gabrielle giffords

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Reason Magazine misleads about Jared Loughner (+AllahPundit, Glenn Reynolds) - 01/18/11

Reason Magazine offers the deceptive video "The Week in Stupid: Cable Pundits on the Gifford Shooting" (below). If you trust anything Reason tells you, keep reading.

Jared Loughner: anti-Bush, pro-small government? Intellectually dishonest Tea Party defenders - 01/17/11

Enablers of the tea parties have, of course, been completely intellectually dishonest when attempting to defend themselves against claims that Jared Loughner is linked to them in one way or another. One example is here, and today's example involves the New York Times piece "Looking Behind the Mug-Shot Grin" (link). Based on the relevant portion of that article [1], Loughner sounds a bit like a libertarian or perhaps anarchist [2]. Instead of considering the whole of the relevant portion of the NYT article, Tea Party enablers stop at the part about not liking George W Bush, attempting to...

Jared Loughner's "Genocide School" video (Pima Community College) - 01/15/11

Pima Community College has released the video from Jared Loughner that resulted in his explusion from that school (article here, embedded below, [1]). In it he walks around that College at night and narrates why it's his "genocide school" and how their actions will result in him becoming homeless. He seems particularly agitated about having received a "B" grade in a sociology class. As I've stated many times, about the only political inclination that can be derived is that of a deranged extremist libertarian. While I expect some on the Left to claim he says things similar to the tea parties,...

Did Pima County Sheriff Dupnik ignore Jared Loughner's warning signs before Gabrielle Giffords shooting? - 01/13/11

Almost immediately after the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords and several others by Jared Lee Loughner, Pima County, Arizona Sheriff Clarence Dupnik began politicizing the tragedy [1]. Part of that politicization was justified, part was not. Specifically, considering the role that an overly hostile political environment might have played in the tragedy and urging calm is acceptable, but naming specific persons (Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh) as possible contributing factors is not. In any case, supporters and enablers of Palin, Limbaugh, and the tea parties movement responded by going on a...

Friend: Loughner wasn't political, not left or right (two years out of date; Zeitgeist) - 01/12/11

On Good Morning America, Zach Osler - a former friend of Gabrielle Giffords shooter Jared Lee Loughner - said the following about Loughner (video below): He did not watch TV. He disliked the news. He didn’t listen to political radio. He didn’t take sides. He wasn’t on the left. He wasn’t on the right. However, in the same interview, Osler admits not having seen Loughner for two years. Obviously, a lot can happen in two years, but don't expect partisan hacks to acknowledge that or in some cases even mention that Osler's information is two years out of date. Osler's claims also contradict...

Jared Loughner's AboveTopSecret postings (Gabrielle Giffords shooter) - 01/11/11

Jared Lee Loughner - shooter of Gabrielle Giffords - allegedly posted to the conspiracy forum AboveTopSecret.com using the handle erad3, and they've published the comments here. He created four threads and posted an additional 126 comments; none of them give an accurate picture of his political leanings or hint at what was to come. In almost all of the comments it's difficult to tell whether he was being completely sincere or whether he was engaging in some form of trolling, mind games, or just mental exercises. Many of the comments and all the threads use incorrect syllogisms, which he...

Is Jared Lee Loughner linked to Tea Party, conservatives, or libertarians? (Gabrielle Giffords shooting) - 01/11/11

Q. Is Jared Lee Loughner linked to the Tea Party, conservative, or libertarian movements? A. At this time, there's no indication that Loughner was a member of any organized political movement. He was a registered independent who hadn't voted in 2010 (link). The DHS claim that he was linked to the white racial separatist group AmRen is false. Given what we know now, the chances of him being welcomed as a member of any group outside the far fringe is remote [1]. Given his history, the chances that even the teaparties would welcome him to their meetings is slim. He might have been welcomed to...

Glenn Reynolds denies Tea Party's history of intimidation (Giffords shooting, Loughner) - 01/09/11

Glenn Reynolds takes to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to offer "The Arizona Tragedy and the Politics of Blood Libel" (link) in which he tries to run away from the toxic political environment that the tea parties movement - of which he is a leader - has created: With only the barest outline of events available, pundits and reporters seemed to agree that the massacre had to be the fault of the tea party movement in general, and of Sarah Palin in particular. Why? Because they had created, in New York Times columnist Paul Krugman's words, a "climate of hate." ...There's a climate of hate...

DHS uses Giffords shooting to push loose borders political agenda (Jared Lee Loughner, American Renaissance) - 01/09/11

[IMPORTANT UPDATE: AmRen has been cleared, and Fox's memo wasn't even from the DHS. See the updates below.] The Department of Homeland Security and various media sources are using the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords by Jared Lee Loughner as an opportunity to try to smear opponents of illegal immigration, focusing on the higher-level white racial separatist group American Renaissance (DHS memo at [1], report at [2]). Not only do they get that group's ideas wrong, but they mislead about what was in Loughner's videos and what appears to have been on his MySpace page. From the memo at [1]: no...

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, several others shot; Palin, Tea Party candidate - 01/08/11

UPDATES BELOW Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and several others were shot earlier today and there are conflicting reports on whether she and others were killed. Per this: The gunman, who may have come from inside the Safeway, walked up and shot Gifford in the head first, "point blank". According to [an eyewitness, Steven Rayle], who is a former ER doctor, Gifford was able to move her hands after being shot... After shooting Gifford, the gunman opened fire indiscriminately for a few seconds, firing 20-30 rounds and hitting a number of people, including a kid no older than 10 years old... The gunman...

How many Senate seats did the Tea Parties cost the Republicans? - 11/10/10

If you ask a member of the tea parties how many senate seats their candidates lost the GOP, they'll probably say "-17". However, from this: The Fix looked at Angle, Buck, O'Donnell and two other faces of the tea party: New York governor candidate Carl Paladino and Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul. The five of them, it turns out, ran behind the vast majority of other Republican candidates -- and sometimes by wide margins. In almost every case, they ran behind more mainstream Republican candidates for governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state and other statewide offices. And in no...

Federal agencies in effect join boycott over Arizona immigration law (Education, Border Patrol) - 06/24/10

From this: Two federal agencies have joined the "boycott Arizona" trend and nixed conferences there out of concern over the state's immigration law, a Democratic Arizona congresswoman said, calling the development "very troubling." ..."It is very troubling when the federal government becomes involved in a boycott against our state," (Rep. Gabrielle Giffords) said in a written statement. "Although I personally disagree with the immigration law, it came about because of growing frustration over the federal government's unwillingness to secure the border. The federal government's participation...

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords considers pushing H-1B increase even as millions of Americans without work - 10/27/09

Last year, Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords introduced legislation that could double or triple the number of H1B visas; those are usually used by high tech companies such as Google, Microsoft, and many others to obtain lower-wage, pliable foreign workers. Now, despite the fact that millions of Americans are unemployed, Giffords is considering bringing her bill back. Per this October 21 post: The Giffords bill is not on Thomas.gov yet. I called her office to ask what the status of the bill is, and they said it is in the Judiciary Committee for review. Since it is not formally introduced to...

White House immigration meeting of amnesty all-stars: Obama, McCain, Graham, Cornyn, Gutierrez - 06/26/09

Yesterday, Barack Obama met with various members of Congress to discuss comprehensive immigration reform. His remarks are at [1], a list of attendees is at [2], and some quotes from attendees is at [3]. Nothing very important appears to have happened or been said.

Obama budget ends SCAAP, just like Bush did (reimburses states for illegal alien incarceration) - 05/08/09

Barack Obama's budget has no funding for SCAAP, the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program. That reimburses states for their cost of incarcerating illegal aliens, and it will supposedly save $400 million. And, not funding that program is something that Bush tried to do in each year of his presidency; Congress rebuffed the previous illegal immigration-supporting president's attempts. That "tango" where the program is underfunded by Congress after an attempt to cut is made by the president is described here (from March 2008). The AFSCME wasn't happy when Bush tried this last year (link), and...

Gabrielle Giffords' first immigration speech - 01/13/07

I've been told that one of the big blogging stories of 2006 was all the hacks, er, bloggers who were hired by campaigns. Well, guess what! This blog has just been hired by a politician you've probably heard of, and you'd never guess I'd be working for her, but I am. Finally today I can announce: I've been hired to give the plain English, BS-free version of Gabrielle Giffords' speeches. The plucky Arizona legislator beat Randy Graf in November, sparking the massive Graf/Hayworth canard, and one of her top goals is finally "solving" the immigration crisis. Here's my maiden attempt for "Gabby" (...