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Director Spike Lee, along with his wife Tonya, were on the Today show this morning to promote their new children’s book. But, Spike coudln’t help himself. When he was asked about the Tucson shootings Spike told Meredith Viera (who is still pushing the line that Loughner snapped because of the tea party, etc.) that, “The United States is the most violent county in the history of civilization. MEREDITH VIEIRA: I want to talk a little bit about what happened in Arizona last week- SPIKE LEE: Right. VIEIRA: -because there’s been so much discussion about discord in this country- LEE: Right....

Lawsuit looms over law to require thumbprint, restrict Internet and mail-order sales. Right now, law enforcement officials have no idea who buys handgun ammunition in California or how much. That will change on Feb. 1, unless a court intervenes. Under a new law, those buying handgun ammunition will have to provide dealers with a thumbprint, photo identification, address and birth date. The thrust of the law is to make it easier for police to investigate or prevent gun crimes by tracking bullet purchases by those already barred from possessing guns, such as felons, those convicted of firearms-related misdemeanors or members...

n the wake of the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, today Sen. Barbara Boxer called for federal regulations on concealed weapons permits, according to the Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times. Arizona law allows any U.S. citizen 21 or older to carry a concealed weapon without a permit. “The kind of gun laws we have here in California that give people their gun ownership rights while also preventing the sale of guns to criminals, to people with serious mental illness and people who may abuse a spouse or partner,” said the California Democrat at a press conference in Riverside.

Anyone who’s seen Bravo’s "Top Chef" knows Tom Colicchio. He’s a man who knows how to cook and a man who knows good food. And, while his taste buds work magnificently, he’s apparently politically tone deaf. In the wake of Representative Giffords' shooting last weekend he served up a dish that turned the majority of the country’s stomach. He wrote on Twitter: Sarah Palin had Rep Gifford in her crosshairs. She is now officially dangerous.

Were the heinous acts that occurred on Jan. 8 in Arizona the product of an isolated deranged mind, or were they the spark of something scarier with more violent implications?According to California Democratic Rep. Bob Filner, it’s something on a much grander scale that people should take very seriously. On MSNBC’s Wednesday night airing of “The Last Word,” host Lawrence O’Donnell asked the U.S. representative for California’s 51st congressional district if there could be anti-Semitism involved in last weekend’s tragedy.“Congressman, this weekend when you saw what happened to Gabrielle Giffords, who you know well, you also know to be Jewish like yourself,...

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I’m really tired of this. But if you don’t refute this nonsense, the bastards win. So:Tomorrow’s L.A. Times will drag out the nonsense pathetically trying to link Jared Loughner to right-wingers. The banner headline:Loughner’s ramblings appear rooted in far rightIn smaller print appears this deck headline: “Experts say the suspect in the Arizona shooting rampage is fixated on issues cited by other extremists. But he also appears to have been influenced by the far left.”See? Balance! The piece opens as follows: The ramblings of accused Arizona killer Jared Lee Loughner are difficult to tie to a coherent political philosophy,...

Maybe it’s something new?T-shirts at a memorial… Via Ace of Spades:Every memorial needs a special T-shirt. Doesn’t it?

TUCSON, Ariz. — Remarks of President Barack Obama, as delivered Wednesday at the "Together We Thrive" memorial service for the victims of the Jan. 8 attack on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords that killed six and wounded 13, including the congresswoman: "To the families of those we've lost; to all who called them friends; to the students of this university, the public servants gathered tonight, and the people of Tucson and Arizona: I have come here tonight as an American who, like all Americans, kneels to pray with you today, and will stand by you tomorrow. "There is nothing I can say...

On Tuesday, the Arizona Republic reported that a local Republican politician was stepping down directly due to the shooting in Tucson. AZCentral.com reports:Miller, a 43-year-old Ahwatukee Foothills resident and former campaign worker for U.S. Sen. John McCain, was re-elected to a second one-year term last month. He said constant verbal attacks after that election and Internet blog posts by some local members with Tea Party ties made him worry about his family's safety. The report goes further to quote Miller as saying: "I wasn't going to resign but decided to quit after what happened Saturday," Miller said. "I love the...

Progressives never let a tragedy go to waste. Although it is clear now that the Gabrielle Giffords shooter and 9/11 truther Jared Lee Loughner has no ties to the Tea Party, that hasn't stopped our friends on the Left from spreading a blood libel on the conservative movement. We stand accused of fostering a "climate of hate" in America that subtly influenced an unstable "conscious dreaming" psychopath into attempting to assassinate a Democratic congresswoman. Some leftwing commentators have even asserted that Sarah Palin has the blood of a 9-year-old child on her hands. The most laughable self described "progressive" spreading...

Why Loughner -- who'd been rejected by the military for his past drug use and arrested on drug charges -- was free to buy a 30-round magazine is a mystery. Almost as much a mystery, frankly, as why Glock even markets them: They have no discernible civilian efficacy -- and damned little military utility. Yet sales of the magazines reportedly are way up around the country in the wake of the Tucson massacre. Here's an opportunity for the NYPD -- and every big-city police department in the nation -- to help turn this around by sending Glock a simple message:...

Rep. Sherman on congressional response to Tucson tragedy

This week is enough to make one long for the days when we’d just blame the Arizona shooting on video games and flagrantly use the tragedy to regulate that kind of speech.In what has become a modern American custom, the media began a frantic, mostly fact-free “national conversation” this week about a national tragedy while trauma surgeons were still packing wounds. In the past, this kind of speculative blame-placing has been unfair and uninformed, making targets of Doom, role-playing, action movies, or Pantera despite unconvincing evidence they influenced the crimes at hand.But this time, the national conversation’s clumsy crosshairs are...

"Omission is the most Powerful Form of Lie" - George OrwellNormally, I don't read the Philadelphia Inquirer, as it is one of the most worthless newspapers in America, and that's saying something.But yesterday, I happened across a discarded Inky and read their coverage of the latest news on the Tucson shooting, including their masthead editorial, their selected letters to the editor, the Tony Auth editorial cartoon, and an op-ed column on the front of section B.And all had one thing in commom - omission of key details that would lend balance, instead of bias, to their coverage.First, the masthead editorial,...

UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau has come out swinging over the shooting spree that wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killed six people, linking it to Arizona's "discrimination against undocumented persons" and a "climate in which demonization of others goes unchallenged and hateful speech is tolerated." In a campus-wide e-mail message, Birgeneau said: "It is not a coincidence that this calamity has occurred in a state which has legislated discrimination against undocumented persons." He added that "this same mean-spirited xenophobia played a major role in the defeat of the Dream Act by our legislators in Washington, leaving many exceptionally talented and...

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.

Ever since the tragic shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, liberals have sought to blame Sarah Palin and the Tea Party for the attack. Shortly after the shooting, Jane Fonda sent out tweets blaming Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and the Tea Party. Encouraged by irresponsible and shameful reporting, a number of twitter users have expressed their desire to see Sarah Palin dead, and some tweets actually call for her assassination. “So…will everyone be satisfied then when Palin is assassinated? You know she’s next,” writes one twitter user. According to a report at The Blaze, some are downright vulgar: “Palin is a...

On the day Christina-Taylor Green was born, 19 men using four hijacked airbuses left a pristine American morning forever stained with blood. As she was entering life, the rest of us were absorbing a lesson in how mean life can be. We saw proud towers disintegrate like sand castles, mangled bodies pulled from rubble, people with tear-streaked faces holding up photos of missing loved ones. And there bloomed in us a sense of union strong as blood ties, a renewed reminder of who we are. We are Americans. “All” of us. For some, it was likely a revelation. After all,...

Reacting to the assassination attempt on one of their own, two House members on Monday said they will introduce legislation that would ban certain ammunition clips and make it illegal to threaten a federal official, both of which they say contributed to the mass casualties in a shooting rampage in Tuscson over the weekend. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., plans to introduce a bill that would ban high-capacity ammunition clips like the one used by Jared Loughner, the gunman accused of killing 6 and injuring 14, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., as they gathered at a “Congress on Your Corner” event....