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For six months, he has been a giant in the background for U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, quietly leveraging his power to help the couple rebound from devastation. His private jets, his home in River Oaks, his ranch, his media connections and even his restaurant empire have played roles in simultaneously supporting Giffords and protecting her from public view as she has pushed through her recovery, sources close to Giffords said. ...Houston restaurant tycoon Tilman Fertitta, a close friend of Giffords' husband, League City astronaut Mark Kelly, doesn't think much of his role, even as it highlights a...

The recent shooting in Tucson, Arizona, that critically injured Democratic Representative Gabrielle Giffords as well as killing six other innocent citizens brings the nation again to attempting to find reasons where they are least likely to be found. At this time authorities are still discovering many of the details; however, it has been reported that the shooter in the incident, Jared Lee Loughner, was a mentally unstable individual. In almost all cases that involve the taking of an innocent life, the quest to find the answers as to why such atrocities take place is never adequately found. This comes in...

Never to let a "good crisis go to waste" (i.e., as an excuse to transfer more power and control to federal politicians and bureaucrats), thehill.com reports (my emphasis) that mere hours since the Arizona mass murders: "Rep. Robert Brady (D-Pa.) reportedly plans to introduce legislation that would make it a federal crime to use language or symbols that COULD BE PERCEIVED as threatening or inciting violence against a federal official or member of Congress." "Perceived"? "Could be"? And who gets the arbitrary, unbridled power to "perceive" what "could be" threatening? Him? Or, some other politician, bureaucrat, or board of self-annointed...

A number of Republicans have come to the defense of Sarah Palin for her use of revolutionary imagery since the shooting in Tucson on Saturday, but Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) took it an extra step on Tuesday. “If every person in the world was like Sarah Palin, there probably wouldn’t even be need for government because no one would be in danger of any kind,” Franks said in a phone conversation with POLITICO. “If every person were like Sarah Palin, this world would be a peaceful, beautiful world to live in.” The congressman, who will attend the prayer service for...

There has been several times in my life, when the trauma of a situation made it seem as though time had stopped. When in fact, time marched on without me. But for a period of time nothing was more important than the tragedy at hand. When it’s a personal tragedy, normality is put on hold. Priorities change. The center of your world shifts, and the glue that holds your life together seems to be coming apart. When it is a national tragedy, it is much the same. The news channels seem to care of nothing else. Pundits begin to spin...

A CNN/Opinion research poll released Monday shows that a majority of Americans do not blame Sarah Palin for what has become known as the Tucson Massacre that left Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords fighting for her life after being shot in the head. According to Politico, 59 percent of the 1,014 adults polled said Palin deserved little or no blame, while 35 percent said she was to blame for what happened. Most of those polled - 70 percent - said the underlying cause was "resources available to deal with mental illness." Shortly after the shooting, many on the left, including some in...

A base, natural reaction to danger or a threat to a creature's well being is, in many instances, to eliminate the threat; it is just that simple.  Even to Jared Loughner's twisted mind in the recent Arizona murders, he needed to eliminate the threat of, apparently, the government's use of grammar to control him and others.  The closest representative of this government, unfortunately, was the local congresswoman.There is no rational explanation for the murderer's actions, only the tragedy of severe mental illness ignored.  The discussion du jour should be if it is possible to identify these types of people and...

In order to prove libel and slander on the part of the media the bar is set pretty high here in the US. The material must be inaccurate/false, they must know it's inaccurate/false (I think it's not that tight) and then they went ahead and published it. The kicker is that they have to do it with malice. It's pretty obvious the media had no supporting information that Sarah Palin, the T-Party, talk radio and others had any connection to this especially when they first started spinning this. As time went on it became even clearer that there was no...

Sharron Angle on Wednesday rejected criticism that she shares responsibility for creating a charged political atmosphere that might have contributed to the mass shooting in Arizona. "The despicable act in Tucson is a horrifying and senseless tragedy and should be condemned as a single act of violence by a single unstable individual," Angle said in a statement that laid blame solely on the man authorities said attempted to assassinate Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., on Saturday. Six people were killed; Giffords was among the wounded. Angle said efforts to blame her or other Tea Party figures in the attack were "irresponsible."...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has her own obsession with supposed right-wing conspiracies, going back to the days of her husband’s administration. But her continued attempt to attribute the insane actions of the mentally deranged alleged shooter Jared Loughner to political extremism and mentioning his actions in the same breath as al Qaeda is beyond the pale. Clinton should recant at once. Otherwise, if President Obama really meant what he said in his Tuscon speech about moving beyond the finger-pointing rhetoric of the last few days, he must ask for his Secretary of State’s resignation. Clinton’s disgraceful rhetoric started at...

n response to a query by the L.A. County Libertarian Examiner, Pima County Arizona election officials have confirmed that Pima County Sheriff Clarence W. Dupnik will next be up for election in 2012. Mary Martinson, of Pima County Elections prompty replied to our question and said "The Sheriff in Pima County is up every 4 years. The Sheriff’s term is 4 years. The next time he (Dupnik) will be up for election is August 28, 2012." His official webpage states that Sheriff Dupnik, who turned 75 yesterday, was first appointed Sheriff in February 1980 and has been re-elected seven times....

LIBERALS SEEK BAN ON METAPHORS IN WAKE OF ARIZONA SHOOTINGJanuary 12, 2011 After the monstrous shooting in Arizona last week, surely we can all agree that we've got to pass Obama's agenda immediately and stop using metaphors. At least I think that's what the mainstream media are trying to tell me. Liberals instantly leapt on the sickening massacre at a Tucson political event over the weekend to accuse tea partiers, Sarah Palin and all conservatives who talk out loud of being complicit in murder by inspiring the shooter, Jared Loughner. Of course, to make their case, they first must...

This afternoon Sanders sent out a fundraising appeal, seeking to raise money to fight Republicans and other “right-wing reactionaries” responsible for the climate that led to the shooting.

Amidst all of this carnage were conflicting reports of the lone gunman, Jared Lee Loughner, and consternatingly, his "seeming" political affiliations. The Associated Press Spin In fact, when reports first came out from the Mainstream Media, the initial buzz seemed pinned to the fact that Loughner, who actually survived his mass killing spree, was ex-military and an anti-Government Tea Party "radical," which quickly proved to be totally wrong despite continuing attempts to imply those same connections throughout the night and into the early morning hours. For example, in an article from the Associated Press, Reporters Terry Tang, Amanda Lee Myers...

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...

...the face of Arizona law enforcement had been Republican Joe Arpaio, the tough-talking sheriff in Maricopa County known for housing jail inmates in tents, ... But hours after an assailant shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killed six bystanders, there was a new Arizona sheriff in town. His name is Clarence W. Dupnik. He's a Democrat and a Rachel Maddow fan. And when he linked the Tucson shooting rampage to harsh conservative rhetoric, he drew cheers from some and brickbats from others. .....just as Pima County and Tucson are overshadowed by the more conservative megalopolis of Maricopa County and Phoenix to...

Well...it happened. that "event" that some libs were saying a couple of months ago--that Obama "needed, to "get back on track". Many of us feared that it would happen BEFORE the election. Something in late October--maybe a couple of days before the election. The "Reichstag fire. Something I, and I am sure others have been fearing--and warning about, and explaining to, people I know and meet, for a couple of years. I am not particularly liked on this site. many here think of me as a "kook", Looney", fanatic" loser" among other less kind terms. I have also been called...

Loughner registered to vote on Sept. 29, 2006, identifying himself as an independent. Records show he voted in the 2006 and 2008 elections but is current listed as "inactive" on the state's voter roles -- meaning that he did not vote in November.

Clip from earlier on Fox and Friends of Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu discussing the comments over the week of Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik over the Arizona shooting on Saturday.

It's not Paul Krugman, although I know he has many fans on the right who were hoping he would win the prize because he fits the "brainless" description so aptly. Nor is it any lefty blogger who, over the last 24 hrs, has stretched, and stretched, and stretched the point some more about Sarah Palin's "target" list actually meaning that she hoped someone or someones would grab a gun and off the congressmen she wanted defeated. Sorry - you're all wrong. The winner is the NY Daily News' Michael Daly. The headline on his column: "Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' blood is...