Saturday, January 08, 2011

Pro-Gay Rep. Gabrielle Giffords Shot

I and others have discuss the danger posed by rabid Tea Party supporters and the encouragement of hate and violence that underlies much of the rhetoric of Sarah Palin and others on the far right. While motives of the gunman who shot Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords - wife of NASA astronaut Navy Capt. Mark Kelly - and seventeen others (six are dead, including a judge and a 10 year old child), at a constituent event in Tucson are not yet fully known, suspicions are that the demagoguery of Sarah Palin's cross-hairs target list of members of Congress. In her recent re-election victory Giffords defeated a Tea Party loon. One far right blogger who has deleted ha post, but not before it was captured by a number of bloggers, including Karen Ocamb at LGBT Pov, was ranting against Giffords:
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Gaby Giffords is also on my personal political hit list, primarily because Pam and I live in Cochise County, Arizona, which is part of District 8. We don’t appreciate our Representative going against our wishes and voting for Obama’s Health Care Deformed…and I intend to do my part to help make her pay.”
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Interestingly, Sarah Palin has also scrubbed the image set forth below at the bottom of this post from her site which was was fortunately screen captured before the deletion. I have argued many times that these far right fanatics and those who incite them are a clear and present danger to the rule of law and constitutional government. Words of hate and incitements to violence DO have consequences and if it proves that the shooter was encouraged to act by Palin and those like her, her political career needs to end NOW. KOLD-TV 13 has this on the shooter:
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Jared Lee Loughner is being held after Giffords was shot Saturday at an event in Tucson. Multiple search warrants are being served in the investigation, said Pima County Sheriff's Department spokesman Rick Kastigar.
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It will be instructive to see what the searches turn up in terms of Loughner's motivations.


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