Following up on ED’s post about Brisenia Flores, it’s worth noting that the Tea Party response to the Tucson shootings is to focus their ire on Sheriff Dupnik, who made a few honest and relevant remarks about the overheated climate of hatred in Pima County. In addition to a “Dump Dupnik” rally later this week, a conservative Salt Lake City talk radio host has initiated a recall petition for Dupnik. That’s a complete publicity stunt, since a recall requires gathering about 100K signatures (roughly 1/5 of all the registered voters in the county) in four months.
Proving once again that both sides do it, here’s the response of the Pima County Democratic Chairman Jeff Rogers:
Rogers has urged Dupnik’s supporters or those against the recall effort not to stage a counterdemonstration. Instead, Rogers asks that they contribute to the Community Food Bank or donate blood to the Red Cross.
“If people really want to go out there and protest against the protest, the First Amendment is one of our most cherished principles … and people should feel free to do that,” he says. “I would just like to see a more productive response rather than people shouting at each other across a couple of picket lines.”
Cat Lady
I would like to see these teatard self proclaimed patriots nuked from space, but I suppose that’s uncivil. Why oh why didn’t the FSM make ignorance and hatred a fatal painful illness?
dmsilev
Speaking of “alway on offense”, Palin has once again made the mistake of opening her mouth:
TPM, reporting Palin’s latest oopsie:
“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”
dms
geg6
Completely OT, but now it’s Yemen:
http://english.aljazeera.net//news/middleeast/2011/01/2011127100660857.html
Face
I suspect a teatard in AZ will take matters into his own hands w/r/t to Sheriff D. That whole state is so overheated with fury and rage that anything’s possible. A tinderbox about to explode, really.
And SLC’s looking to light the match.
Joey Maloney
More and more Palin reminds me of this guy that Oliver Sacks wrote about in one of his many books about interesting neurological disfunctions. The guy had lost the ability to convert short-term memories into long-term ones, kind of like Guy Pearce’s character in Memento. He literally did not know who or where he was or what he was doing from moment to moment. His (unconscious, I suppose) coping strategy was to never shut up. He was constantly talking, and mostly talking nonsense – misidentifying people and things, claiming to be in the middle of some job or task.
The purpose of his constant talking, Sacks speculated, was to defend himself from the yawning existential abyss that constantly opened before him. It was the only way he had to hold at bay the shattering loss of identity he had suffered, and the inescapable depths of his ignorance and disability.
Maybe that’s our Bible Spice – deep down, scared to death of confronting the undeniable fact she is a complete fucking idiot.
Also, too, do you have the impression she’s getting less coverage for this latest dimwittery than in the past? The only place I’ve seen it picked up so far is on TPM.
E.D. Kain
I heard about this yesterday. Good stuff.
artem1s
Dupnik is proving to be genuine class act. The wingnuts who are always whinging about the decline of American ideals and family values should be pointing to this guy as an example of the way honest, rational people behave. Instead they are attacking him. This is the thing about ‘conservative’ America that makes me crazy.
Persia
I know this is tangential, but apparently the winter storms have made blood supplies the lowest they’ve been in a decade. I gave at a local drive yesterday. If you can, please do.
RalfW
Nice touch by the Democratic Chair. I just briefly googled and didn’t find a web site for Dupnik’s 2012 campaign. I’d be open to offering the campaign 10 bucks as a token of appreciation for his public service and forthrightness, if out of state contributions to a Sheriff campaign are permissible (which they should be if some asswipe from SLC can orchestrate a vanity recall campaign).
piratedan
well I can understand Rogers’ stand, in a way, not wanting to further polarize events here in Tucson, but I also understand that people out here are getting to the point where they are loathe to concede the field solely to the teatards as if they are the only ones with a voice. I doubt that they’ll get much traction with the recall but I wonder if we’re fast approaching the time where sitting on our hands and simply riding it out and hoping for the best is no longer appliccable. The parallels in this state with Germany of the 30’s are there to be made if people want to make them. We got, fear, hatred, a handy minority scapegoat and an economic environment that shows little hope for improvement. State government that is sympathetic to those organizing the protest and the feds are here only as deep background (notice that this protest is being held a week after the Federal Task Force crew has left town). I have to admit, I’m worried about how this may turn out.
It won’t take much to set this off.
Kryptik
@piratedan:
Yeah, this is my worry here too. In wanting to rise above the fray, they fail to actually do anything about it, and end up simply leaving it a one-sided ‘debate’, with the wingnut lies and froth unchallenged, and the public none the wiser because no one bothered to butt the bullshit back.
IrishGirl
The nuts aren’t limiting their offense to just Sheriff Dupnik, they are now blaming Row v. Wade for the shooting in Tucson. Now that’s F’d up!
http://wp.me/pYORZ-5k
piratedan
@IrishGirl: welcome to AZ state politics…. it’s okay, they’ve already blamed Dupnik for not providing security that wasn’t asked for. I figure as soon as Giffords recovers that she’ll have to defend herself and her actions that brought this tragedy to Tucson….(and no, I’m not kidding)
SteveinSC
I’m waiting for the arrival of the exquisite prigs who can find some reason to tell us that people like Olbermann are shrill and that we should go all christian and shit by turning the other cheek and having a more high minded discourse so as not to be like the lynch mob at the gates.
Ash Can
This is also a good time to be aware that the House Republicans want to go back to workplace raids for rounding up illegal immigrants.
Dehumanizing one’s fellow man, even only in speech, is a bad thing and to be avoided. But I’m going to break my own rule here — these people are monsters.
mistermix
@Persia: Check out the next post, we’re going to have a B-J blood drive.
Kryptik
@Ash Can:
ANd yet, gee, the employers are still getting off pretty much scott free, aren’t they? Strange that, focusing on punishing and shitting on the proles while the employers and ‘producers’ never get a damn thing done to them in the long run. It’s like they really don’t care about the problem and just want to cater in symbolic bullshit by swatting down the low hanging fruit. But that can’t be, right? I mean, aren’t they the Party of Know?
dmsilev
@Ash Can: I read about that this morning. I’m going to guess that part of the GOP’s Outrage! is this:
dms
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@Cat Lady: That’s way too impersonal. I’d like to use a knife, up close, to look into their eyes as their blood drains over my boots and tell them “Yes, a nigger just knifed your white-supremacist ass. Now die. Slow.”
But that too is rather uncivil, so I’ll just keep honing this blade…
Ash Can
@dmsilev: Oh, to be sure. God forbid their pet fatcats get importuned in any way.
Gah. I’m off to do some errands and put myself in a better mood. Teh Intrawebs are not my friend this morning.
Jay C
@piratedan:
Are your SURE the wingnuts won’t get much traction in trying to recall Sheriff Dupnik? I don’t know (at all) what the parameters for electoral recall petitions are in Arizona, but if it is like most states, if it is allowed at all, the basic requirement is a given number of (hopefully verified) signatures on a “legal” petition – usually a set percentage of registered voters?
If there are 1.5 million+ people in Pima County (?) – it’s unfortunately not hard to see the loonies scraping up enough signatures to at least qualify for a ballot?
BTW: Are the any Pima Country residents lurking here on BJ who can connfirm some these points? I read somewhere that Clarence Dupnik has been reelected Sheriff there eight times – he must have some sort of political base – and must be doing a decent enough job to keep getting returned to office! Even though elected law-enforcement officials don’t, AFAICT, have the same sort of “political” issues that, say, legislators do.
mistermix
@Jay C: There are a bit under 500,000 registered voters in Pima county, almost 40% are Democrats, only 31% are Republicans. Getting 100,000 signatures in 120 days is a big, big deal.
http://www.kvoa.com/news/voter-registration-down-in-pima-county/
And, even if they did get the signatures, recalling Dupnik would be a tall order.
So, the right response is not to dignify this idiocy with a direct response, just to suggest that we do something constructive.
geg6
In related news, it looks like another Tea Hagger with an inordinate love of guns and the Constitution (or at least one specific amendment to it) is mulling a run for president:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/01/sharron-angle-to-pursue-her-twelfth-amendment-remedies.php?ref=fpb
Run, Sharron, run!
Comrade Mary
If you’re in Tucson, give blood AND protest. Do good, but don’t give over the oxygen and attention to the nuts.
daveNYC
“Takes one to know one.”
H. Simpson (and most likely S. Palin)
David Brooks (not that one)
Note that the Sheriff didn’t name names, or political sides, when he called out the hatred and rhetoric. But all the protesting against his comments came from the Republicans and teabaggers.
The lady doth protest too much, methinks…
piratedan
@Jay C: yeah, I live here (Tucson=Pima County) and Dupnik was elected with about 65% of the vote the last time he stood for election. What made Giffords congressional race so close is that they’ve divvied up Pima County three ways to integrate it with more conservative parts of Arizona, making one safe Dem leaning district (Ed Pastor) and two that are a bit less more so (Raul Grijalva, who’s race was even closer than Giffords, and Ms. Giffords district). Pima by itself is most definately blue, practically half of all of the Dems in the state leg are from Tucson/Pima County)
Moonbatman
Reminds me of the Demonization of Mike Nifong.
He has the same amount of evidence as Sheriff Dupnik does that the Duke Lacrosse players committed rape and the justice against the rich frat boys was perverted by thier attack dog lawyers and political favors from the NC AG and Bar.
Peace out. The power is yours.
geg6
@Moonbatman:
And who exactly is Dupnik accusing just like Nifong? Please, be specific and link to the actual quote where he does that.
SFAW
What makes you think they’ll wait until then? It’s not as if they have any respect for those not like themselves. Being a cynical SOB, I’m amazed that they haven’t yet started.
I would love to be proved wrong, but I’d also bet a beer that I won’t. (If John takes me up on that bet, it’ll be Rolling Rank for him.)
Mnemosyne
@Comrade Mary:
There’s got to be a way to combine the two things into a single protest. I don’t know how one gets a bloodmobile to come to your location, but it would be easy as pie to set up barrels and ask people coming to the protest to bring canned goods to be donated to the food bank. You might even get people who wouldn’t normally come to a protest to stop by so they can donate.
It’s especially good optics if you can line the donations up across from the teabaggers
matoko_chan
I’d be more impressed if EDK would accept some collateral responsibility for Gifford, Poplawski, Tiller, etc etc.
After all, he is a basepanderer, and an enabler, and we are all just the same, right mistermix?
stop giving that fucker welfare epics and mercy links.
make him stand and deliver or GTFO.
Mnemosyne
@Moonbatman:
Psst. I hate to tell you this, but Nifong was a prosecutor, not a sheriff.
I wish I could have caught you before you made such an ass of yourself by mixing the two up. You really should be watching those “Law & Order” reruns a lot more closely since you seem very confused as to why Jerry Orbach wasn’t making the closing argument in the courtroom.
Omnes Omnibus
@matoko_chan: No, you wouldn’t. You would just clog up any thread that tangentially mentions Kain with a couple of dozen poorly written screeds. It is what you do.
Stefan
“If people really want to go out there and protest against the protest, the First Amendment is one of our most cherished principles … and people should feel free to do that,” he says. “I would just like to see a more productive response rather than people shouting at each other across a couple of picket lines.”
Liberal Fascism! Liberal Fascism!
terraformer
@Joey Maloney:
I am intrigued at this nickname for our Alaskan Queen. I shall refer to her as such henceforth…
Stefan
it’s okay, they’ve already blamed Dupnik for not providing security that wasn’t asked for.
No one ever actually threatened Congresswoman Giffords, there was no organized climate of incitement, no one could have foreseen a lone madman, and thefore Dupnik is at fault for not providing security when it wasn’t asked for and Giffords is at fault for not asking for security if she felt threatened, which she absolutely should not have felt because, again, no one could have foreseen this, except Dupnik who should have. That about right?
SFAW
Well, one COULD suggest that one gets the Teabaggers to donate their blood, whether willingly or not. But that would be uncivil.
And, in case any of our Galtian/Beckian overlords are reading this: I am not serious, nor am I suggesting that blood be let over something as trivial as wingnut fauxtrage over Dupnik’s comments.
ppcli
@dmsilev: Inevitable collapse? From the space program? That was a response to something Kennedy did? But, but,… I thought that the otherwise invincible Soviet Union was brought down single-handedly by Saint Ronaldus Magnus saying “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall”, and giving the precursors of the Taliban stinger missiles, and running up huge deficits to increase military spending, and, and…
The Claire Boothe Luce of the Klondike (Caribou-the Luce perhaps? Naw, too clumsy. Shame.) is having a hard time keeping established wingnut mythology straight.
Mnemosyne
@SFAW:
It would be perfectly civil to organize a blood drive “in honor of Gabrielle Giffords,” print up flyers, and pass them out to the teabaggers at their protest. Especially if you can set up a video camera so everyone can see them tearing the flyers up and stomping on them in their oh-so-civil way.
Seriously, Tucson folks — combination counter-protest and canned food drive. I promise you it would be awesome and you’d probably get more news coverage than you would as “just” a counter-protest.
suzanne
@Jay C: I don’t live in Pima County anymore (now I’m in Maricopa County, where our Sheriff is the lovely Joe Arpaio), but Pima County is pretty reliably blue. Giffords’ district actually only has about half of Tucson; the other part is in the district represented by Raul Grijalva, who’s uber-progressive.
Moonbatman
@geg6: and Mnemosyne
Nifong took over/lead the investigation into the rapists.
That is why the attack dog lawyers are arguing that he does not get prosecutorial immunity in the frivolous civil case.
Sheriff Dupnik and Mike Nifong are following the investigation to the correct progressive narrative despite the so-called makeup facts manufactured and distorted by other side.
Peace out. The power is yours.
Mnemosyne
@Moonbatman:
That doesn’t magically turn him into the sheriff of his county.
Look, just admit you made a stupid mistake by confusing the two jobs and move on. You’re just digging the hole deeper by trying to pretend you know what you’re talking about.
matoko_chan
@Omnes Omnibus: i have sworn kanly on EDk as long as he is on the front page.
it is my geas, my burden.
;)
ppcli
@Mnemosyne:
Moonbatman is just an obvious false-flag troll, and not even a very good one. Replies should confine themselves to that observation only.
Uloborus
@Moonbatman:
I’m going to be honest. I don’t know Moonbatman from Adam, and I can’t tell whether I should be arguing for or against what he’s saying because I can’t figure OUT what he’s saying. He seems to think someone is being dishonest in a rape case. I can’t even figure out which side he thinks is dishonest. I also can’t figure out how this applies to what we’re talking about.
Mnemosyne
@ppcli:
I’m just trying to be helpful so he can improve his trolling to the point where he can conceal the fact that he clearly has an IQ of 75 or less since he thinks that sheriffs prosecute criminals. But since he bravely ran away as soon as I pointed out his mistake, I don’t think we’ll have to worry about him any more in this thread.
Brachiator
Well, I am certainly offended by the march of the wingnuts. This morning I was listening to reports about an Asian politician getting threats from ditto heads because he dared suggest people boycott Rush the Mighty Limbaugh because of his recent lame joke about the leader of China.
The thing is, the wingnuts cannot dial back on the hate. They don’t know how. They have been worked up to hate Obama, to hate all Democrats in government. The Tea Party leaders, La Divine Palin, and Rush and the Gang of Goons are so happy to be able to stir shit up that absolutely nothing could get them to back down.
Civility is for sissies. Onward to 2012.
Shalimar
@matoko_chan: Your “burden” makes you sound like one of the obsessive nuts you’re accusing Kain of somehow encouraging. He’s just a blogger on a website, let it go.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@matoko_chan: OK but watch out for the EDK gom jabbar.
debbie
Wait a minute! A Salt Lake City, Utah DJ is organizing a recall drive against a sheriff in Arizona? Hasn’t it been the conservatives who sputter outrage whenever out-of-state interests get involved in causes they don’t support? Hello? Mr. Kettle?
Shalimar
@Moonbatman: What exactly do you think Sheriff Dupnik is investigating? He made an observation about violent rhetoric and is getting a first hand course in how violent and hateful it can get. I guess I fail to grasp any way that he is an evil figure here. The more hatred that is directed against him, the more obvious it is that he was correct.
Moonbatman
@Mnemosyne:
Clown Nose Off
I am stealing Doug J’s. old bit of posting arguments that parody those I disagree with.
@Mnemosyne
Nifong and Dupnik both ran to the media to promote their narrative of the case before the facts were in.
Clown Nose On
And were attacked by the wingnutz for speaking truth to power!!!!
Peace out. The power is yours.
SFAW
Cabbage crates over the briny?
Still not getting m’b’man’s banter.
Mnemosyne
@Shalimar:
The only other reason I can think of that Moonbatman would try to compare the Duke case and the Tucson murders is that, despite the dozens of eyewitnesses and the security camera footage, Moonbatman thinks that Loughner is totally innocent and is being railroaded by malicious prosecutors.
Of course, that would make him look even stupider than getting confused about the difference between a prosecutor and a sheriff, but I think that’s where he was going with it.
Well, that and wingnuts love to drag the Duke case into any and all discussions of the legal system because it’s the one bona fide case where they can show that a rich white guy was maliciously prosecuted by a district attorney for political reasons even though the rich white guy was innocent. It’s like their security blankie that validates their feelings of persecution.
Chris
@dmsilev:
Did she just fucking invalidate the conservative Apostles’ Creed by saying that the collapse of the USSR resulted from anything other than SDI and Saint Reagan’s ballsiness?
Well, never to late to admit they were wrong…
Mnemosyne
@Moonbatman:
Which means that you think Jared Loughner is innocent and is being railroaded by prosecutors. That’s the only possible way to draw a line between the two cases because the only case being prosecuted here is Loughner’s.
So tell us, how did you come to the conclusion that Loughner is innocent and is being wrongfully prosecuted just like the Duke lacrosse players? I’m sure we’d all love to hear it.
Jeanne ringland
@debbie: See California: Prop 8, Utah money.
Pongo
So the new senator from Utah, Mike Lee, wants to repeal child labor laws as unconstitutional because it is a ‘state’s rights’ issue (http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/01/gop-senator-calls-federal-laws-child-labor-unconstitutional/). He got all morally indignant about what he says is a federal usurpation of what should be in the purview of individual states. Fair enough. He’s entitled to make his case. But if state’s rights, are so important to the people of Utah, why can’t they keep their noses out of the business of other states? Why would a bunch of folks from Salt Lake City think it is up to them to decide who is the sheriff of Pima County in Arizona? They shouldn’t get to have it both ways. Either you demand the right to govern yourself and then respect that other states have that same right, or you stop pretending there’s a legitimate state’s rights issue every time you want to be free of federal law. Between this stunt and their interference in Prop 8 in California, the hypocrisy is nauseating.
Moonbatman
@Mnemosyne:
Or the correct parallel that Reich wing hate speech was to blame for both case.
Rich White frat boys rape poor Black Mother and were defended by Reich wing haters.
Reich wing haters caused the shooting
Look at their Swiftboating!!!!!
Supercop Dupnik: There must be a lesson about Rush Limbaugh somewhere in this story
Peace out. The power is yours.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Moonbatman:
Well thank goodness for that.
For a moment there I thought maybe we were being visited by Paul L.’s Bizarro-World progressive twin, and that if the two of you met together in the same thread it might create a matter-antimatter collision which could annihilate us all.
Brachiator
@Moonbatman:
There are no parallels. Why do you waste your time?
@Mnemosyne:
These people are truly pathetic. It is also interesting how they ignore the central lesson of the Duke rape case. The prosecutor was doing stuff that lazy prosecutors always do: go for the quick win without regard to the truth by pressuring the defendants to agree to a plea deal. This often works against lower class defendants without regard to race. They get pressured into going for the deal.
Fortunately for the Duke accused, they had good attorneys and the case against them quickly fell apart. But conservative fools wanted to see this as extra special special persecution of helpless white kids to benefit unworthy black folk instead of a sad reminder of how the justice system too often works for people who don’t have the money to fight back.
Ed Marshall
@Moonbatman:
The really sorry part is that you still make quite a bit more sense than the people who make comments at my local paper.
Mnemosyne
@Moonbatman:
That is the saddest logic fail I’ve ever seen. If you stretched any harder to connect the two cases, you’d beat Mr. Fantastic.
Jeanne ringland
@Ed Marshall: I can’t figure out what he’s saying at all.
Jeanne ringland
@Moonbatman: The thing is that I can follow DougJ’s line of reasoning.
Wile E. Quixote
@Moonbatman:
Wait, Clarence Dupnik, a sheriff in Pima County, Arizona, was involved in the Duke rape case in Durham, North Carolina? Who knew? I read your posts and do you know what comes to mind? This line from Se7en.
Do you guys do that?
SFAW
No.
SATSQ
Arclite
What would really be productive is if everyone went out and bought a gun.