Palin's list of targeted Democrats: Ann Kirkpatrick (Arizona), Harry E. Mitchell (Arizona), Gabrielle Giffords (Arizona), John Salazar (Colorado), Betsy Markey (Colorado). Allen Boyd (Florida), Suzanne M. Kosmas (Florida), Baron P. Hill (Indiana), Earl Pomeroy (Alabama), Charlie Wilson (Ohio), John Boccieri (Ohio), Kathy Dahlkemper (Pennsylvania), Christopher Carney (Pennsylvania), John M. Spratt, Jr. (South Carolina), Tom Perriello (Virginia), Alan B. Mollohan (West Virginia), and Nick J. Rahall II (West Virginia).

Palin deserves a serious amount of shit for that terrible crosshairs map, a.k.a. hitlist. It's ridiculous how an elected official would ever do such a thing. That map is pure HATE.

Anyone who is in a rage about this woman is a bit 'off the map' lost.

What has happened to this women is a national tragedy. I hope she manages to make some recovery. Few who are ever shot in such a manner survive.

One of these days as this violence continues one of these nutjobs that don't kill themselves after murdering a dozen people is going to site fox news as a source of their inspiration. Then we'll see the shit really hit the fan.

There already was a nutjob rightwinger who was caught on his way to the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) who was luckily stopped by the po-po and got into a 15 minute shoot out. He was on his way to start a "revolution" by mass murdering people of "importance" (ACLU?! and the Tides Foundation?!). The whole thing wreaked of a braindead FOX News, Sarah Palin, Tea Party, Glenn Beck considering only listeners of Glenn Beck would even know who the Tides Foundation are, put the word "revolution" in there and it's telltale sign of the Tea Parties neo-fascist ideologies.

As far as I can tell there's no indication the suspected shooter has right-wing leanings. The reports indicate his friends considered him left-leaning, if anything.

The point isn't that this guy was a Palin fan.

The point is that people like Palin shouldn't be using such insane language and violent calls for action. Imagine a muslim imam has posted a map with crosshairs for candidates. It would be seen differently in the news cycle, that's for sure.

And, yes, Palin had nothing to do with a 22yr old schizo nutjob. But when you put out this kinda of calls for violence and hatred, then, yes, when people get shot... It's time to revisit the lady putting bullseyes and naming her enemys that we need to "RELOAD" over.

Look, we need to get some things straight:

1. There is no proven link between the shooter and any group. ANY group.

2. One can denounce the "gun targeting" fund raiser from an a priori standpoint.

3. The shooter met the Representative in 2007 long before Palin was on the national scene.

4. The shooter was from an economic class under siege, esp. in Arizona after the housing bust. He was booted from school for disruptive behavior, his economic future was bust.

5. If Palin et al. had such a potent effect, we should see daily if not multiple shootings per day, bombings, etc. given the 100s of millions of people she reaches via the media. These things happen for very personal reasons; politics, if it is involved, is just a fig leaf.

Bottom line: trying to score points off of a tragedy like this is the very mindset that puts us where we are as a nation. We need to unplug from the 24 hour news cycle and focus on our own here and now, and the people who are hurting and going unhelped.

The Left trying to pin this on Palin will only blow back in their face. Besides, the left have used this kind of imagery and rhetoric many times, see below, so stop the hypocrisy!

http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/112823/

This is NOT about taking sides. This is about the absurdity of using this kind of political rhetoric in campaigns. Any kind of calls to violence of this sort should be frowned upon. People need to be responsible for their words, and in this case, Palin's words just happened to be related to a random act of violence. This is not directly Palin's fault because both sides are at fault, but this is an example of what this kind of rhetoric can lead to and how dangerous it actually is.

>> ^TangledThorns:

The Left trying to pin this on Palin will only blow back in their face. Besides, the left have used this kind of imagery and rhetoric many times, see below, so stop the hypocrisy!
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/112823/


>> ^COriolanus:

Look, we need to get some things straight:
1. There is no proven link between the shooter and any group. ANY group.
2. One can denounce the "gun targeting" fund raiser from an a priori standpoint.
3. The shooter met the Representative in 2007 long before Palin was on the national scene.
4. The shooter was from an economic class under siege, esp. in Arizona after the housing bust. He was booted from school for disruptive behavior, his economic future was bust.
5. If Palin et al. had such a potent effect, we should see daily if not multiple shootings per day, bombings, etc. given the 100s of millions of people she reaches via the media. These things happen for very personal reasons; politics, if it is involved, is just a fig leaf.
Bottom line: trying to score points off of a tragedy like this is the very mindset that puts us where we are as a nation. We need to unplug from the 24 hour news cycle and focus on our own here and now, and the people who are hurting and going unhelped.

>> ^joedirt:

The point isn't that this guy was a Palin fan.
The point is that people like Palin shouldn't be using such insane language and violent calls for action. Imagine a muslim imam has posted a map with crosshairs for candidates. It would be seen differently in the news cycle, that's for sure.
And, yes, Palin had nothing to do with a 22yr old schizo nutjob. But when you put out this kinda of calls for violence and hatred, then, yes, when people get shot... It's time to revisit the lady putting bullseyes and naming her enemys that we need to "RELOAD" over.


Sorry, I was under the impression "wingnut" was a derogative term used to refer to right-wing extremists, but apparently it can be applied to any flavour of political extremism. Not that I'm sure this shooter really fell on any conventional political axis.

One thing is apparently clear. The shooter had extreme paranoia about government, and printed currency. I think the Palin map thing isn't the problem. It's all the assertions that government is far along in its plan to round everybody up, put a barcode on our arm, and throw us all in gulags. When people are really convinced of things like that, political violence is downright rational. I wonder if Alex Jones (aka John Birch Society v2.0) has applauded Loughner as a patriot yet.

Oh well, he's not calling him a patriot yet. Instead, he's calling him an occultist, pot-smoking left-winger. Also, he's trying to equate property taxes, to this sort of violence, and is wondering why the MSM doesn't cover them equally.

Instead of worrying about the shooter and ties to Palin. Watch the video and listen to what this lady is saying. Palin encourages increased violence. PERIOD.

This guy was a random nut, but if you are advocation someone TAKING OUT a congresswoman and drawing crosshairs and using your national media attention and influence to advocate RELOADING and veiled threats of shooting someone.. Then yeah, when the woman does get shot, you look like an ass. Palin advocated threats against this woman. So if you are running around telling people to shoot people, then you should be ridiculed for your hate speech when it happens.

I guarantee if this was a Muslim drawing bullseyes on congresspeople, then when the shooting took place, the media would handle it differently.

The nut job who shot her was so screwed its very unlikely that this triggered him. He was completely nuts.

There is a huge difference between the rhetoric on the right and the rhetoric on the left. The right is far more dangerous and far more constant.

Palin's target map is obviously not what made him shoot those people, but it's a symptom of the disease that's spread through mostly the right wing media. And hell, not just media the actual politicians are adopting this poisonous rhetoric as well. It is simply not acceptable.

Get your act together, America, or we in the old world will have to be the adult and spank you.

I couldnt agree more with the comment below
****************************************************************
Look, we need to get some things straight:

1. There is no proven link between the shooter and any group. ANY group.

2. One can denounce the "gun targeting" fund raiser from an a priori standpoint.

3. The shooter met the Representative in 2007 long before Palin was on the national scene.

4. The shooter was from an economic class under siege, esp. in Arizona after the housing bust. He was booted from school for disruptive behavior, his economic future was bust.

5. If Palin et al. had such a potent effect, we should see daily if not multiple shootings per day, bombings, etc. given the 100s of millions of people she reaches via the media. These things happen for very personal reasons; politics, if it is involved, is just a fig leaf.

Bottom line: trying to score points off of a tragedy like this is the very mindset that puts us where we are as a nation. We need to unplug from the 24 hour news cycle and focus on our own here and now, and the people who are hurting and going unhelped.

Now for some facts. I am a fan of facts. I just got this email from my extremely conservative Mormon brother, as part of an email exchange about the topic of scaling back the rhetoric:

I have a friend at Church who is pursuing his PhD in Political Science at UC Davis. I asked the question about the level of rhetoric because of your observations.

Poly Sci guys find ways to collect metrics and quantify everything. He stated that their metrics suggest this is the most divisive dialogue since the civil War.

I honestly didn't expect that answer. I thought it had always been bad and I was just not sensitive to the issue.







>> ^SuperHotbUNZ:

I couldnt agree more with the comment below
Look, we need to get some things straight:
1. There is no proven link between the shooter and any group. ANY group.
2. One can denounce the "gun targeting" fund raiser from an a priori standpoint.
3. The shooter met the Representative in 2007 long before Palin was on the national scene.
4. The shooter was from an economic class under siege, esp. in Arizona after the housing bust. He was booted from school for disruptive behavior, his economic future was bust.
5. If Palin et al. had such a potent effect, we should see daily if not multiple shootings per day, bombings, etc. given the 100s of millions of people she reaches via the media. These things happen for very personal reasons; politics, if it is involved, is just a fig leaf.
Bottom line: trying to score points off of a tragedy like this is the very mindset that puts us where we are as a nation. We need to unplug from the 24 hour news cycle and focus on our own here and now, and the people who are hurting and going unhelped.

>> ^archer_of_loaf:

Palin deserves a serious amount of shit for that terrible crosshairs map, a.k.a. hitlist. It's ridiculous how an elected official would ever do such a thing. That map is pure HATE.


Judging from the map she also deserves some serious shit for mixing her metaphors.

>> ^bareboards2:

Poly Sci guys find ways to collect metrics and quantify everything. He stated that their metrics suggest this is the most divisive dialogue since the civil War.

As an aside, the Poli Sci guys are also pointing out that the level of legislative obstruction is also at levels not seen since the run up to the civil war.

Who here is responsible for returning ancient sifts like this to the top of the queue, in order to join the lamestream media in trying to pin the murderous actions of a lone, mentally-ill vermin on Sarah Palin, the Tea Party or the Right?

You're better off with a different approach. Seriously.

How quickly we forget:

Hanging Palin in effigy

"Mockumentary" about Bush being assassinated

Death Threats Against Bush at Protests Ignored for Years


The days of the left fooling too many people too often via media monopolies are over. Someone tell that punk Soros on your way out.

And if anything portrayed in those links would have happened do you actually expect that people wouldn't have brought it up? Seriously? It's national news and it's important to discuss even if you don't agree.

And by the way, you're the one bringing attention to the video you're complaining about by posting a link to it in an unrelated thread...

>> ^quantumushroom:

Who here is responsible for returning ancient sifts like this to the top of the queue, in order to join the lamestream media in trying to pin the murderous actions of a lone, mentally-ill vermin on Sarah Palin, the Tea Party or the Right?
You're better off with a different approach. Seriously.
How quickly we forget:
Hanging Palin in effigy

"Mockumentary" about Bush being assassinated
Death Threats Against Bush at Protests Ignored for Years

The days of the left fooling too many people too often via media monopolies are over. Someone tell that punk Soros on your way out.