Havent you heard? I'm the king of NY! (news thread)

[FreddyKnuckles]

Sorry for that.

Anyway, like pollo I've been pretty ocd about my consumption of media on the AZ shooting.

I think the most incredible for me is the kid who'd been interning for a week who happened to have nurse training and held her head up so she could breath and compressed the head wound.

CNN video interviewing Loughner's math teacher
http://cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2011/01/09/nr.griffin.mcgahee.cnn

[FreddyKnuckles]

Keeping it classy:

If you're too lazy to read the link, Democrat Bernie Sanders is using the tragedy in Arizona to raise money.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hCr0MrDblJn-XtS7xH7vna2nobIw?docId=b11b381818784395a74a6d27c8674adb

[elpollodiablo]

This weekend we all were horrified to hear the news of the violent shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and several others in Arizona.
One thing that surprised us was how many in the news media and liberal political figures and organizations immediately launched into an attack on the tea party movement - assigning blame for the shooting to our grass roots, Constitutionalist movement in general, and Gov. Sarah Palin in particular.

Friends, this is outrageous.

It is quite clear that liberals are trying to exploit this shooting for their own political benefit, and they used deception and dishonesty to try and smear all of us and our beliefs.

You know what the truth is? The truth is that the shooter, Jared Loughner is the one responsible for this atrocity. But liberals are trying to place the blame on society for embracing the tea party movement.

We here at the Tea Party Express find that disgusting and revolting.

This isn't a new concept for liberals. Let us harken back to the words of Ronald Reagan when he called out the Left for similar behavior in years past:

"We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions."

- Ronald Reagan

If Jared Loughner does have a definable political ideology it is that of a far Left anarchist. Loughner is a mentally disturbed young man who sought his ideological fulfillment from the Communist Manifesto - hardly the Bible of the Tea Party movement. He posted videos of flag burning on his YouTube channel - again, antics more consistent with Blame America First liberals, not the tea party movement.

In fact, Loughner's interactions with Congresswoman Giffords date all the way back to 2007 when he confronted her with a question he had, and received an answer he found unacceptable. You read that right - Loughner's interactions with Congresswoman Giffords date back to 2007 - well before the tea party movement had even been launched.

This was all an effort to try and demean us and diminish support for the tea party movement, since the Left could not beat us at the ballot box. Sadly way too many people in the media cooperated with this smear campaign.

The media didn't tell you that the left-wing website, DailyKos, had targeted Congresswoman Giffords, putting a BULLSEYE on her, did they? But that's just what happened.

Instead they tried to blame Gov. Sarah Palin. Friends, their hypocrisy and double standards are appalling.

This kind of media bias is a large part of why our tea party movement exists - because the voices of We The People have not been represented fairly by the news media, and listened to by our elected officials.

Well guess what: to those liberals in the news media and on the political Left who think you can silence us, you are wrong! Your efforts to try and smear us and shut us up will fail.

We have nothing to do with this awful, tragic event in Arizona. Our prayers are with Congresswoman Giffords and the victims and families of this massacre.

But we will still fight just as passionately for this country we love, and the vision of our Founding Fathers as outlined by the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

We're taking our country back through the ballot box and in the public square - through peaceful means. And we will prevail, because our ideas and ideals are stronger than the scare/smear/defame tactics of the leftists we face.

We ask you to please stand with the Tea Party Express and show your support for our efforts.

You can make a contribution online right now to the Tea Party Express - CLICK HERE TO CONTRIBUTE.

[mixed cats]

areyoufuckingkiddingmefuckbarf.

[dumbfish]

Friends.

[FreddyKnuckles]

This proves that both the tea party express and Bernie Sanders are effing d-bags. I'm glad we can all agree

[Good Intentions]

Here's a foreign view on the poliical rhetoric in the US: this leading South African newspaper, using copy written by The Guardian, thinks its inconceivable that Palin could run for president given the tenor of her language. South Africa, where in my lifetime the police used to mail bomb dissidents.

http://www.mg.co.za/article/2011-01-12-palins-presidential-hopes-cant-survive-this-bullet

They might be wrong, which makes it all the more worrying. It just further indicates that the American media looks fucking crazy to everybody else.

[alistarr*]

the american media does look f'in crazy, because it is f'in crazy.

often i find myself wishing for that out-and-out craziness to spread beyond mere tabloids in my own country though - our television news providers mostly pretend to be sane and reasonable while sending out ridiculous messages.

[Good Intentions]

Well, if it's any consolation, your media has that infuriating quirk (displayed in the linked article) of forced even-handedness, trying to always say something on the opposing side, no matter how out of proportion. Like comparing the Lib Dems calling their tactic of aiming at high-profile Tory seats a 'decapitation strategy' to something like Beck's 'the revolution starts now'. Nothing short of equivocation, that is, and probably the product of some kind of magical thinking about how if you present two sides of a story, the reporting will be balanced.

[alistarr*]

yeah, that's exactly what i mean though - the seeming groundedness of their tone means people don't notice when they end ever environment article with something like "however, scientists are still divided on whether human actions can affect climate change", or "critics of the move, however, claim that [daft statement]" without saying who these supposed critics are.

[Good Intentions]

I don't think the solution to that is an injection of craziness, mind you. (Britain also isn't the place where climate-change-denial is at its strongest.)

[alistarr*]

i guess i hold out some misguided hope that if it was more crazy then people i otherwise respect might be less likely to invest its reporting with quite so much authority. it's definitely an idle fantasy and not a real desire, though!

[FreddyKnuckles]

In our country you get the same even hand, you just have to read/watch four outlets to hear all sides.

[coldforge]

In her seven-and-a-half minute video, Ms. Palin said that “journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.”

The term blood libel is generally used to mean the false accusation that Jews murder Christian children to use their blood in religious rituals, in particular the baking of matzos for passover. That false claim was circulated for centuries to incite anti-Semitism and justify violent pogroms against Jews. Ms. Palin’s use of the phrase in her video, which helped make the video rapidly go viral, is attracting criticism, not least because Ms. Giffords, who remains in critical condition in a Tucson hospital, is Jewish.

I... Huh.

[coldforge]

I guess I'm waiting for her next video to refer to the 'recent Holocaust' in Arizona, or maybe to propose a 'Final Solution to the Immigrant Question'.

[hannah]

The title of her next book: My Struggle.

[coldforge]

Apparently her speechwriters most likely picked it up from Glenn Reynolds, who'd used it in the same sense a little earlier. I should note that I don't think that either Reynolds or Palin either intend even one iota of anti-Semitic insinuation by using that particular phrase. I think it's 100% the result of historical ignorance and rhetorical laziness. I think Reynolds was familiar with the phrase, knew that it was a pretty punchy, powerful term, and so used it in the place of regular old libel. And I'm sure Sarah Palin had never encountered it in an academic context in her entire USA Today-filled life, and so thought she was just saying 'really bad libel'.

[jm]

Apparently her speechwriters most likely picked it up from Glenn Reynolds, who'd used it in the same sense a little earlier. I should note that I don't think that either Reynolds or Palin either intend even one iota of anti-Semitic insinuation by using that particular phrase. I think it's 100% the result of historical ignorance and rhetorical laziness. I think Reynolds was familiar with the phrase, knew that it was a pretty punchy, powerful term, and so used it in the place of regular old libel. And I'm sure Sarah Palin had never encountered it in an academic context in her entire USA Today-filled life, and so thought she was just saying 'really bad libel'.

Yeah, this is pretty much how I feel about most of her offensive/borderline offensive gaffes, every time she makes one.

[elpollodiablo]

"It's time we cut down the tall trees of big government," Palin added

[YojimboMonkey]

Goddammit doesn't she know that words have meanings?  When all our godfearing American Christian children are being killed and eaten by Jews and the capitol is overrun by lumberjacks I'm holding her responsible

[FreddyKnuckles]

This is a really smart little commentary:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/right-turn/2011/01/vintage_palin.html

It had me at hello:

Sarah Palin is, in one sense, lucky to have the critics she does. They accuse her of bizarre things (e.g. faking a pregnancy). And they try to blame her for things over which she is not remotely responsible (i.e. the Arizona shooting). She then plays Joan of Arc, the noble and wronged conservative. She runs around berating the "lamestream media." In the process, her actual and serious flaws don't get properly examined.

The latest episode is her claim that critics are engaged in "blood libel" by tying her to the shooting. One supposes she means that she is accused of having blood on her hands (or instigating one who has blood on his hands). Maybe she is just mindlessly parroting talk show and conservative lingo. The term has a specific historic context, as does the term "holocaust," and unless you are Glenn Beck (whom she increasingly resembles), you should steer clear of indiscriminate use of the term.

But once again, the left misses the boat. Many liberals are twittering that this was an intentionally inflammatory remark. For once, I'm with Rep. James Clyburn (D.-S.C.), who, albeit harshly, said this of the video: "She is an attractive person, she is articulate, but I think intellectually she seems not to understand what is going on here."

It is, after all, inconsistent for the left to simultaneously argue she's so devious as to intentionally conjure up images of pogroms and to say she's an intellectual dope, a know-nothing.

[coldforge]

Those stupid lefties. When will they all learn?

[elpollodiablo]

She isn't fucking articulate!

MORE LIKE BLAMESTREAM MEDIA AMIRITE

[alistarr*]

they can't just say "ha, she doesn't know the historical context of that word!" because they're already constantly being referred to as elitist and out of touch with honest spade-is-a-spade folk. they either play the game of pretending like she must be as smart as them or they admit that they think all small town americans are idiots. this is the dilemma in which the american "left" find themselves having participated in the continuing empowerment of the media. it's genius.

[Dick]

what.