the U.S. House of Representatives, is in surgery following a shooting spree outside a Tucson Safeway just after 10 a.m. local time, hospital officials have confirmed.

“She is currently in surgery. She’s alive,” University Medical Center spokeswoman Darci Slaten told Reuters. “She was shot in the head,” Slaten later told CNN.

Slaten said nine others are in hospital in critical or serious condition, including a child.

Giffords, 40, was reportedly shot in the head at close range while hosting a meet-and-greet event at the grocery store.

A motive is not yet known.

U.S. President Barack Obama said in a statement, "We do not yet have all the answers. What we do know is that such a senseless and terrible act of violence has no place in a free society."

He added Giffords is "gravely wounded" and asks "all Americans to join me and Michelle in keeping Representative Giffords, the victims of this tragedy, and their families in our prayers."

A man reportedly fired randomly and fled, but the alleged shooter was subdued by a bystander and is now in custody, according to local media.

Giffords, a Democrat elected for a third-term last November, was taken to University Medical Centre in Tucson.

She is married to U.S. astronaut Mark Kelly, and supports stem-cell research, cuts of oil companies subsidies and funding renewable energy research.

-with files from Reuters

__________________
"Patriotism means being loyal to your country all the time and to its government when it deserves it."-- Mark Twain

"Inter arma silent Musae"--when the weapons speak, the muses fall silent.

An't nanum hearm deth, doth hwaet ye willath.

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished
unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. -Voltaire

Economic Left/Right: -3.88
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -4.36

US lawmaker gravely injured in shooting; 6 dead

By David Anderson (AFP) – 3 hours ago

AFP: US lawmaker gravely injured in fatal shooting

PHOENIX, Arizona — A US congresswoman was in critical condition after being shot in the head Saturday by a gunman who opened fire at a public event in Tucson, Arizona, killing six people, authorities said.

Initial media reports had suggested that Democratic Representative Gabrielle Giffords had died following the shooting at a Safeway grocery store, in which a federal US judge was also shot.

Giffords was hosting a "Congress on Your Corner" event with constituents at a shopping center when the gunman attacked, killing six and wounding 12, according to police spokesman Rick Kastigar.

"Ms. Giffords is alive. She is currently in surgery. There are nine other shooting victims at the hospital," University Medical Center spokeswoman Darci Slaten told AFP.

Witnesses said the lawmaker was shot at point-blank range in the shooting, for which no motive was immediately known.

National Public Radio said the suspect ran off and was tackled by a bystander before being taken into custody, and that witnesses described him as being in his late teens or early 20s.

Andrea Gooden, a witness who was in an office across the street, told Fox News she heard a burst of gunshots and "immediately after that there were people racing across the parking lot."

Another witness told CNN he heard 15-20 shots and saw people running from the scene and screaming before police and fire trucks arrived around two minutes later.

Footage from the scene showed paramedics rushing stretchers to helicopters.

The incident came after packages ignited in a post office in Washington, DC on Friday and two government buildings in neighboring Maryland on Thursday.

Giffords, 40, became the first Jewish woman to be elected to Congress from Arizona in 2006 and is married to Mark Kelly, a NASA astronaut.

She was a centrist and a member of the so-called Blue Dog Coalition of Democrats who support fiscally conservative, pro-business policies.

She has pushed for more troops to guard the nearby US-Mexico border and favored a path to legalization that would require illegal immigrants to pass a criminal background check, pay back taxes and learn English.

US federal judge John Roll of Arizona was also shot, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

President Barack Obama condemned the attack as an "unspeakable tragedy" adding: "Such a senseless and terrible act of violence has no place in a free society."

Republican House Speaker John Boehner said he was "horrified" by the attack.

"Acts and threats of violence against public officials have no place in our society. Our prayers are with Congresswoman Giffords, her staff, all who were injured, and their families. This is a sad day for our country," he said in a statement.

Senior Democratic Representative Nancy Pelosi also condemned the attack.

"It is with the deepest sadness that we have received word of the attack on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, members of her staff, and her constituents," she said in a statement.

"This terrible act of violence is a national tragedy, and today is a very sad day for our country."

The shooting came less than a week after Congress reconvened with Republicans in control of the House of Representatives and with an enhanced minority in the Senate following their route of Obama's Democrats in November elections.

Copyright © 2011 AFP. All rights reserved. More »

__________________
"Patriotism means being loyal to your country all the time and to its government when it deserves it."-- Mark Twain

"Inter arma silent Musae"--when the weapons speak, the muses fall silent.

An't nanum hearm deth, doth hwaet ye willath.

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished
unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. -Voltaire

Economic Left/Right: -3.88
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -4.36

A Turning Point in the Discourse, but in Which Direction?
By MATT BAI
Published: January 8, 2011

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/us...er=rss&emc=rss

WASHINGTON — Within minutes of the first reports Saturday that Representative Gabrielle Giffords, an Arizona Democrat, and a score of people with her had been shot in Tucson, pages began disappearing from the Web. One was Sarah Palin’s infamous “cross hairs” map from last year, which showed a series of contested Congressional districts, including Ms. Giffords’s, with gun targets trained on them. Another was from Daily Kos, the liberal blog, where one of the congresswoman’s apparently liberal constituents declared her “dead to me” after Ms. Giffords voted against Nancy Pelosi in House leadership elections last week.

Odds are pretty good that neither of these — nor any other isolated bit of imagery — had much to do with the shooting in Tucson. But scrubbing them from the Internet couldn’t erase all evidence of the rhetorical recklessness that permeates our political moment. The question is whether Saturday’s shooting marks the logical end point of such a moment — or rather the beginning of a terrifying new one.

Modern America has endured such moments before. The intense ideological clashes of the 1960s, which centered on Communism and civil rights and Vietnam, were marked by a series of assassinations that changed the course of American history, carried out against a televised backdrop of urban riots and self-immolating war protesters. During the culture wars of the 1990s, fought over issues like gun rights and abortion, right-wing extremists killed 168 people in Oklahoma City and terrorized hundreds of others in Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park and at abortion clinics in the South.

What’s different about this moment is the emergence of a political culture — on blogs and Twitter and cable television — that so loudly and readily reinforces the dark visions of political extremists, often for profit or political gain. It wasn’t clear Saturday whether the alleged shooter in Tucson was motivated by any real political philosophy or by voices in his head, or perhaps by both. But it’s hard not to think he was at least partly influenced by a debate that often seems to conflate philosophical disagreement with some kind of political Armageddon.

The problem here doesn’t lie with the activists like most of those who populate the Tea Parties, ordinary citizens who are doing what citizens are supposed to do — engaging in a conversation about the direction of the country. Rather, the problem would seem to rest with the political leaders who pander to the margins of the margins, employing whatever words seem likely to win them contributions or TV time, with little regard for the consequences.

Consider the comments of Sharron Angle, the Tea Party favorite who unsuccessfully ran against Harry Reid for the Senate in Nevada last year. She talked about “domestic enemies” in the Congress and said, “I hope we’re not getting to Second Amendment remedies.” Then there’s Rick Barber, a Republican who lost his primary in a Congressional race in Alabama, but not before airing an ad in which someone dressed as George Washington listened to an attack on the Obama agenda and gravely proclaimed, “Gather your armies.”

In fact, much of the message among Republicans last year, as they sought to exploit the Tea Party phenomenon, centered — like the Tea Party moniker itself — on this imagery of armed revolution. Popular spokespeople like Ms. Palin routinely drop words like “tyranny” and “socialism” when describing the president and his allies, as if blind to the idea that Americans legitimately faced with either enemy would almost certainly take up arms.

It’s not that such leaders are necessarily trying to incite violence or hysteria; in fact, they’re not. It’s more that they are so caught up in a culture of hyperbole, so amused with their own verbal flourishes and the ensuing applause, that — like the bloggers and TV hosts to which they cater — they seem to lose their hold on the power of words.

On Saturday, for instance, Michael Steele, the Republican Party chairman, was among the first to issue a statement saying he was “shocked and horrified” by the Arizona shooting, and no doubt he was. But it was Mr. Steele who, last March, said he hoped to send Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the “firing line.”

Mr. Steele didn’t mean this the way it sounded, of course; he was talking about “firing” in the pink slip sense of the word. But his carelessly constructed, made-for-television rhetoric reinforced the dominant imagery of the moment — a portrayal of 21st-century Washington as being like 18th-century Lexington and Concord, an occupied country on the verge of armed rebellion.

Contrast that with one of John McCain’s finer moments as a presidential candidate in 2008, when a woman at a Minnesota town hall meeting asserted that Mr. Obama was a closeted Arab. “No, ma’am, he’s not,” Mr. McCain quickly replied, taking back the microphone. “He’s a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with.” Mr. McCain was harking back to a different moment in American politics, in which such disagreements could be intense without becoming existential clashes in which the freedom of the country was at stake.

None of this began last year, or even with Mr. Obama or with the Tea Party; there were constant intimations during George W. Bush’s presidency that he was a modern Hitler or the devious designer of an attack on the World Trade Center, a man whose very existence threatened the most cherished American ideals.

The more pressing question, though, is where this all ends — whether we will begin to re-evaluate the piercing pitch of our political debate in the wake of Saturday’s shooting, or whether we are hurtling unstoppably into a frightening period more like the late 1960s.

The country labors still to recover from the memories of Dealey Plaza and the Ambassador Hotel, of Memphis and Birmingham and Watts. Tucson will either be the tragedy that brought us back from the brink, or the first in a series of gruesome memories to come.

__________________
"Patriotism means being loyal to your country all the time and to its government when it deserves it."-- Mark Twain

"Inter arma silent Musae"--when the weapons speak, the muses fall silent.

An't nanum hearm deth, doth hwaet ye willath.

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished
unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. -Voltaire

Economic Left/Right: -3.88
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -4.36

Westboro Baptist Church To Picket Funerals Of Arizona Shooting Victims

First Posted: 01- 9-11 09:15 AM | Updated: 01- 9-11 09:15 AM


Westboro Baptist Church, the Topeka church known for its inflammatory anti-gay protests, plans to picket the funerals of the six people gunned down in Arizona on Saturday.

In a flier posted on its web site, the controversial church writes, "THANK GOD FOR THE SHOOTER -- 6 DEAD!" The message continues:

God appointed this rod for your sins! God sent the shooter! This hateful nation unleashed violent veterans on the servants of God at WBC--hoping to silence our kind warning to obey God and flee the wrath to come.

The flier claims that the shooting of both a House member and a federal judge -- the latter of whom was killed -- is god's punishment for judicial and Congressional action against the WBC. "God sent the shooter to shoot you! And He's sitting in Heaven laughing at you!" the announcement reads.

In graphic language, it continues:

Your federal judge is dead and your (fag-promoting, baby-killing, proud-sinner) Congresswoman fights for her life. God is avenging Himself on this rebellious house! WBC prays for your destruction--more shooters, more dead carcasses piling up, young, old, leader and commoner--all. Your doom is upon you!

In December, Westboro Baptist Church picketed the funeral of Elizabeth Edwards. The group is known to display signs that say "God Hates Fags" and "Thank God For Dead Soldiers."

Scroll down to see the full poster, or click here for a PDF.



Westboro Baptist Church To Picket Funerals Of Arizona Shooting Victims

One indicator will be how long Republicans will continue to refrain from calling their symbolic repeal of health care the "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act".

And I don't buy this "both sides do it" argument.

Its true there is plenty of inflammatory rhetoric on the Left, but very little of it advocates or suggests violence. You can find a few quotes here and there, but it doesn't hold a candle to the recent bat shit craziness of the Right which gets amplified by FOX.

With the Right its been a constant drumbeat of hit lists, death panels, and calling for executions for non criminal acts.

Put me in the group that thinks Tucson is the start of a list of horrible crap yet to come.

__________________
Righteousness will always be the trap at the gates of hell

Jared Lee Loughner note reveals aim to assassinate Gabrielle Giffords

Investigators are examining whether far-right organisations played a role in Tucson shooting that killed six people


* Chris McGreal in Tucson
* guardian.co.uk, Monday 10 January 2011 07.47 GMT

A note written by Jared Lee Loughner ahead of his shooting rampage in Tucson appears to show that he made careful preparations to assassinate Gabrielle Giffords, the congresswoman gravely wounded in the attack that also killed six other people.

The existence of the note is revealed in court papers filed after Loughner, 22, was charged on Sunday with murder and attempted assassination. The FBI document says that Loughner wrote on an envelope the words "I planned ahead", "My assassination" and "Giffords". He then signed the note.

The envelope was kept in a safe at Loughner's home alongside a letter from Giffords in 2007 thanking him for attending an earlier open air constituency meeting of the kind he attacked on Saturday.

The court document also reveals that Loughner bought the semi-automatic Glock pistol six weeks ago.

Giffords, 40, is in a critical condition after being shot in the head at close range. Loughner is expected to appear in court later today as the FBI continues to try to establish a motive for the attack.

The FBI director, Robert Mueller, who travelled to Tucson, Arizona, to take charge of the investigation, said that one focus of the inquiry is whether far-right organisations and websites played a role.

"The ubiquitous nature of the internet means that not only threats, but hate speech and other insightful speech is much more readily available to individuals than quite clearly it was eight or 10 or 15 years ago," he said.

Investigators are exploring suspected links between Loughner and an online publication known for its strongly anti-immigrant stance, American Renaissance. It has denied any links to the accused killer.

The Southern Poverty Law Centre, one of the US's leading trackers of hate crimes, said there are signs in some of Loughner's writings of far-right influence. Mark Potok, the director of research on hate groups at the centre, drew attention to Loughner's online ramblings that reject the US currency.

"At one point, Loughner refers disparagingly to 'currency that's not backed by gold or silver'. The idea that silver and gold are the only 'constitutional' money is widespread in the anti-government 'Patriot' movement that produced so much violence in the 1990s," he said.

Potok said the Patriot movement believes that paper money issued by the government is not legal tender. He said there were also clues to Loughner's thinking in his rambling internet postings accusing the government of "mind control on the people by controlling grammar".

Potok says that fits with the theory of a Patriot conspiracy theorist who claims that the government uses grammar to "enslave" Americans.

On Loughner's first encounter with Giffords, at a constituency event in 2007, he is reported to have asked her: "How do you know words mean anything?"

A former friend told the Wall Street Journal that he became "aggravated" when Giffords responded in Spanish before moving on with the meeting.

Other organisations monitoring extremist groups have noted that Loughner spoke despairingly of a "second American constitution", a reference used by some extreme rightwingers to post-civil war constitutional amendments that ended slavery and gave them citizenship.

"One thing that seems clear is that Giffords, who was terribly wounded but survived, was the nearest and most obvious representative of 'the government' that Loughner could find. Another is that he likely absorbed some of his anger from the vitriolic political atmosphere in the United States in general and Arizona in particular," said Potok.

Acquaintances of Loughner have related hearing him rant about issues such as the national currency and language control.

Lynda Sorenson, 52, who attended a community college algebra class with Loughner last year, wrote emails to friends describing him causing disruption and expressing fears that he might be dangerous.

"We do have one student in the class who was disruptive today, I'm not certain yet if he was on drugs (as one person surmised) or disturbed. He scares me a bit. The teacher tried to throw him out and he refused to go, so I talked to the teacher afterward. Hopefully he will be out of class very soon, and not come back with an automatic weapon," Sorenson wrote on 1 June.

A fortnight later, Sorenson said of Loughner: "We have a mentally unstable person in the class that scares the living crap out of me. He is one of those whose picture you see on the news, after he has come into class with an automatic weapon. Everyone interviewed would say, 'Yeah, he was in my math class and he was really weird'. I sit by the door with my purse handy. If you see it on the news one night, know that I got out fast …"

Loughner was later asked to leave the class.

Giffords's doctors say her chances of survival are good but have not said how complete her recovery will be. One of her surgeons, Dr Peter Rhee, has experience as a military doctor in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"I never thought I would experience something like this in my own backyard," he said.

Jared Lee Loughner note reveals aim to assassinate Gabrielle Giffords | World news | guardian.co.uk

John Stewart's take on the inflammatory rhetoric (paraphrased): it would be great to believe that we could draw a direct line from the words to the actions, because we'd know what to do to avoid it happening again. But we don't know what words a crazy mind will hang up on. It ought to be possible. though, to tell the difference between the ramblings of crazy people and the rhetoric of tv pundits. Putting some distance between them would make the crazies easier to spot.

Originally Posted by Jayne B

it would be great to believe that we could draw a direct line from the words to the actions, because we'd know what to do to avoid it happening again. But we don't know what words a crazy mind will hang up on.

Well said.

__________________
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