Tea Party Blames Left for Senseless Shooting While Screaming About Blaming the Right

Yesterday, a horrible and senseless shooting in Arizona left six people dead, including nine-year-old girl Christina Green, and left Congresswoman Gabriel Giffords fighting for her life. This was the tragedy, and I think it's important to keep in mind that as disgusting as some of yesterday's political rhetoric was, the moral evil of the shooting was exponentially worse than anything else that happened yesterday.

That being said, I have to say that I was disappointed in much of the vitriolic and reactionary rhetoric on both sides of the political spectrum yesterday. I don't have a problem with people condemning violent and inflammatory rhetoric, and I think that this should be done every day of the year, including when violent acts like this occur. In fact, I myself have been a huge critic of the St. Louis tea party's vitriolic rhetoric, including their "booting and torching" of a photo of Congressman Carnahan on the day health care reform passed, their carrying a coffin to Carnahan's personal residence the day after, and their calls for revolution and claims that they no longer had any moral obligations to the government. I also don't have a problem with pointing out that Palin's crosshairs imagery, or Angle's "second amendment solutions" language could potentially drive people to violence.

However, what I think does go way too far is to claim, at least when we don't yet have the full information, that these things caused yesterday's shootings. The fact is that yesterday, and even today, we don't really know that much about Loughner, and so it's a major mistake to claim that he was motivated by Glen Beck, Sarah Palin, or by anyone else. It's a crazy world and people's psychological makeups are all over the map, so even if violent political rhetoric increases the odds of something like this happening, it's a mistake to assume for any particular instance that we know the cause of the action when we only have very limited information. So I was a little dispirited to see such a vitriolic reaction from many on the Left saying that Beck or the tea party or whoever was to blame for yesterday's shootings, when the fact is we just don't really know that much about Loughner at this point and are basing our opinions on very limited information.

So, to that extent, I can understand why many on the Right, including the St. Louis Tea Party, were feeling unfairly accused yesterday. And despite my abhorrence for their inflammatory rhetoric, I might have even felt a bit sorry for them, if it weren't for the fact that they were doing the exact same thing they were complaining about! While simultaneously complaining about how evil the left was for daring to suggest that the shooter might be a right-wing extremist, they were claiming that he's a left-wing extremist.

For example, here's tea party co-founder Bill Hennessy claiming that Democrats "called for violence" and saying, based on extremely limited information, that the shooter was an "anarchist" or "markos-style leftist:"




...even while he was screaming about how the "Evil Left" was insinuating right-wing extremism was involved:

But America’s liberal elite turned the tragedy into a national day of shame. They accomplished this by callously and capriciously blaming innocent political opponents for the violence. When confronted with facts to the contrary, liberals, including Paul Krugman, CBS News, the New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, Jane Fonda, Sheriff Dupnick of Pima County Arizona, and others, continued to lie, slander, and libel the tea party, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and conservatives in general.

When ubiquitous twitter voice-of-reason @Mizzouatheart tried to ask Hennessy to tone back the bile, here's how he responded:

Now maybe one could claim that Hennessy was just pointing out these alleged liberal "calls to violence," etc. in order to be ironic and point out how badly the Left was reacting. Except for the fact that immediately after the incident happened, Hennessy was already claiming that a random Daily Kos diary was "calling for violence" because the diarist said that Giffords was "dead to me;"

And likewise, Adam Sharp of the tea party called the Daily Kos post a "hit piece" shortly after the news broke of the shooting:

By the way, as pretty much anyone knows, saying that someone "is dead to me," doesn't mean you are planning to kill them: it means that they are beyond the point of redemption or that you are going to ignore them (also worth nothing that there's a pretty huge difference between rhetoric from a random diarist on a site (would anyone like to compare this with the mind-blowingly insane comments on Gateway Pundit's blog?) and a national political figure like Sarah Palin or Glenn beck). But the main point is that the St. Louis Tea Party was out of the gate blaming the Left for the shooting, even as they were complaining about any instance of people calling out right-wing rhetoric. In fact, they were even angry about the Pima county sheriff saying that we need to tone down the anger and hatred in our political discourse:

One other minor point: while he was busy blaming liberals, Hennessy also claimed that Politico wrote that the shooter was a "socialist," which does not seem true based on the link Hennessy provided.

Jim Hoft, aka Gateway Pundit, of course was his usual blatently hypocritical self:





Likewise, Dana Loesch called for people to stop blaming the Right:



...while clearly dropping hints that the shooter was a "leftist" or incited by the Left:





Also, as pointed out on twitter by MattOrtega, previously Loesch pretty blatently tried to exploit the Fort Hood shootings as part of her anti-Islam agenda:

And tea party spokesperson Jen Ennenbach? Well, who knows what the hell she's ever thinking, but she followed the same basic pattern, while including some crazy tweets about how this is the beginning of "civil war;"




Anyway, I think it's pretty obvious that the Right has been just as willing, if not more so, to blame this on the Left, even as they as usual are screaming about how "victimized" they are. In order to have a healthy discussion about this, we need to wait for more facts to come in. However, this is not to say we should avoid talking about the dangers of violent and inflammatory rhetoric. In fact, we (and particularly our local media) should have been talking about that much more for the past two years! Violent political rhetoric creates an atmosphere where things like this are more likely: whether or not it can be directly linked to any particular shooting, it is something that should be condemned and done away with.

Fact Check: Dana Loesch Was NOT Critical of George Bush's Spending

Dana Loesch has repeatedly claimed that she was "INCREDIBLY critical" of George Bush's presidency while she's trying to appear consistent during her nonstop attacks on government spending during the Obama administration. The most recent example was last night on Real Time With Bill Maher:

This is what Loesch said while speaking to Maher:

Loesch: With the Bush era, one of the first people who were out with their placards griping about the incessant spending from the government...these were people who were critical, including myself, of the spending that happened under the Bush administration's last four years that did, I might add, have a Democrat majority in congress.

Maher: During the Bush administration?

Loesch: Yeah, there were a lot of us who were incredibly critical!

However, a look at her blog posts from 2008 shows that this is not the case. In fact, she repeatedly defended George Bush's spending.

Here's Dana Loesch defending George Bush's spending in a post titled "Bush sacrificed conservatism to keep us safe:"

The media finally won.

People believe every bad thing written and said about the man.

“Spending! We’re concerned about spending! This administration spent!”
Well yeah. Maybe because WE’RE IN A WAR.
You tend to SPEND in WARTIME.
Unless you want your ass kicked.

And in a later post:

We’re spending more because WE’RE IN A WAR. DURR. Our spending during this wartime is still LESS than that of Vietnam and WWII.

While live-blogging a debate:

7:58 I like how Romney rises above the allure of a cheap shot at Bush. He gets the first loud applause of the night talking about how Bush “stood for strength” and stuck to his guns.

She gushed about a column that said George Bush was the "most underrated president...ever:" Here's what Loesch said about it:

Love! With the passion of a thousand hearts!

If you look at her posts during the time of the bank bailout in Fall of 2008, like this and this, she did not write any posts critical of George Bush. Instead, she spent all of her time arguing that Democrats were responsible for the problem.

Finally, when she wrote a retrospective of George Bush full of gushing praise, she did say that she was against the bank bailout, but she said the following about Bush:

He apologized, even though the blame is not his if you know economics, for all of us being in this mess and how he was going to do his best to make it easier. He wasn't flashy but he was frustrated, frustrated at the mess and over how many were ignoring the very thing that caused it.

She ended with the following:

Reagan was a hated man in his time. Only in death was he immortalized and were the success of his policies acknowledged. I hope Bush doesn't have to wait that long.

Loesch was not even close to cricial of George Bush. Her repeated claims that she was in order to try to sound consistent while screaming about spending now that Obama is in office are, unsurprisingly, complete nonsense.

Dana Loesch Claims Liberal Feminists Care Too Much About Looks...And Have Small Breasts

Dana Loesch, who claims to be a champion of "conservative feminism," took all of ten minutes to undermine any inkling of moral authority she might have on the subject during a Twitter argument with actual feminists.

The dust-up started, from what I can tell, when Megan Carpentier was doing a live tweet review of a movie, "Fire In The Heartland," which features Dana Loesch along with several other far right-wing women. Carpentier noted a particularly ridiculous statement from Loesch:

megancarpentier: Haha, Dina Loesch says Palin "split the community" between liberal feminists and conservative women, because Palin is unafraid to be pretty.

After some internet sparring, Loesch reiterated the idea yesterday in a tweet:

dloesch: Why no, I don't think that there is a damn thing wrong with discussing how it's not a bad thing for a conservative woman to be hot.

So, first of all, Loesch's claim that "liberal feminists" have an issue with "being pretty" is laughable. The vast majority of feminists I've met don't think there's something wrong with "being pretty:" rather, they simply think that women shouldn't be defined by their looks. It's a critique of the all-too-obvious fact that society often overemphasizes the standards for attractiveness in women, and often underemphasizes other abilities.

But Loesch doesn't just get her story wrong, she reveals herself as supporting exactly what most of the feminist movement (both liberal and conservative) has been working to combat for a long time: she appears to think that womens' looks should be used against them in political discourse, and she repeatedly attacks other women based on their looks while implying that this says something about their moral worth. As I've documented, Loesch has a history of this: she previously said that women at Emily's List had "hair lips" and were jealous of Palin, and she suggested that those criticizing her were like "chicks who pad their bras."

And today, while in the middle of ridiculously arguing that liberal feminists place restrictions on women based on their looks, here's what Loesch had to say:



IBTC, as google informed me, stands for "Itty Bitty Titty Committe."

Got that? While bragging about how much more enlightened "conservative feminsts" are compared to "liberal feminists," Loesch claims that the people arguing with her have IBTs (which, according to some societal standards, is less cool than GBTs?). So even as she is arguing that liberal feminists place restrictions on women based on their looks, Loesch attacks the women trying to have a discussion with her based on their looks! Or at least, what she imagines about their looks. Could she be more ridiculous?

Reminder: Ed Martin Attacked Carnahan's Wife and Late Father

At the debate yesterday, after Ed Martin repeatedly tried to smear him, Russ Carnahan brought up the fact that Ed Martin's family owns over $100,000 in Big Oil stock. Ed Martin acted outraged, and said ""Shame on you, Congressman Carnahan," Martin claimed to be outraged because the stock was not owned by him, but rather by his wife.

Martin had a similar reaction Wednesday on the Charlie Brennan show (click here to listen to the mp3). . When Brennan mentioned the stock, Martin said:

This is a disgusting display by Russ Carnahan...he knows that this is my wife's stock, it's listed as her stock, and we told him it was a gift.

Fascinating that Martin now somehow thinks that mentioning his wife's stock options in a fossil fuel industry that has been polluting the planet, pushing our government around, and getting us entangled in ridiculous foreign policy for years should be off limits, especially considering that he was all-too-happy to attack Russ Carnahan's wife and deceased father earlier in the year.

In a June press release about "Protecting the Unborn," here's what Martin had to say:

Congressman Russ Carnahan on the other hand proudly supports abortion of every type and believes taxpayer dollars should fund it. Carnahan voted to funnel federal dollars to Planned Parenthood. It’s not surprising that these votes benefitted his family; Carnahan’s wife,Debra, presided for many years as a director of the national board of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

And later:

Missouri’s 3rd district has, for too long now, gone unprotected. The Carnahan family has a long history of not protecting the most vulnerable in our society. Mel Carnahan, when serving as Missouri’s Governor, three times vetoed partial birth abortion bans passed by Republican and Democrat legislators. These vetoes marked a low point in our state and national history.

So apparently it's perfectly fine for Ed Martin to attack Russ Carnahan's wife and deceased father whenever he pleases, and even suggest that the family "has a long history of not protecting the most vulnerable," but if someone mentions his wife's stock options in one of the most destructive industries in the world, hey man, that's not cool.

Just another day in Republican hypocrisy.

Dana Loesch Forgets What She Said Three Weeks Ago

Dana Loesch's latest conspiracy theory is that all signs comparing Obama to Hitler are actually undercover operations by left-wing plants:

Backwater sites like Think Progress... like to omit the fact that the Obama-Hitler signs (to say nothing that it was a trend started by the left and employed by them to this day, but they believe themselves exempt from apology) belong to LaRouchies.

Somehow, she amazingly "forgot" that just three weeks ago she was defending an Iowa Tea Party group for putting up a sign comparing Obama to Hitler, and said that the sign was "not inflammatory" because it was comparing "policies." Here's the video again:


Seems like just another day of right-wing hypocrisy. But here's an interesting question: does it really count as hypocrisy if you can't remember what you said 10 minutes ago? Maybe the wingnuts are not dishonest frauds shamelessly trying to dupe the public: maybe they just happen to all be like the guy from Memento.

Gateway Pundit Changes Story Without Correction, Just Weeks after Criticizing Politico for Doing the Same Thing

As I wrote yesterday, Jim Gateway Pundit Hoft falsely reported that two people were attacked in New Orleans for "wearing Sarah Palin pins." Here is Hoft's screaming headline from yesterday:

Since it was revealed that the two were not, in fact, wearing Palin pins, Hoft changed his story without explaining why or apologizing for being completely wrong.

This is especially hypocritical considering how Hoft reacted two weeks ago to the "coffingate" controversy. Hoft and other tea partiers had carried a coffin to Russ Carnahan's home with a clear intent to intimidate, then whined about how the mainstream media reported that they left the coffin on the lawn rather than temporarily placed it on the sidewalk. Hoft attacked Politco for updating their story without noting that they made a correction, writing:

That’s just how the media does things… They print a hit piece on tea party protesters from some democratic source. They don’t do their homework. They’re caught with egg on their face. And, then when they do make a correction they won’t admit that they made a correction.
That’s how it works.

Hmmm, yeah, kinda like exactly what Jim Hoft just did three weeks later. Hoft literally lies and completely invents information on a weekly basis, so this absurd hypocrisy is hardly surprising.

By the way, for those keeping track at home, Hoft's story has changed from "attacked for wearing Palin pins," to "politically motivated attack," to "attacked by a dirty white guy with a pony tail" (who must therefore be a "leftist protester"). Yeah, because as anyone who's been to New Orleans knows, everyone there with a dirty ponytail is clearly a leftist.

Dana Loesch Caught Lying (short version)

Dana Loesch on O'Reilly:



Dana Loesch on Twitter:

The end.

Right-Wing Bloggers Agree. St. Louis Tea Party was Disrespectful of U.S. Flag

Some of my critics have been claiming that my previous post on Tea Partiers disrespecting the American Flag was "ignorant" because it was meant as a protest symbol of our country in distress. Of course, all you need to do is read the actual rules to know that flying the flag upside down as a protest is not acceptable according to those rules. But since some of my critics seem to like appeals to authority more than actual facts, let me point out how several right-wing bloggers responded to Iraq War Veteran Adam Kokesh flying the flag upside down at political rallies.

LT Nixon said the following:

Have they now convinced Iraq vets to hoist an upside down American flag... This symbolism is not about dissent against the US government, it's about disrespecting America.

This Ain's Hell has railed against Kokesh and said that he can't think of him without seeing the image of him holding the upside down flag.

Right-wing celebrity Michelle Malkin cited Kokesh holding the flag upside down as a reason why he was a "smear merchant."

And finally, blogger Carly Fiano claimed that Kokesh was "Anti-American and anti-military" because he held an upside down flag.

So it's pretty clear that the consensus among right-wing bloggers is that Kokesh disrespected the American flag despite the fact that Kokesh is a veteran and despite the fact that he was doing it as a sign of "America in distress." So the fact that some of them are attacking me now is nothing but egregious hypocrisy.

And just to be clear, I personally don't have anything against Kokesh or the tea party person who held the flag upside down. But the tea partiers consistently hide behind the flag (even chanting "where's your flag?" at the protest last Wednesday) and try to use appeals to "true patriotism" in place of having meaningful discussions. They're angry at me because they can no longer make this argument with a straight face. When they had a chance to protest any way they wanted, they chose to display the flag in a way that was disrespectful according to the very rules they claim to care about.