The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Text of Memo From the Department of Homeland Security on Arizona Shooting

Posted on | January 9, 2011 | 27 Comments

This is the DHS memo, sent via e-mail at about 6 p.m. Eastern yesterday, regarding the mass murder in Tucson:

“The investigation has been taken over by the FBI, and is being run through the Tucson Command Post. Here’s what can be confirmed at this time (1800 hrs)…
* Gabrielle Giffords Is in ICU.
* Federal judge John Roll is deceased. He did rule on a 32 million dollar civil rights lawsuit in February, 2010. That ruling brought death threats to Roll and his family, and for a time he was given a protection detail.
* 6 deaths attributed to the shooting. 19 total people hit by gunfire.
* suspect’s mother works for the Pima County Board of Supervisors
* the suspect has multiple arrests … But no criminal record? Intervention by someone?
* no direct connection – but strong suspicion is being directed at AmRen / American Renaissance. Suspect is possibly linked to this group. (through videos posted on his myspace and YouTube account.). The group’s ideology is anti government, anti immigration, anti ZOG (Zionist Occupational Government), anti Semitic. Gabrielle Gifford is the first Jewish female elected to such a high position in the US government. She was also opposite this group’s ideology when it came to immigration debate.
* DHS have a list of names and dates of birth of all victims.
* the ACTIC is still playing a major role in the investigation… Computer forensics is cleaning up the surveillance videos, and images from around the scene, and involved in the investigation – working together, was MCSO, DPS, Phoenix PD, ICE, and of course the FBI. It did just come in from the command post, that the federal judge was Not originally scheduled to attend the meeting, according to wife. She stated that he received a phone call about an hour before and was invited to attend. Wrong place – wrong time. For the planning side, there are impromptu memorials popping up all over the state, but the largest one is downtown phoenix, at the capital.”

I just conducted a telephone interview with Jared Taylor of American Renaissance. He said his group has no record of accused shooter Jared Loughner ever being involved with the organization. Taylor said there is no basis for the DHS characterization of American Renaissance as “anti-ZOG,” anti-Semitic or anti-government.

Taylor has been contacted by Fox News, CNN and the New York Times. He said he has contacted the Department of Homeland Security in an effort to determine why his group was named in this memo. Contrary to the DHS memo, Taylor said, there is nothing in the suspect’s YouTube videos that reflects AmRen’s viewpoint. Taylor said he believes that his organization may have been cited by DHS simply because of the coincidence of the name “Jared” being identified as the perpetrator of the shooting. He said he will post an official response later today.

UPDATE: Taylor has now posted his response:

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reportedly issued a memo claiming that the shooter, Jared Loughner, has some connection with American Renaissance. We have received a copy of the memo . . .
This is so hopelessly wrong that it is hard to believe it is a genuine government document. No one by the name of Loughner has ever been a subscriber to American Renaissance or has ever registered for an American Renaissance conference. We have no evidence that he has even visited the AR website. . . .
If this memo is typical of the research done by the Department of Homeland Security, our country is in serious danger.
I telephoned DHS today to try to get the bottom of this nonsense, but apparently there is no homeland security on Sundays. The person who answered the phone said no one is there and that I should call back on Monday morning.
Fortunately, some of the media organizations that have been reporting this story have contacted me, and have reported my assertion that American Renaissance knows nothing at all about Jared Loughner, that we condemn all violence, and that we cannot possibly be described as anti-Semitic.
Even Mark Potok of the SPLC was quoted today as saying, “Jared Taylor is not an anti-Semite.”

PREVIOUSLY:

Category: Arizona, Crime

Speculation Is Not Reporting

Posted on | January 9, 2011 | 12 Comments

That is the lesson that journalists (and bloggers) ought to learn from yesterday’s coverage of the Arizona mass murder:

Less than four hours transpired between the time the shootings occurred in the parking lot of a Tucson grocery store and the time the Associated Press identified 22-year-old Loughner as the suspect. The first AP bulletin to identify him misspelled his name “Laughner,” and another couple of hours passed while reporters, bloggers and amateur newshounds corrected the spelling and began to assemble enough background on Loughner to get some idea of what inspired this crime.
Jared Loughner is crazy.
That simple four-word sentence adequately summarizes Loughner’s apparent motives. However, in the five or six hours between the shooting — in which Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) was among a dozen people wounded, and six people including a federal judge were killed — some reporters apparently felt obligated to fill the information void with reporting that fed into a frenzy of political speculation. . . .

Please read the rest of that at The American Spectator.

You may have noticed that I haven’t yet posted anything here about the second “person of interest” being sought by law enforcement in connection with this Arizona shooting. That’s because my hunch is that this person wasn’t actually complicit in Jared Loughner’s crime. Police want to question the guy, but given the testimony that Loughner was a “loner” and evidence that he was mentally ill, I rather doubt that this will turn out to have been a folie à deux. Read more

Category: Arizona, Crime, Journalism, Media Bias

Arizona Shooter ‘Seems to Be Someone Desperately Needing Mental Health Care’

Posted on | January 8, 2011 | 45 Comments

That quote is how Dan Gibson of Tucson Weekly describes suspected suspected gunman Jared Loughner, based on the 22-year-old’s Internet rantings. And that’s just about all we can say at this point.

Last year, Loughner was photographed smiling while working as a volunteer at the Tucson Festival of Books. His own list of favorite reading seemed to be heavy on childhood fables — The Wizard of Oz, Gulliver’s Travels, Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, to name a few — but also politically themed fiction including George Orwell’s Animal Farm, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Ayn Rand’s We the Living. So far as political non-fiction was concerned, Loughner’s favorites included Hitler’s Mein Kampf and the Communist Manifesto.

Ask yourself: What’s missing from that list? And the telling answer is: History, biography, political science, economics, current events — the kind of books that someone who is really into politics would read. So you can undertand Michelle Malkin’s ire this afternoon:

There is NO indication yet of the gunman’s identity, agenda, or motives, but my Twitter feed is already filled with Tea Party-bashing, Palin-bashing recriminations and accusations that I have “blood on my hands” for advocating border security and 2nd amendment rights.

Now that Loughner’s personality is coming into focus, we see that he wasn’t really into politics at all. His crime targeted a politician and, once he began his descent into madness, his online rantings had what might be called a pseudo-political aspect, but it is impossible to categorize his beliefs according to any normal political spectrum because, as I said before, “crazy” is not an ideology.

When people go crazy, their sick minds may fixate on any number of things. John Hinckley fixated on Jodie Foster. Mark Chapman fixated on John Lennon. Trying to blame Loughner’s pseudo-political obsessions on the Tea Party or Sarah Palin is like blaming Taxi Driver for Hinckley’s murderous madness.

UPDATE: The Arizona Republic reports that Loughner lived with his mother:

Neighbors said they were shocked by the shooting. They described Loughner as a loner and outcast with a tendency to dress in all-black “goth-type clothes.”
Grant Wiens, 22, attended Mountain View High School in Tucson with him and then Pima Community College. . . .
Wiens described him as “kind of an interesting character” who kept to himself.

Loughner has been described as a left-wing pothead in high school and, quoting a Tweet by novelist Walter Kim, the Politico‘s Ben Smith writes:

Loughner seems in a line of disturbed lone gunmen, whose political views typically don’t explain much: “Stoned. Lonely. Excitable. Half-literate. Politically incoherent. On the the thin side. These lone gunmen are one brain sharing bodies,” [Kim] wrote.

That Loughner had a history of substance abuse (reportedly having dropped out of school after suffering alcohol poisoning) is not surprising in the least.

UPDATE II: According to Rusty Weiss at Newsbusters, Markos Moulitsas Tweeted, “Mission accomplished, Sarah Palin” — before there was any evidence of the shooter’s beliefs — and CBS turned that theme into a dubious “news story.”

Good Lord. Calm the hell down, people. Don’t you see how crazy this finger-pointing is? Look: Ace of Spades has a post about how Loughner was an atheist who didn’t like “In God We Trust” being on U.S. currency. Shall we play the guilt-by-association game to blame every atheist as complicit in Loughner’s crime?

UPDATE III: This just in — Jane Fonda is nuts!

UPDATE IV: More background on Loughner:

A former classmate of Loughner at Pima Community College said he was “obviously very disturbed.”
“He disrupted class frequently with nonsensical outbursts,” said Lynda Sorenson, who took a math class with Loughner last summer at Pima Community College’s Northwest campus. . . .
He was asked to leave the pre-algebra class several times and eventually was barred from class, said Sorenson, a Tucson resident. . . .
“WOW! I’m glad i didn’t kill myself. I’ll see you on National T.v.! This is foreshadow …. why doesn’t anyone talk to me?..” he posted on MySpace Dec. 14.
On Dec. 13, he wrote: “I don’t feel good: I’m ready to kill a police officer! I can say it.”

Yeah. A wannabe cop-killer. Forget about blaming Sarah Palin. Let’s blame Bill Ayers!

UPDATE V: Just to be clear, I’m not blaming liberals for Loughner’s alleged crime, merely because people who know him have described his beliefs as “left wing.” Nor am I blaming all politically-obsessed, deranged potheads for Loughner’s alleged crime.

UPDATE VI: Here is a Tweet from Loughner’s high-school classmate Caitie Parker:

The actual evidence and testimony about Loughner’s motives seem to point away from any sort of “blame Palin” scenario. If the portrait of Loughner continues to develop along these lines, at what point will Markos, Paul Krugman and others who jumped to conclusions be obligated to apologize for their unsubstantiated and defamatory accusations?

UPDATE VII: More pieces of the puzzle:

Loughner dropped out of high school in 2006, after his junior year, said Tamara Crawley, a spokeswoman for the Marana United School District in suburban Tucson. Court records indicate he had been arrested for possession of drug paraphernalia in 2007, but the charge was dismissed.
In 2008, he tried to enlist in the U.S. Army. The Army rejected him, and privacy laws keep the military from disclosing the reason, the service said in a statement to CNN.
He also enrolled at Aztec Middle College, a partnership between Tucson schools and Pima Community College that helps high school dropouts transition to community colleges, PCC President Sylvia Lee told CNN. He took classes at the college from 2005 until October 2010, when [he] withdrew after five contacts with police “for classroom and library disruptions” at two campuses between February and September, the school said in a statement issued Saturday night.

This is becoming a portrait of a young man’s slow-motion slide into mental illness. High-school dropout, Army reject, drug and alcohol abuse, failing at community college, disruptive behavior, weird and sometimes violent ramblings online — and not the slightest suggestion of any involvement with GOP politics or the Tea Party movement.

Still, liberals want to label this guy as a right-winger of some kind, trying to ram this square peg into a round hole.

UPDATE VIII: Instapundit:

If you’re using this event to criticize the “rhetoric” of Sarah Palin or others with whom you disagree, then you’re either asserting a connection between the “rhetoric” and the shooting — which based on evidence to date would be what we call a vicious lie — or you’re not, in which case you’re just seizing on a tragedy to try to score unrelated political points, which is contemptible. So which is it?

UPDATE IX: “Speculation Is Not Reporting” and “Text of Memo From the Department of Homeland Security on Arizona Shooting.”

UPDATE X: “Two Sicknesses on Display in Arizona.” and “Unbalanced People … Respond to the Vitriol That Comes Out of Certain Mouths”

Category: Arizona, Crime

ARIZONA OUTRAGE: Rep. Giffords Shot in Tucson; U.S. Judge Killed; Gunman Identified as Jared Loughner, 22

Posted on | January 8, 2011 | 38 Comments

UPDATE 5:05 p.m. ET: According to CBS News, Jared Loughner, 22, reportedly used a semi-automatic pistol with an extra-large ammo clip in the attack that critically wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), killed at least five others — including a 9-year-old girl, a federal judge and one of Giffords’ aides — and wounded several more people.

Information about Loughner is sketchy. It appears he has had at least one previous run-in with law enforcement. What appear to be messages Loughner left online suggest he was suffering from mental illness. Da Tech Guy has scheduled an extra hour of his radio show tonight to discuss this bloody tragedy.

UPDATE 5:25 p.m. ET: It has been confirmed that U.S. Judge John Roll was killed at the scene.

UPDATE 8:35 p.m.: Arizona Shooter “Seems to Be Someone Desperately Needing Mental Health Care.” According to various reports, Loughner had a criminal history and had attempted to enlist in the Army but was rejected.

I’ll be on Da Tech Guy’s radio show tonight to talk about this sad incident. You can listen live at the WCRN Web site.

Please note that the updates below are not all in chronological sequence. I’m trying to post new information in order of importance.

UPDATE 6:05 p.m. ET: Warner Todd Huston has transcribed the demented gibberish in the online videos posted by Jared Lee Loughner.

Beyond the general incoherence, the evidence of mental illness in the video text includes psychological projection: While Loughner commits numerous errors of vocabulary and syntax (e.g., “conscience dreaming” instead of “conscious dreaming”) he nonetheless denounces the “majority of people” who “are illiterate.” This suggests grandiosity and scapegoating, both symptomatic of paranoia.

I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if it turns out that Loughner had previously been treated for mental illness.

UPDATE 5:15 p.m. ET: Donald Douglas at American Power has a round-up on the shooting, including attempts by “progressive” bloggers to blame Sarah Palin.

Linked by Bob Belvedere at the Camp of the Saints — thanks!

UPDATE 4:10 p.m. ET: The Associated Press names the suspect apprehended in the shooting as Jared Laughner.

UPDATE 4:42 p.m. ET: Commenters below have linked to the YouTube channel of someone named Jared Loughner, who in recent weeks had posted weird videos with semi-literate text about “conscience dreaming” and “new currency.”

If this “Loughner” is the gunman in custody, it appears that he is mentally ill. This is eerily similar to Pentagon gunman J. Patrick Bedell. See my March post at the Hot Air Green Room, “Whatever Happened to Crazy?”

UPDATE 4:55 p.m. ET: Ben Smith of Politico uses the term “anti-government political views” to describe the content of these YouTube videos, but “incoherent” and “cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs” might be a more accurate characterization:

“You don’t have to accept hte federalist laws,” the video [by Loughner] says; it also insists on the gold and silver standard, talks of revolution, and suggests that the government is imposing “mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar.”
His linked MySpace page, no longer available, included statements about the gold standard and about SWAT teams paying for their equipment with illegal currency.
Among his long list of favorite books in his YouTube profile are Mein Kampf, The Communist Manifesto, Siddhartha.

As I would note also in reference to the Pentagon shooter Bedell, the “political” beliefs of the mentally ill are difficult to categorize ideologically. “Crazy” is not an ideology. When somebody starts babbling word-salad stuff about “mind control,” etc., the problem is not politics. The problem is that somebody forgot to take their meds.

UPDATE 4:20 p.m. ET: A federal judge and a 9-year-old girl are reportedly among those killed in this incident. Medical authorities have said they are “optimistic” about Giffords’ survival.

Left Coast Rebel, VodkaPundit and Weasel Zippers are all blogging about this senseless tragedy. Instapundit is also aggregating. Via Memeorandum, we see that “progressive” blogger TBogg says “f*** it, I’m going there” to blame Sarah Palin.

UPDATE 4:02 p.m. ET: Troubling news that there may have been more than one gunman. Fox News reports:

Initial reports said that Giffords had died but a hospital spokesman and three House sources told Fox News that she remained alive in a nearby hospital where she was undergoing surgery.
At least 19 people were shot at Gifford’s “Your Corner” event held outside a Safeway grocery store in Tucson, including three members of the Democratic congresswoman’s staff in Arizona. Five have died and nine are in critical condition at the University of Arizona Medical Center.
A suspect is in custody. Authorities are looking for a possible second suspect.

But that’s just a “possible” suspect. These early reports are bound to be confusing. For one guy to shoot 19 people would probably require that he have at least two weapons or else an extra-large clip. Will clarify as further news becomes available.

UPDATE 3:46 p.m. ET: Interestingly, Giffords was one of the Democrats who didn’t vote for Nancy Pelosi as minority leader Wednesday. She voted for Rep. John Lewis, Georgia Democrat and civil-rights hero. Giffords was barely re-elected in the 8th District, edging Republican Jesse Kelly by less than 4,000 votes, and only won by campaigning well to the right of the Democratic leadership on immigration and other issues.

UPDATE 3:10 p.m. ET: Contradicting earlier reports that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was dead, the Washington Post now reports that the Arizona Democrat is in surgery and reportedly in critical condition. The number of others wounded or killed is also in dispute. Still no word on the identity of the gunman or his motive.

UPDATE 3:25 p.m. ET: As noted below, some are attempting to theorize a political motive in the absence of any actual knowledge. Given that we don’t even know at this point how many people were shot, or whether they’re dead or alive, it is irresponsible in the extreme to speculate about a motive.

The Anchoress writes: “It’s kind of disgusting when you hear someone is shot and the first thing you do is try to figure out how to fit the terrible news to your political worldview.” Da Tech Guy recalls the Bill Sparkman fiasco.

Linked by the Lonely Conservative — thanks! I’ve also been on the phone with Da Tech Guy, whose show tonight on WCRN 830 AM will obviously now have to include discussion of this horrible crime. 

PREVIOUSLY: Democrat Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was among seven people fatally shot at an event in the parking lot of a grocery store. The gunman, described as being in his late teens or early 20s, is in custody.

Ed Morrissey has been aggregating the story for more than an hour.

UPDATE: According to the New York Times, Giffords’ spokesman said she was “shot point blank in the head.” The total number of people reportedly killed or injured is 12.

No word yet on a motive, but . . . point-blank in the head? The word for that is “assassination.”

UPDATE II: Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post notes that some Daily Kos commenters appear to be trying to blame this on . . . wait for it . . . Sarah Palin.

UPDATE III: Regardless of who perpetrated this outrage or why, it’s terribly harmful to the political process.

While I was on Capitol Hill for swearing-in events Wednesday, I saw Democrat Rep. Raul Grijalva (AZ-7) walk past on the sidewalk. He was walking alone, with no aides or anybody else with him. I said hello, smiled and waved. 

Every regular reader here knows how enthusiastically I covered Republican Ruth McClung’s challenge to Grijalva in the election. But it’s just politics, people!

No matter how intense the debate or how serious the issues, no one ought to fear for their safety merely because they become involved in the political process, either as an elected official or any other capacity.

Category: Arizona, Congress, Crime

In Which No Less Than Peggy Noonan Wrings A Confession From Me

Posted on | January 8, 2011 | 15 Comments

by Smitty

While not having time to write much of anything, I am driven to confess: I have sinned and fallen short of the glory of Peggy Noonan.

True, I was never a Commanding Officer like Captain Honors, but, nevertheless, if I am to be shriven of sins and become a whole citizen in her eyes, then I must lay bare all of the evil in the fetid swamp of my soul.

You see, I have served in a warship or two in times past, and held various jobs, among them the coveted post of Morale, Welfare, and Recreation (MWR) Officer, in which post I undertook dark deeds for which I have paid an endless psychic toll. Perhaps this blog post can exorcise my demons.

And so it was, while needing to raise funds for the MWR account, which funds were used to pay for crew outings, media equipment for the crew’s mess, uniforms for the ship’s basketball team, &c, I made what was tantamount to a pact with the devil in my desperation to replenish the fisc: I ran a Read more

Category: Republicans

Global Warming Update

Posted on | January 8, 2011 | 16 Comments

Got about three inches of snow last night at my house on the west slope of South Mountain in Washington County, Maryland. But the climate-change scaremongers say that’s weather, not climate, like we’re too dumb to know the difference. Brendan O’Neill:

Anyone with a shred of self-respect who had predicted The End Of Snow would surely now admit that he was wrong. But no. Perhaps the most revealing thing about the snow crisis is that it was held up as evidence, not that the experts were mistaken, but that the public is stupid.

(Via Instapundit.) Meanwhile, here’s a good reason to welcome global warming. Just a little bit warmer . . .

Category: Global Warming

A Song for All My Feminist Fans

Posted on | January 8, 2011 | 4 Comments

Donald Douglas has been having all the fun with you ladies lately, and it’s probably time I joined in again:

Category: Feminism, humor, Video

‘When You Remove A Cancer, What Do You Replace It With?’

Posted on | January 7, 2011 | 7 Comments

by Smitty

That was Thomas Sowell’s answer to Peter Schiff Robinson [oops!], in response to the demand for a follow-on to the Federal Reserve.
If you’ve read End The Fed, and you should, you’ll enjoy hearing Prof. Sowell, an academic actually worthy of your respect, state simply that the Federal Reserve simply ain’t packin’ the gear and should be abolished.
Go, Sowell!

Category: Thomas Sowell
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