My heart goes out to Congresswoman Giffords and the families of Judge John Roll and the others killed today.
Judge Roll was Arizona's chief federal judge.
Sarah Palin had put Giffords on a "hit list" of sorts (and see this). And Giffords' opponent in the 2010 congressional race also used words which sounded like an invitation to violence.
I frankly don't care if both are arrested for incitement to violence. And politicians must stop using violent imagery against other politicians.
But calling the shooter (Jared Lee Loughner) a "right wing anti-government ideologue" is apparently not an accurate description.
For example, one of Loughner's favorite books is apparently The Communist Manifesto, and he applied to join the military.
And Congresswoman Giffords is no liberal. Rather, she is a blue-dog Democrat, and thus not a typical target of those who hate liberals.
In any event, rather than easy labels, this appears to be the work of someone who is clinically insane. Indeed, Loughner has apparently been obsessed with "mind control".
Because Sarah Palin holds herself out as the leader of the Tea Party, many are attempting to blame the Tea Party for today's shooting.
But as one of the founders of the Tea Party - influential financial writer Karl Denninger - has repeatedly pointed out, Palin and her ilk have hijacked the Tea Party.
Denninger says that the original intent of that group was to peacefully protest the big banks ruining the economy, and to call for criminal fraud by the banksters to be prosecuted. Denninger says that mainstream Republican party types moved in very quickly to infiltrate the Tea Party and make it something else entirely. So Denninger - one of the founders of the Tea Party - now hates it:
Finally, as the Washington Post notes:
This was before the Tea Party was even formed.[T]wo law enforcement sources said that FBI agents had found a 2007 letter from Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) to the shooting suspect, with the words "Die, bitch" and "Die, cops" scrawled on it. The letter, which thanked [Jared] Loughner for attending an event of hers, was found in a safe in his Tuscon home, the sources said.
Note: I am not, personally, a member of the Tea Party.
