Daily Commentary – Thursday, January 13th, 2011 – Chris Matthews Blames Right-Wing Talk Radio: | DownloadToday, Oklahoma governor Mary Fallin (R) was sworn into office in an outdoor inauguration ceremony before countless Oklahomans. The event went smoothly, except for one moment, when the incoming governor botched her oath of office when she promised to “support, obey and offend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of Oklahoma”:
FALLIN: I Mary Fallin, do solemnly swear, that I will support, obey, and offend, the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the state of Oklahoma, and that I will not directly receive any money or valuable things for the performance or non-performance of any act or duty pertaining to performance of my office other than the compensation allowed by law.
Watch it:
Her office was “amazed” that anyone could even speak “at all or get any of their lines right considering how cold it was outside.” Unlike President Obama — who had to repeat his oath two years ago after misspeaking — Fallin will not have to repeat her oath: she is already legally the governor under Oklahoma law. Her spokesman insists “offend” was a misstatement. “Clearly, she’s going to defend the Constitution,” he told the Associated Press.
At the top of Wednesday's CBS Evening News, anchor Katie Couric lamented: "The President tries to comfort a nation in mourning, but even on a rare day of unity, politics and controversy intervene." A clip was then played of Sarah Palin's Facebook video reaction to the Tucson shooting and media finger-pointing: "Journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel."
Later, correspondent Chip Reid reported that in his speech at the memorial service for the victims, "one thing we're told he [President Obama] will not do is get into the political battle that's developed over this tragedy." Reid then added: "a battle that became even more heated today when Sarah Palin joined the fray."
Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX), who has long argued that his indictment on money laundering charges was politically motivated, said on the “Today Show” this morning that his conviction was political, too.
“I was tried in the most liberal county in the state of Texas and, indeed, in the United States,” he said, referring to Travis County, the home of Austin. DeLay and his lawyers had tried to get his trial moved to a different, more conservative county, to no avail.
“The foreman of the jury was a Greenpeace activist,” DeLay went on. “So, I’m not criticizing the jury. The point is this is a political campaign.”
During the trial, DeLay told reporters he trusted the jury to acquit him, saying liberals are more empathetic. “I know them like they’re my brothers and sisters,” he said.
A jury found DeLay guilty of money laundering in November. He was sentenced this week to three years in prison and 10 years’ probation, but posted bail and will be free pending his appeal.
The charges stem from the 2002 statehouse elections. DeLay’s state PAC collected $ 190,000 in corporate donations that cycle, which it donated to the RNC. The RNC, in turn, donated a total of $ 190,000 to seven Republican statehouse candidate hand-picked by Delay’s PAC. Corporate donations for political campaigns are illegal in Texas.
DeLay’s lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, also appeared on the show and revealed a bit of his appeal strategy. DeGuerin said he would use the Citizens United Supreme Court case, which legalized direct corporate donations in federal elections. But he also said that the money wasn’t corporate, anyway.
Watch:
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DeLay was indicted in 2005, three years after the election. The then-district attorney, Ronnie Earle, had to use multiple grand juries before he won an indictment against DeLay, which DeLay says is proof that the charges are flimsy and politically motivated.
“This was a political prosecutiion,” DeGuerin said. “He was prosecuted because he was so successful in bringing about redistricting in Texas.”
The prosecutors “made the jury hate politicians,” he said.
The seven state house candidates in 2002 won, giving Republicans the state legislature and allowing a pro-Republican redistricting orchestrated by DeLay. The redistricting, in turn, sent more Texas Republicans to the U.S. House, strengthening DeLay’s power there.
In March 2010, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) warned that the rhetoric from the tea parties and Sarah Palin was potentially dangerous. “I can say that in the years that some of my colleagues have served — 20, 30 years — they’ve never seen it like this…when people do that, they’ve gotta realize there’s consequences to that action,” she said on MSNBC. Tuscon Tea Party co-founder Trent Humphries called Giffords’ previous concerns about violent rhetoric “political gamesmenship,” claiming that if Giffords was so concerned, then she is to blame for Saturday’s shootings because she “had no security whatsoever”:
“It’s political gamesmanship. The real case is that she [Giffords] had no security whatsoever at this event. So if she lived under a constant fear of being targeted, if she lived under this constant fear of this rhetoric and hatred that was seething, why would she attend an event in full view of the public with no security whatsoever?” he said. “For all the stuff they accuse her [Palin] of, that gun poster has not done a tenth of the damage to the political discourse as what we’re hearing right now.”
Humphries also told the Guardian that Saturday’s shootings in Tuscon are “evolving into a conspiracy to destroy his organisation and silence criticism of the government.” Watch excerpts of interview here:
Incidentally, the same Tea Party rhetoric Humphries is so quick to defend is keeping him from attending the memorial service with President Obama tonight. Humphries told TPM that he received an anonymous phone call saying, “we’re going to stand against you and we’re going to use our First and Second Amendment rights to stop you” will keep him “out of public view for a while.” (HT: Reader MM)
From Al Masry al-Youm:
An Alexandria University professor has accused Israel and the US of being behind the New Year’s church bombing in Alexandria that killed 23 and injured around 100.
Ismail Saad, professor of political sociology at Alexandria University, told Al-Masry Al-Youm that Israel, the US and Europe all seek to provoke unrest in Egypt so that its attention will be focused on internal issues.
Saad pointed to attempts to limit Egypt’s political role in the region and said that his country was besieged by several powers. “First, they bombed a church, but then they will do it to a mosque,” he said.
The professor said he believed that restoring ties with Turkey and Iran is the best way to confront external pressures.
Saad maintained that the Alexandria blast demonstrates plots against Egypt, ruling out the possibility of the culprit being Egyptian.
So I guess this guy was really a Mossad agent:
CAIRO (AFP) – A policeman shot dead a Christian on a train in Egypt Tuesday and wounded five other people, including the man’s wife, as tensions remain high after a New Year’s church bombing killed 21 people, the interior ministry said.
The shooter’s motives were not immediately clear, but the ministry said at least four of the five people hurt were Coptic Christians.
And a Coptic bishop told AFP that the gunman, named by the ministry as Amer Ashur Abdel Zaher, had sought out Christians on board the train and shouted a Muslim slogan — Allahu Akbar — as he opened fire.
The policeman, who was said to be on his way to work, boarded a stationary Cairo-bound train at Samalut, in the southern Minya province, and began shooting with his service weapon, the ministry said.
He killed Fathi Said Ebeid, aged 71, and wounded his 61-year-old wife.
Two of the others wounded were said to be in critical condition.
And a detail:
Sources said the assailant had checked passengers for the green cross traditionally tattooed on the wrists of Coptic Christians in Egypt. After identifying several Copts, the culprit killed one of them and injured five others.
Of all the utter hypocrisy currently being displayed by many of those on the left over the tragic Arizona shooting, it would be hard to exceed that of the notorious fraudster of the Democratic Underground best known to the outside world as the perpetrator of the 2006 Karl Rove indictment hoax.. William Rivers Pitt of TruthOut, with enormous chip on his shoulder, has climbed up on his DU soap box and self-righteously pointed his finger of blame directly at conservatives. Ironically, although Pitt blames conservatives for supposed political violence that led to the tragedy in Arizona, it is that same man recently chronicled here in NewsBusters for being caught in an act of plagiarism who himself has a history of posting violent fantasies on the Web. Just weeks prior to posting his "THE WRATH OF FOOLS: An Open Letter To the Far Right," Pitt posted these Hateful Days violent fantasies:
There is a great deal of hate in my heart today. . . . The hate is a free-flowing thing, expanding in all directions. . . . Sarah Palin. . . . George H. W. Bush. . . . makes me want to give up on this tepid reporting job and take up firebombing. . . . Yes, I hate, with depth and passion, and have much cause to do so.
Of all the utter hypocrisy currently being displayed by many of those on the left over the tragic Arizona shooting, it would be hard to exceed that of the notorious fraudster of the Democratic Underground best known to the outside world as the perpetrator of the 2006 Karl Rove indictment hoax.. William Rivers Pitt of TruthOut, with enormous chip on his shoulder, has climbed up on his DU soap box and self-righteously pointed his finger of blame directly at conservatives. Ironically, although Pitt blames conservatives for supposed political violence that led to the tragedy in Arizona, it is that same man recently chronicled here in NewsBusters for being caught in an act of plagiarism who himself has a history of posting violent fantasies on the Web. Just weeks prior to posting his "THE WRATH OF FOOLS: An Open Letter To the Far Right," Pitt posted these Hateful Days violent fantasies:
From time to time, an event of national significances serves as a Rorschach test for whether you are on the left or the right. This is the case with the rampage in Tuscon this past Saturday. Enter Tom Brokaw:
To a leftist like Brokaw, a 22-year-old male shot 19 innocent people attending a rally in front of a Safeway, killing six, and nearly assassinating a sitting U.S. Congresswoman, and it’s the fault of… the gun. This is clarifying.
For those of us on the right, we have a different reaction. First we see a tragedy perpetrated by an individual capable of pure evil that should have been locked away from society years ago. We see a town Sheriff, who knew this man had previously made death threats, suspiciously anxious to pass off blame to the political right (the famous quote from Hamlet comes to mind: he “doth protest too much, methinks”). And lastly, we wonder if more people in the crowd had concealed weapons on them, would Jared Lee Loughner have gotten off a whopping twenty gun shots, killed six people, and wounded a dozen more?
If there was more control over access to guns, would that really have prevented Jared Lee Loughner’s massacre? We’ll never know, but evil men have been able to get their hands on guns throughout American history, regardless of the law, and no intellectually honest person could think Loughner would have been an exception.
Nonetheless, the gun control debate has been reignited, and apparently Mr. Brokaw believes the best way to honor Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and and those most deeply affected by this nightmare is to use their pain and suffering to pressure society to take away guns from the very people who could have cut this killing spree short.
And that’s a tragedy in and of itself.
The Left’s attempt to de-legitimize the law that governs government, our Constitution, has taken a turn to the deranged.
Just one week after Congressman Clyburn took an oath to protect the constitution, the long term Democratic Party Representative from South Carolina trashed the document. Today Clyburn appeared on the Ed Schultz radio show and cast a wide net of blame for the Gabrielle Giffords shooting.
“All [of] this stuff taking place in the Chambers the other day, when the Constitution was being read — all that stuff is uncalled for,” Rep. Clyburn said. And added there may be a “direct link” between Sharron Angle’s “Second Amendment remedies” comment and the reading of the Constitution with the attempted murder of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords over the weekend.
Clyburn also said GOP members “egging on” demonstrators last year was “uncalled for.” It is believed he is referring to protests against health care reform that occurred last year on Capitol Hill.
“We ought to conduct ourselves in public office in a way we teach our children to conduct themselves when they go out into the public. I don’t believe that anyone of these members have been teaching their children inside their homes to act the way that many of them have been acting,” Clyburn said.
Clyburn is a serial agitator. Before the mid-term election he told an African-American targeted news site, that a GOP victory would lead to a investigation into where the President was born.
“The White House will be full-time responding to subpoenas about where the president may or may not have been born, whether his mother and father were ever married, and whether his wife’s family is from Georgetown or Sampit,” Clyburn said in . “That will define the next two years of the president’s administration.
According to Democratic Whip Clyburn, Charlie Rangel’s ethical problems are all the fault of that racist Tea Party blowing the charges all out of proportion.
Those Tea Party people that showed up at the health care debate, they will not hesitate for one moment to racialize something,” said Mr. Clyburn, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. “They did, and they will.”
Full trials would give Mr. Rangel and Ms. Waters the chance to fully answer the charges, Mr. Clyburn said. “There was a lapse this year as it relates to Charlie,” he said. “Even by his own word, he said, ‘I was in fact sloppy.’
Congressman Clyburn is an example of what is bad with American political today. Someone who makes up stories to to advance his political agenda with no regard for the truth or for the needs of the country.
Video Source: Real Clear Politics
The mainstream media is trying to use the shooting of Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords to demonize and silence conservatives, as Pamela Geller establishes here. The Leftist/Islamic supremacist convergence is nicely illustrated by this press release from the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations:
CAIR Offers Condolences on Arizona Shooting Spree
(WASHINGTON, D.C., 1/9/11) — The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today offered condolences to the loved ones of all those killed or injured in yesterday’s shooting spree in Tucson, Ariz., that left six people dead and left Democratic congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords fighting for her life with a bullet wound to the brain. Those killed included a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl.
In a statement, CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said:
“We offer sincere condolences to the friends, colleagues and family members of all those killed or injured in this brutal and senseless attack. We must come together as a nation to mourn the dead, pray for the speedy recovery of the injured and reject the extreme partisanship and inflammatory political rhetoric that can contribute to such tragedies.”
And Hamas-linked CAIR knows all about “inflammatory political rhetoric.” Does publicizing fake hate crimes count as “inflammatory rhetoric”? From “CAIR’s Hate Crimes Nonsense” by Daniel Pipes and Sharon Chadha:
CAIR cites the July 9, 2004 case of apparent arson at a Muslim-owned grocery store in Everett, Washington. But investigators quickly determined that Mirza Akram, the store’s operator, staged the arson to avoid meeting his scheduled payments and to collect on an insurance policy. Although Akram’s antics were long ago exposed as a fraud, CAIR continues to list this case as an anti-Muslim hate crime.
CAIR also states that “a Muslim-owned market was burned down in Texas” on August 6, 2004. But already a month later, the owner was arrested for having set fire to his own business. Why does CAIR include this incident in its report?
CAIR lists the March 2005 lawsuit filed by the Salmi family for the firebombing of their family van as one example of a hate crime report it received in 2004. However, the crime named in the lawsuit occurred in March 2003, was already reported by CAIR in 2003, and should not have been tabulated again in the 2004 report.
CAIR reports that “a home-made bomb exploded outside of the Champions Mosque in the Houston suburb of Spring, Texas,” staking its claim on eyewitness reports that on July 4, 2004, “two white males” were seen placing the bomb. We inquired about the incident and found that Spring’s sheriff department could not locate any police files about an explosion. Further inquiries to the mosque and an e-mail to CAIR both went unanswered. There is scant evidence that any crime even occurred.
CAIR notes that “investigators in Massachusetts are still investigating a potential hate-motivated arson against the Al-Baqi Islamic Center in Springfield.” However the case was long ago ruled a simple robbery, news that even CAIR’s own website has posted. The Associated Press reported on January 21, 2005, that prosecutors determined the fire was set by teen-age boys “who broke into the Al-Baqi mosque to steal money and candy, then set the fire to cover their tracks.” The boys, they clarified, “weren’t motivated by hatred toward Muslims.”
CAIR describes what happened to a Muslim family in Tucson, Arizona: “bullet shots pierced their home as they ate dinner in October 2004″ and two months later their truck was smashed and vandalized. But the only evidence that either incident was motivated by hate of Muslims is the Dehdashti family itself, not the police. Detective Frank Rovi of Pima County Sheriff’s Department, who handled the shooting investigation, said that according to the neighbors, the desert area by the Dehdashti house was often used for target practice. Neither incident was classified as a hate crime and both cases were closed by February 2005, long before the CAIR report went to press.
Of twenty “anti-Muslim hate crimes” in 2004 that CAIR describes, at least six are invalid – and further research could likely find problems with the other fourteen instances.
Then there is the long history of character assassination and defamation that Hamas-linked CAIR has engaged in against any and all who dare to stand up for freedom and human rights against Islamic supremacism. Oh yes, if there is anyone who knows “inflammatory political rhetoric,” it is Nihad Awad and his unsavory sidekick, the amiable stomach-stapled beekeeper Ibrahim “Honest Ibe” Hooper.
Pamela Geller shows here that the would-be assassin in Arizona is actually a Leftist, but when have the facts ever stopped the Leftist/Islamic supremacist smear machine? Mainstream media operatives are leaping to conclusions about conservative responsibility for the Giffords shooting, showing none of the delicacy and compunction they showed when refusing to label the obvious jihad massacre at Fort Hood accurately as just that. Here Lachlan Markay skewers their dhimmi double standard: “Media Falsely Blame Palin for Giffords Shooting, But Refused to Talk Islam At Ft. Hood,” by Lachlan Markay for Newsbusters, January 9:
The colossal double standard revealed in the past 24 hours at CNN is a microcosm of the larger media reaction to the tragic shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords yesterday. In short, the reporters jumping at the chance to use the shooting to score points against conservatives would in all likelihood be demanding patience and temperance if the potential for political cheap shots weren't available.
The Washington Examiner's Byron York recalled CNN's reaction to the Fort Hood shooting in a post Sunday. The cable channel "became a forum for repeated warnings that the subject should be discussed with particular care."
The important thing is for everyone not to jump to conclusions," said retired Gen. Wesley Clark on CNN the night of the shootings.
"We cannot jump to conclusions," said CNN's Jane Velez-Mitchell that same evening. "We have to make sure that we do not jump to any conclusions whatsoever."
"I'm on Pentagon chat room," said former CIA operative Robert Baer on CNN, also the night of the shooting. "Right now, there's messages going back and forth, saying do not jump to the conclusion this had anything to do with Islam."
The next day, President Obama underscored the rapidly-forming conventional wisdom when he told the country, "I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts." In the days that followed, CNN jouralists [sic] and guests repeatedly echoed the president's remarks.
"We can't jump to conclusions," Army Gen. George Casey said on CNN November 8. The next day, political analyst Mark Halperin urged a "transparent" investigation into the shootings "so the American people don't jump to conclusions." And when Republican Rep. Pete Hoekstra, then the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, suggested that the Ft. Hood attack was terrorism, CNN's John Roberts was quick to intervene. "Now, President Obama has asked people to be very cautious here and to not jump to conclusions," Roberts said to Hoekstra. "By saying that you believe this is an act of terror, are you jumping to a conclusion?"
In stark contrast to that reaction, here's how York sums up CNN's coverage of the burgeoning story in Tuscon:
After reporting that Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik had condemned what Dupnik called "the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government," CNN's Wolf Blitzer turned to congressional reporter Jessica Yellin for analysis. The sheriff "singled out some of the political rhetoric, as you point out, in creating the environment that allowed this kind of instance to happen," Yellin told Blitzer. "Even though, as you point out, this suspect is not cooperating with investigators, so we don't know the motive. President Obama also delivered that message, saying it's partly the political rhetoric that led to this. So that's why we want to bring up one of the themes that's burning up the social media right now. On Twitter and Facebook, there is a lot of talk, in particular, about Sarah Palin. As you might recall, back in March of last year, when the health care vote was coming to the floor of the House and this was all heating up, Palin tweeted out a message on Twitter saying 'common sense conservatives, don't retreat — instead reload.' And she referred folks to her Facebook page. On that Facebook page was a list of Democratic members she was putting in crosshairs, and Gabrielle Giffords was one of those in the crosshairs."
Blaming Palin has become the media refrain of choice, despite the preponderance of evidence cited both at NewsBusters and elsewhere that Giffords's shooter was (a) crazy, and (b) of the radical left (to the extent that he had coherent political views).
NewsBusters also reported on CNN's eagerness to assign blame for the shooting on conservatives. It took mere minutes for them to find a few liberals to parrot boilerplate attacks against conservatives – devoid of any evidence, mind you, and before CNN could possibly have known the facts surrounding the shooting.
But not only did CNN and its guests urge viewers not to "jump to conclusions" after the Fort Hood shooting, in one segment, the channel went so far as to misquote an Army private – a victim of and eyewitness to the shooting – in order to cast doubt on his recollection that Major Hasan shouted "Allahu Akbar" before opening fire….
While Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) fights for her life in a Tucson, Arizona, hospital, liberal media members continue to point fingers of blame for Saturday's tragic shooting spree at prominent conservatives such as Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck.
Jumping on this pathetic bandwagon Saturday was New York Times columnist Paul Krugman:
Um, gee Sheriff Dupnik, who is fanning the divisive flames?
How disgusting and low must one be than to co-opt a tragedy for your own political gain? Even during President Obama speech (VIDEO) this afternoon, he called for people to come together, support each other and pray for Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims and their families, even if Obama said, “Gabby was a friend of mine”. I think he meant “is”. It is too bad Sheriff Clarence Dupnik could not do so.
During tonight’s police press conference regarding the shooting of U.S. Rep Gabrielle Giffords and others at a Tucson grocery and shooter Jared Loughner, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik made a simply rotten comment. Dupnik blamed Arizona’s “prejudice, bigotry and vitriol” for the shooting. Far be it a crazed, loner, pot smoking loser that be held responsible for his actions.
Isn’t this something. These comment come from the same individual, Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, who called the Arizona Immigration law unwise, stupid and racist and said he would not enforce it. No agenda here, is there by Sherif Dupnik rather than focusing on those killed and wounded by the gunman.
Video Hat Tip: Gateway Pundit
Comments from Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik via the AP:
“But again I’d just like to say that when you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain people’s mouths about tearing down the government, the anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And, unfortunately, Arizona I believe has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.”
According to all reports, the suspect Jared Lee Loughner has not cooperated with police or provided a motive as to why he went on a shooting spree. So what mind reading capabilities does Sheriff Clarence Dupnik possess? So all crimes in Arizona are the cause of prejudice and bigotry? Or is it only one’s that fit his liberal agenda? How is it on the very day that America, namely Arizona is traumatized by this mass murder shooting, that the Sheriff in charge blames Arizona for their “prejudice and bigotry”? How sensitive of Sheriff Clarence Dupnik.
Seriously Dupnik, why don’t you just man up and blame AZ governor Jan Brewer, Sarah Palin, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hanity, Glenn Beck and the Tea party for the murders. Because Heaven ford you actually find a crazed, pot smoking, Communist Manifesto reading lunatic responsible for his actions.
