If Sarah Palin incited Jared Loughner, who incited James Hodgkinson?
This photo from Facebook shows James T. Hodgkinson. A government official says Hodgkinson is the suspect in the Virginia shooting that injured Rep. Steve Scalise and several others. (Facebook via AP)
Listen To You Tell Me Texas Friday 6/16/17
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I don’t know what was specifically going on in James Hodgkinson’s head early Thursday morning. I can’t say what moved him to fire on the Republican members of Congress who were practicing for the annual Congressional Baseball Game. But certainly there is enough evidence surrounding Hodgkinson to form a plausible guess.
Hodgkinson was a very active participant in and consumer of left wing political rhetoric. His social media posts reveal a man who deeply despised President Trump.
In a June 12 post to Facebook, Hodgkinson called the president, “truly the biggest a**hole we’ve ever had in the Oval Office.”
But that doesn’t make him remarkable. Lefty Trump-haters are truly a dime-a-carload. What makes him remarkable is that he singled out members of Congress from President Trump’s party and began shooting at them.
The question is, what triggered the rampage? When and by whom was Hodgkinson radicalized?
Was he incited to violence by the words of his fellow travelers on the Left? Did Madonna’s call to “blow up the White House” sound like a good idea? Did Kathy Griffin’s effigy of the president’s severed head resonate? Did he identify with New York City’s Shakespeare in the Park at which a Donald Trump lookalike playing the part of Julius Caesar is brutally assassinated every evening?
The truth is we can only guess. We’ll never know.
Only the New York Times can be certain of such things. In January 2011 the New York Times knew for certain what incited Jared Loughner to go on a shooting rampage in Arizona that killed six and grievously wounded a dozen others, including congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. The catalytic agent for that outrage was, according to the Times, an obscure Sarah Palin Political Action Committee piece depicting targeted congressional districts under crosshairs. The Times, in chorus with the rest of the left wing media, wasted no time using the piece to indict the entirety of American conservatism for murder.
As it turned out, Loughner was a diagnosed schizophrenic who was apolitical and had never seen the Palin piece. You would think the Times would have been duly chastened.
Yet, astonishingly, the Times has dusted off the Sarah Palin piece and is holding it up again in the wake of this week’s horror as an illustration of “how vicious American politics have become.”
For the sake of discussion, let’s say the Times is right. By their logic then, if an obscure piece of Republican campaign literature can incite a shooting rampage, what does Madonna wanting to dynamite the White House incite? Who is potentially moved to violence by hearing actor Robert DeNiro say, “I’d like to punch Trump in the face?,” or by seeing “Donald Trump/Julius Caesar” assassinated every night in Central Park (sponsored in part by the New York Times)?
Jared Loughner was consuming nothing from the political right when he shot Gabrielle Giffords. James Hodgkinson, however, was fairly soaking in heated rhetoric from the Left.
When do you suppose the New York Times will report accordingly?
Accountability based on reality is not the MO of the Media Monopoly (Left-Wing) Industrial Complex. That is the problem. These smug arbiters of their version of the FAKE “truth” knows NO accountability or bounds of reality. They are a kingdom unto themselves and behave as the “official” monopoly on everything “media” or newsworthy that they choose to spew out. Anyone that disagrees with them on sound logical grounds must be demonized and NEVER engaged with debate or even acknowledged with the slightest attention. In other words, their “free speech” is all that is allowed or valid. A monopoly is as a monopoly does. Yet they scream for tolerance for anything that is obviously evil. Got it?
When will the left learn? Never. As far back as I can remember, the left has had special privilge in the field of inciting people. They have never had to account for their actions. Although Kathy Griffin has taken some heat, as well she should have, for her very uncalled for actions. There has always been one set of rules for the left and one for the right. The left can say and do pretty much as they please and the right has to pay big time for the slightest of offences! It is about time the people start making the left accountable as they have this Kathy Griffin for her tasteless actions, which I can say with confidence, that she never saw coming. President Trump was duly elected to be our President. Stop acting like spoiled children and let the President DO HIS JOB.
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/08/trumps-threat-is-nothing-new-republicans-have-called-for-second-amendment-remedies-for-years/
How will the New York Times report? There may be some mystery to what drove James Hodgkinson to do his best to murder Republicans, but there’s no mystery whatever when it comics to the New York Times. While that paper may have a problem with Hodgkinson’s solution to their shared enemy, we know and they know who the enemy is–anyone who disagrees with them.
Mr Gleiser, once again you paint a confusing picture for your listeners based upon the actions of one individual, or at best a few. You suggest that the shooter of a Republican Member of Congress was just another ‘liberal’ action perpetrated by the minions who voted against Mr. Trump. As usual you totally forget about the two years of Mr Trump’s campaign rallies. During many of his speeches he encouraged violence and even suggested he would do the same. Remember him saying ‘kick his A__’ or the numerous times he said ‘get him out of here’ and don’t be too gentle, if he sues, I will pay for your attorney. He even said on many occasions something like ‘I would smack him in the face’. Those outcry’s from our President and his numerous lies about anybody that opposed him never received like responses from his Democrat opponents. You never heard Sanders or Clinton insight violence in their rhetoric, just Trump. In fact Mr. Gleiser, you conveniently forgot about the Republican Congressional Candidate in Montana who did not like the question asked by a reporter, and body slammed him. He is charged with Assault. Yet, our President said, ‘he is a great man’.
So, your talk about liberals being the cause of violent behavior is simply one sided. I would hope that no one, regardless of party affiliation takes part in any violent action. However to paint the blame on one Party is just plane wrong.
OK, Mr. Smith. Take a moment to re-read the piece because judging from your somewhat disjointed comment, it appears that you have missed the point.
The point of the piece is really quite simple. It’s about hypocrisy. In 2011, when a disturbed young man named Jared Loughner, who was completely apolitical, shot Gabrielle Giffords, the Left concocted the completely preposterous narrative that a piece of literature from Sarah Palin’s political action committee somehow incited the incident.
Jump ahead seven years and you have a shooter who was vocal in his loathing for Donald Trump and Republicans and somehow the New York Times cannot see any possible connection between the shooting and the superheated and often violent rhetoric of the Left since Trump won the election. (In fact, the Times trotted out the Palin piece again.)
Read the piece again, Mr. Smith. It’s not confusing at all.