IS PIMA COUNTY SHERIFF DUPNIK STILL TRYING TO BLAME JARED LOUGHNER'S RAMPAGE ON "VITRIOLIC RHETORIC"?

In the course of researching a longer, more detailed story I'm preparing regarding Rush Limbaugh's imitation of Hu Jintao and the over-the-top response by California State Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco), I found a detail that has escaped notice thusfar (to my knowledge).

For those of you who were in a coma the first week of 2011: In the immediate aftermath of the Tucson massacre, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik couldn't stop himself from inserting his fact-free, pro-Democrat personal opinion about what might have spurred Jared Loughner to mass murder, asserting that there was "no doubt in [his] mind" that political "vitriol" constantly spread by television and radio commentators would eventually be proved to be a significant contributing factor.

Here is Dupnik being grilled gently by Fox News' Megyn Kelly on Monday, January 9, 2011:





Fast forward to two and a half weeks later, Wednesday, January 26, 2011.  At this point, it has long been established by Loughner's friends, former girlfriends, creeped-out college classmates, frightened teachers, and investigators combing his personal effects that contrary to the media narrative Dupnik reinforced, the 22-year-old was a time bomb destined to explode Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' world years prior to Sarah Palin's "crosshairs" map, the ObamaCare vote, the Tea Party movement, or the first primary victory of then-Senator Obama. On this same day: On his California State Senate homepage,  State Senator Yee makes public a vile, profane, obviously racist (and somewhat illiterate) faxed death threat his office received from a person specifically making reference to Limbaugh's artificially controversial 18-second impersonation of President Hu.

I will NOT link the image of the fax here, but an accurate description of it is in the text of the press release: 

The faxes received by Yee include a graphic of an American flag adorned pickup truck dragging a noose.

The faxes that were sent to Yee’s office today also state (with misspellings):

FIGHTING The Marxist Nigger Thug Hussein Obama & Fish Head Leeland Yee

To: JoBama Rectum Sniffing Moron LEELAND LEE

Achtung! [German word meaning “watch out”] Fish Head Leeland Lee.  Rush Limbaugh will kick your Chink ass and expose you for the fool you are.

Without exceptions, Marxists are enemies of the United States Constitution!  Death to all Marxists!  Foreign and Domestic!

However convenient it is to State Senator Yee to receive hate mail mentioning Rush Limbaugh in the same proximity as an image of a pickup truck dragging President Obama's head in a noose (a detail not specifically mentioned in the statement), there is no doubt in my mind that the fax is authentically from a bonafide racist. It has the same type of crude, pre-Photoshop, clip art, ransom note graphics as I remember from the eighties, when disciples of Tom Metzger's White Aryan Resistance group would paste ugly posters like that in Bay Area phone booths (remember them?).

I hesitated to publish the text of the threatening fax, but I needed to -- it's relevant to the disclosure that preceded it on Yee's release (link, bold mine):

SAN FRANCISCO – After condemning offensive comments by Rush Limbaugh, Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) today was sent a racist death threat via fax to his San Francisco and Capitol offices.  The faxes have been turned over to the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms to investigate.

The expletive-laden faxes contain graphics and language similar to messages Yee receive [sic] in April 2010 after he called for Sarah Palin’s speaking fee at California State University to be disclosed.  Recently, the Pima County Sheriff’s Office in Arizona contacted Yee regarding the April faxes and a possible connection to faxes found during the investigation surrounding the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

Yee's previous claim to national fame was demanding that a private education foundation associated with Cal State-Stanislaus reveal how much it was paying Governor Palin to come to Turlock, CA to speak at a $500-per-person fundraiser.  The foundation insisted it wasn't legally required to reveal the contract.  CSUS said it had no information about the foundation's contract.  Then dumpster-diving Palin-hating students found shredded pages of the contract the university said it didn't have, containing the quasi-damning revelations that Palin would be receiving less than her previously-reported $100,000 fee, that she wants to fly the 2,700 miles from Alaska first class (or, alternately, by Lear Jet), and that she insists on bendable straws for her lectern water bottles. What a diva, right?  In the end, Palin's speech went on without a hitch.

But, I digress.  One April 2010 faxed threat -- one of at least two missives much more disgusting than the recent ones -- is described thusly on Yee's page:

The fax, which included a graphic of an American flag adorned pickup truck dragging a noose, also states “FIGHTING The Marxist Nig**r Thug Hussein Obama” and “Safeguard the Constitution, Death of all Domestic Marxists!” 

Not to discount the danger (at worst) or discomfort (at the least) that such a slimebag may cause to State Senator Yee, but come on ... it's the same sicko.

Now, back to Pima County.  If we take Yee's Chief of Staff Adam Keigwin (author of the press releases) at his word, as of January 26th, Sheriff Dupnik's office "recently" had requested to see Yee's April threat faxes in association with the investigation of Jared Loughner's savage attack: A "possible connection to faxes found during the investigation surrounding the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords."  

Huh? You mean a "possible connection" between the looney loser whose closest associates agreed within hours of the shooting he didn't pay close attention to politics, didn't listen to talk radio, didn't vote in 2010, didn't pledge allegiance to the right or left, and whose stated conspiratorial obsessions were devoid of bigotry?  You mean the guy we can reasonably presume didn't send either fax to Leland Yee since whoever sent the January one could not possibly be in police custody, where Loughner has been since he was held down by bystanders in that Safeway parking lot in Tucson?

Dupnik's office has put a gag on details about Loughner's attack, so we have not lately seen nor heard the Sheriff double, triple, or quadruple down on his pseudo-prophetic opinions about its root causes.  But his department is still spending time chasing down information about threats that appear to be irrelevant to the prosecution of the individual we all know murdered six of his constituents! This indicates to me Dupnik knows the chances his bold assertions were prescient are dwindling, and he's got to scramble to avoid being exposed as unduly political and unprofessional.

Pardon the mixed metaphors, but in short: Dupnik is grasping at straws to cover his posterior. Not a good look.

Coming up: Why Leland Yee's and other Chinese-American politicians' offense at Limbaugh is selective, overblown, and IMHO, insincere.

NBC NEWS' LUKE "FAMILY DESTINY" RUSSERT SCREWS UP AGAIN ... SITUATION NORMAL AT MSNBC

Late last October, I published "DESTINY" VS. "DYNASTY": ARE NBC NEWS PEOPLE AS DUMB AS THEY THINK SARAH PALIN IS?" about an egregious grammatical error made by NBC News' Luke Russert in a story about Sarah Palin's remarks about the "family dynasty" of Alaska's Murkowski clan.

 

 

It turned out to be the most viewed piece in the history of REACTOR, my sporadically-updated blog created out of cubicle boredom in 2005.

Here's how I ended it:

Palin's point about the dangers of installing dynasties may have been made in an indirect fashion through young Luke's megagaffe. As we can see from his performance yesterday morning, he's been deemed ready for the big time by the asleep-at-the-switch suits at NBC News despite the fact he's still swimming in the shoes of his late, legendary father, Meet The Press host Tim Russert. While he still has time to learn, let's be serious about the here and now: If he was Luke Smith, Luke Jones, or Luke Doe, he would never see the business end of an NBC News camera.

Harsh? Yes, uncomfortably so. True, nevertheless? You betcha.

Here's how Master Luke covered the Arizona massacre as the news came in (h/t Media Resource Center):




While this is another screw-up for Luke, things are moving in the right direction. This is, after all, a journalistic error, not a spelling error.

MEGHAN McCAIN ON ARIZONA: "I KNOW ANGRY RHETORIC WASN'T THE REASON, BUT ISN'T IT GREAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT TONING IT DOWN NOW?"

The following is my reaction to Meghan "The Brain" McCain's latest missive on The Daily Beast titled "What We Need to Learn From Arizona."  Except that apparently what we "need to learn" are lessons that have nothing to do with what actually occurred in Tucson. 

Here's a link to the original piece.  Please come back here for my comment -- I can't be sure that the Beasties will approve it.  I've had several remarks there spiked going back to 2008.

Quoth the Meghan:

"What is particularly sad and telling about the climate of today’s media cycle is that it seems to have taken the media this kind of moment to start analyzing their own rhetoric—even if that rhetoric wasn’t the reason for the tragedy."

Congratulations, Meghan, you have just joined the millions and millions of sheep who have swallowed the MSM narrative and regurgitated it to the rest of us for our consumption.  Fortunately for me, I long ago lost a taste for semi-digested propaganda.

In case you live in such an impenetrable bubble that you haven't yet heard or [had] someone tell you, allow me: You're being manipulated.  Scratch that -- you're being duped.  And, funny thing is, you seem to enjoy it. 

How dare I write such a thing, you may ask?  Simple: you just admitted it yourself.  Here's more you:

"Although I do not believe this shooter's motives had anything to do with the current political climate, it’s good that the media is questioning the dangerous levels that the rhetoric has reached nonetheless."

You see? You know good and well "rhetoric wasn’t the reason for the tragedy", but instead of upbraiding the media for pretending that it WAS about the rhetoric (for obvious partisan purposes), you boldly continue with their big lie by furthering a national discussion on an unrelated "conversation" -- which was started in the spirit of partisanship by the left, and promoted through the means of libel and slander of the right. 

Meanwhile, the reasons why Ms. Giffords got shot and six people were killed -- y'know, the REAL reasons -- go underexplored by the media and most self-described center-left folk.  They're kinda occupied, despite the fact that the similarities between Loughner and the Virginia Tech shooter are eerie; isolated, severely creepy marginal college students with paranoid theories and violent fantasies that frightened teachers and students alike, enough to get them barred them from their campuses.  Somehow, they each got ahold of a firearm, and -- in the words of Drowning Pool -- "Let the bodies hit the floor." Teachers, counselors, parents, and surviving "friends" say "I KNEW he was nuts, but I didn't know he was THAT nuts."  The only significant difference is that Loughner was stopped before he offed himself.

But, apparently, y'all think it is more important to seize this moment to focus attention on YOUR  pet peeve: That goldarn angry rhetoric. And it was really important to take advantage of the situation as the story unfolded, because if it turned out the gunman was yet another Arab dude who turned out to be a Muslim extremist, we wouldn't have had squawking heads, bilious bloggers, and a media whore county sheriff blaming Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck for murders they didn't commit.  Such blood libel (yeah, I said it, and I meant it) was needed to get the ball rolling.

Getting to the bottom of the real reasons why six people are dead and making necessary changes to prevent something like this from happening again can wait until next time the culprit is not a Islamist.  First things first, right, Meggie?