Gifford was among those in Arizona whose offices were targeted with vandalism and threats during the health care debate in 2009.
(via @nytjim)Giffords was also one of the lawmakers Sarah Palin “set her sights on” in the Palin PAC infographic below (takebackthe20.com). The congresswoman and others are targeted with simulated gun sights on a map of the United States.
Despite putting a “target” on Giffords and asking her fellow nutjobs to find a “solution” to the congresswoman, Palin had this to say about the tragedy:
My sincere condolences are offered to the family of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of today’s tragic shooting in Arizona.
On behalf of Todd and my family, we all pray for the victims and their families, and for peace and justice.
Michael Moore asked this via Twitter:
If a Detroit Muslim put a map on the web w/crosshairs on 20 pols, then 1 of them got shot, where would he b sitting right now? Just asking.
Update Jan 9, 2010:
According to ABC News Palin denies “she meant the graphic over the districts to look like a gun sight.”
Rebecca Mansour, a spokesperson for SarahPac said, “We never ever, ever intended it to be gun sights.”
I’m cracking at up at people that think that Palin was the first politician to ever use a military or violence metaphor in politics. Yeah, no one has ever done that before (eye roll)
To that I would add a quote from Asimov : “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”
Looks like there’s the Final Solution against those throat-jammers healthcare reformists!
#66, you’re right. However, consider this: remember the narrative floating through the right-wing media that Obama was going to take away our guns, so you better stock up now? Ammo was scarce for a while as the faithful built stockpiles. Where is all this ammo, and the guns, now that that narrative has turned out to be pure paranoia?
The real problem is others, such as Glenn Beck, who goes a few steps further.
Given the hatred being spouted by the right wing media, such imagery isn’t wise. It’s her right, but at some point she needs to engage her brain — if some day it turns out she has one.
there is so much weirdness about this article..
http://azstarnet.com/news/local/article_28c8e686-1ca6-5b3e-ab85-965bd22c68c0.html
i dont know where to begin. it just doesnt seem real is all i can say.
May have been targeted because of Daily Kos. One poster ran a headline that Gabrielle Giffords is dead to me, because she voted against Nancy Pelosi. Palin’s hit list was old. The Speaker vote is recent. It is clear, we must say that Daily Kos is responsible, extra so because he had previously placed a Bullseye on Giffords’ district. That led to the second poster saying you’re dead to me, which led to this guy shooting her. Perhaps Daily Kos website should be shut down, and all assets seized. Yes, that’s the answer.
http://americanthinker.com/blog/2011/01/is_daily_kos_to_blame_for_giff.html
NoAgenda NO MORE – the hate-Palin posters are worse than the extreme right wingers they oppose. And, it appears that you condone it! What happened to just plain truth. ADIOS M-F’r’s
Mike, that’s way off. Compare Kos with Beck. They’re not even on the same rhetoric scale.
The right is being defensive, and the rest of the spectrum is looking for answers and asking the right to tone it down.
This guy’s rantings include the use of BCE. Any Palin supporter would use the correct form BC.
The party of ELF, ACORN, ECO-TERRORISTS, THE BLACK PANTHERS, THE NEW BLACK PANTHERS, THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND, THE WINTER SOLDIERS, MUMIA ABU-JAMAL and his supporters, CAIR, LAMONT HILL, VAN JONES, SAUL ALINSKY, CODE PINK , RASHID KHALIDI , REV WRIGHT, BERNARDINE DOHRN the cop killing wife of Obama confidant, proud domestic terrorist, cop killer accomplice BILL AYERS whose hero SIRHAN SIRHAN assassinated Robert Kennedy, must never get away with trying to blame a senseless isolated act of violence against an entire political group or advocates for a political group such as the Tea Party, Glenn Beck and/or Rush Limbaugh.
President Obama says: nobody was killed or murdered… They just passed on. Thats all.
Whaas ah mather boss.. We sick?
————————————–
President Obama, in a statement, said “we know that some have passed away” and that Giffords was “gravely wounded.”
#70 – You may need to have a chat with the FBI.
Look for more unhinged teabaggers committing atrocities because their reckless leaders feel it acceptable to urge violence on our democracy.
I hope that Palin cunt finds an ounce of responsibility and refrains from this nonsense.
>I hope that Palin cunt finds an ounce of responsibility and refrains from this nonsense.
Sounds like you are saying people should watch what they say watch what they do?
#80 You’re a snort of cocaine away from shooting up a museum like that other schmuck last year.
You need to banned again like you were last time and I’m sure your sorry ass being watched.
9 out of 10 politicians with slush funds and fat government pensions agree: People like Glenn Beck, Keith Olbermann, Rush Limbaugh and Michael Moore should shut their pieholes. In the interest of civil discourse.
If anyone were to publish an image of Palin overlaid with the crosshairs of a riflescope, then if harm were to come to her, the whole Tea Party and the vast majority of Palin supporters would be justified in vilifying and condemning to eternal political damnation the creator of that obviously inflammatory art.
Explain to me how it is not now appropriate to vilify and condemn to eternal political damnation once and for all, the entire Palin camp.
I am reminded of that corner of American history that included the sentence, ” You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”
For those asleep in history class, it’s the last nail in the political coffin of Senator Joseph McCarthy, 1954.
#47
Might as well have labeled your a response a manifesto. There is no justification for the death of these people. This wasn’t done in the name of freedom. It was a person that was mentally unstable presumably doing this because he did not like the way she voted.
#54
The cost of freedom is that sometimes people abuse it. What happened to these people is awful but just because Palin made some dumb statements does not mean we should go overboard and restrict speech. At the very least there must be an immediacy of violent results from the speech such as yelling “Fire” in a crowded theatre as opposed to saying “Fire!” in a blog post.
#60
Bobbo, the poster with the ridiculously long and frequently changing name (satisfied?),
Frankly, it is opinions like yours that have us end up without freedom at all. Yes, there is a line but no Palin’s speech does not cross that line. Her speech was not directed at violence. Saying “I have you in my [gun] sites” can be done without implying you actually want to shoot a person nor are encouraging someone else to shoot a real gun. If you think Palin’s words should be illegal, then you should apply for a job at the TSA where they are similarly inflexible. Try yelling “Dude that’s the bomb” the next time you are getting felt up by the TSA and see how they react.
Another factor here is that there was no intent by Palin to cause harm. If you fault Palin for her statements, then there is a long line of people that should prosecuted for theirs such as Martin Scorsese for Hinkley’s behavior. It is a ridiculous notion.
@33: Free speech doesn’t protect shouting “fire” in a crowded theatre and it doesn’t protect agitating and instigating dangerous proto-Nazis to act as your proxy assassins.
Sarah Palin (who advocated secession of Alaska) and the teabaggers have declared war on America and our democracy. These sewer rats are guilty of treason, sedition, insurrection, incitement to rebel, mutiny, insurgence, subversion, and conspiracy to overthrow the lawful government of these United States of America. Send these vile despicable traitors to Gitmo for the military tribunal and lifetime incarceration they so richly deserve.
Something tokeep in mind; the description of Loughner as a Leftist comes from a single former classmate who said:
“As I knew him he was left wing, quite liberal. & oddly obsessed with the 2012 prophecy,” the former classmate, Caitie Parker, wrote in a series of Twitter feeds Saturday. “I haven’t seen him since ’07 though. He became very reclusive.”
His attempt to put forward the idea of a new currency may have certain amounts of right-wing attributes. Right wing = order. Left wing = movement.
In all, calling him anything definitively recognizable may be a lost cause.
Would all psychopaths be automatically “leftist?” If so, what’s the mental disease that is equal but oppositely “rightist?”
#93
he hunted down a shot in the head a very open democrat. It doesnt take much to deduce he might be from the right party of Faux News Beck anarchists and Palin mindsciples. My prediction is she will continue to have her 30% nut ball support number. thankfully, not enough to win a presidential election. the middle sane people will treat her like the plague now. I love all her hunting metaphors and pictures of her with guns. very hard to imagine why a nut case would take action to take back his country and live like a palindrone.
Check out this video from the shooter
What are you talking about? There is NO “targeted” map on the Sarah Palin PAC site, and there is NO
archive of the website on the web archive or go back machine. It never existed. Look again!
I am the greatest.
#90–Thomas==you continue in the tradition of only being able to argue against mischaracterizations of those you disagree with. You say: “Frankly, it is opinions like yours that have us end up without freedom at all.” /// From Memory, I think I have offered 2 opinions:
1. That what Palin did was not criminal,
2. That Palin/Engle should be sued CIVILLY by the injured partys should like other hate groups have been sued,
3. That reading Brandenburg is a good starting place to inform one’s self on the line between Freedom of Speech and incitement to violence.
4. That most likely this issue is more about individual Mental Illness and our lack of a social safety net to treat these people
5. and finally, a humorous connection between Right Wing and Left Wing nutbaggery.
I could argue for several effects of my position, but anything resulting in less FREEDOM comes only from your ass. Aim higher, engage your brain.
“Saying “I have you in my [gun] sites” can be done without implying you actually want to shoot a person….” //// Of course that is true, but so is the opposite, and isn’t that the point?
Partisan: wound so tight they can’t admit to simple truths.
As predicted, first thing Congress does is meet to condemn the intemperent language used to appeal to their base(s). The budget will be bent to this activity as the threat to their physical safety is growing. But it is growing because of their own power hungry/vote pandering idiocy. The “leadership” of the party’s if not the Congress as a whole should start censoring their nutbag members and even candidates to their group who incite the unhinged to violence. No, they won’t do it. A few individuals might, but no formal rebuke to the very threat they face.
Such activity would by the likes of Thomas be decried as a violation of Freedom of Speech, but what is a rebuke except Speech? ((Add a caution regarding prior restraint to my list above.–Its not the same as censorship after the fact.))
Ha, ha. Silly Hoomans unable to even see a dot much less connect them together.
Was Gabrielle Giffords a Victim of Sarah Palin’s “Target” List?
Well, it certainly didn’t help.
Well said Bob #2
People love to jump to conclusions and point the finger. Here a site with information I found. I will wait for more information before I come to a conclusion. http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2011/01/arizona-shooter-jared-laughner-a-certified-nut.html Its said a lot of people will believe the first thing they here on the news and spread it around with gossip. Then the misinformation spreads like a virus.
#102–Metals==what more information do you need to assess the appropriateness of drawing bullseyes on political opponents and asking the public at large for a “solution?”
The baloney can be finely diced but just because an issue may be cut from the same roll doesn’t mean every slice is the same.
After you get your talking points about what to think, imagine several hypotheticals where the shooter here is ranges from totally apolitical to a hard core fundy on either extreme, and all points inbetween. Go!!!!!!!
Now, what do any of those hypotheticals have to do with putting bullseyes on your political opponents and asking the general public for a solution? Hope you aren’t too tired – – GO!!!!!!
Nah, I’ll wait for my talking points.