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In one of the most remarkable press conferences I've ever seen, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik called out for an end to the violent rhetoric that leads to acting-out by people who are 'unbalanced' not once, but three times.

Calling Arizona a "Mecca for prejudice and bigotry", Dupnik spoke sharply about the rhetoric coming from radio and television sources.

Mr. Dupnik called the shooting a "very sad day for Tucson" and a "horrendous, horrendous, senseless, unbelievable crime." And then he blamed the crime on the rhetoric -- presumably political rhetoric -- in the country.

"When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government," he said. "The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on this country is getting to be outrageous and unfortunately Arizona has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry."

Mr. Dupnik said it is time for the country to "do a little soul searching."

He added: "The vitriolic rhetoric that we hear day in and day out from people in the radio business and some people in the TV business ... This has not become the nice United States that most of us grew up in."

Later, he said: "It's not unusual for all public officials to get threats constantly, myself included. That's the sad thing about what's going on in America: pretty soon we're not going to be able to find reasonable decent people willing to subject themselves to serve in public office."

In addition to his condemnation of rhetorical violence, he gave a few extra facts about the case. He said they were investigating a package received by Rep. Giffords' office, and that they were looking for a second suspect who he later referred to as a "person of interest". He is described as a white male in his 50s. He also confirmed 19 injured, 6 dead. 5 died on the scene, one died at the hospital. The one who died at the hospital was the nine-year old child referred to in earlier reports.

The presence of a second suspect, or involved person, suggests there is much more to this than an unbalanced person showering a crowd with bullets, but without details it's just too early to tell. Just now on MSNBC, Eugene Robinson said that the violent rhetoric now is coming exclusively from the right wing, and they should be accountable for it.

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This is video of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords on MSNBC on March 25, 2010, after her offices were vandalized, talking about the need for civility in our democratic discourse.

There will be a lot of hand-wringing in the coming days over the shooting of Rep. Giffords this morning at a constituent event -- some of it, almost certainly, from the folks at Fox, who will wonder aloud how this kind of thing could happen.

It can happen, in fact, because conservatives so thoughtlessly and readily use violent eliminationist rhetoric when talking about "liberals" (to wit: anyone who is not a conservative). They will adamantly deny it, of course, but the cold reality is that this kind of talk creates permission for angry and violent people to act it out.

There's nothing wrong with having a gun-themed event, if that's what you want to do. Count me out, but if you want to meet at a shooting range instead of a bowling alley or a baseball stadium, that's your right and your privilege.

There's also nothing wrong with having a "Help remove Gabrielle Giffords" event. That's what the R candidates in CD-8 are trying to do.

But to put it all together, starting with "Get on Target," moving to "remove Gabrielle Giffords," then finishing with "Shoot a fully automatic M16" . . .

That goes way beyond cute and clever and moves into a frightening linkage between shooting guns and removing Giffords.

Giffords, as she explained in the video above, was also target in March by vandals.

And Logan warned that it was just a matter of time before we saw this kind of violence last spring, when a gun was found after a Gifford event.

We don't yet know why the shooter -- identified as a 22-year-old man named Jared Laughner -- shot Giffords and a number of other people; we'll learn more as the day progresses. But it's impossible to survey the events so far and not come to the preliminary conclusion that this was yet another awful act inspired by right-wing hate rhetoric.

I warned against precisely this kind of outcome in my book, The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right. Events like this one, explained then, reflect

a particular trend that has manifested itself with increasing intensity in the past decade: the positing of elimination as the solution to political disagreement. Rather than engaging in a dialogue over political and cultural issues, one side simply dehumanizes its opponents and suggests, and at times demands, their excision. This tendency is almost singularly peculiar to the American Right and manifests itself in many venues: on radio talk shows and in political speeches, in bestselling books and babbling blogs. Most of all, we can feel it on the ground: in our everyday lives, in our encounters, big and small, with each other.

When the conservative movement's True Believers are fed a steady diet of extraordinary warnings intended to induce a paranoiac, panicked fear -- They're Destroying America! They Want to End Your Liberty! Health Care Reform is the End of America! -- and simultaneously fed a diet of suggestions that the solution is simply to do away with them (see Sean Hannity's recent bit of eliminationist "humor"), then what other outcome should you expect?

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So Arizona Gov. Jan "Death Panels" Brewer and her death panels are saving money by denying needed care. The wingnut irony deficiency is, as usual, in full flower: Brewer is saying the feds need to send her more money:

PHOENIX -- A second person denied transplant coverage by Arizona under a state budget cut has died, with this death "most likely" resulting from the coverage reduction, a hospital spokeswoman said Wednesday.

University Medical Center spokeswoman Jo Marie Gellerman said the patient died Dec. 28 at another medical facility after earlier being removed from UMC's list for a liver transplant needed because of hepatitis C.

Gellerman cited medical privacy requirements in declining to release any information about the patient.

Arizona reduced Medicaid coverage for transplants on Oct. 1 under cuts included to help close a shortfall in the state budget enacted last spring.

Officials at the Tucson, Ariz., hospital said the patient's death "most likely" resulted from Arizona's scaling back coverage for transplants, she said.

It's impossible to say with 100 percent certainty whether the patient would have died anyway, Gellerman said, "but we do know that his condition has gotten more severe since he was taken off the list."

The patient's worsening condition would have elevated his place on the list, she added.

A Phoenix-area man, Mark Price, died Nov. 28 of complications from preparation for a bone-marrow transplant that was to be privately funded. That funding was provided anonymously after The Associated Press and other media outlets reported that he was notified of two possible donors on Oct. 1, the same day the coverage was reduced.

The second person's death was reported by KOLD-TV in Tucson and the Arizona Guardian.

Democrats and other critics have slammed Republican Gov. Jan Brewer and the Republican-led Legislature for the transplant coverage reduction, and incoming Senate Minority Leader David Schapira called on them to restore the approximately $1.4 million of funding.

"Failure to restore this funding is a death sentence for people who have committed no crimes," he said.

The Bobblespeak Translations: Meet the Press - January 2. 2011

Emptywheel: Peter "Material Support for Terrorism" King

David E's Fablog: Goodbye Sailor

Jack & Jill Politics: In case you missed it, Arizona bans Ethnic Studies (h/t Blue Gal)

Bob Cesca: Adults? That's Rich

Bernard Avishai: Rising Calls For An American Imposed Peace Plan

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Last night, with Dana Perino filling in for Greta Van Susteren, Fox aired a genuinely creepy bit of fluff journalism from Griff Jenkins, heretofore best known for his Tea Party cheerleading schtick as well as his lame-ass ambush-journalism stunts.

This time, he decided to tackle a story about vigilante border watchers in Arizona with the same kind of cheerleading zeal:

GRIFF JENKINS, FOX CORRESPONDENT: Here along Arizona's southern border, outside of Douglas (ph), Arizona, one of the nation's most trafficked areas for illegal human and drug smuggling, one man, Lynn Kartchner, an Army veteran from Vietnam, a retired civil servant, keeps a watchful eye day and night, using only his resources. He's not a part of any militia or any affiliated group. He's not a part of the border patrol. He simply goes out with a few of his colleagues and tries to find illegal activity and report it to the authorities. So we traveled with only a camera to follow him on patrol to see what he could find.

Tell me, what do you do out here, and why are you doing this?

LYNN KARTCHNER, VOLUNTEER BORDER SECURITY: Well, there are a lot of gaps in the border patrol surveillance out here because they know they've driven most of the illegals, especially the drug smugglers, onto the ridgelines on both sides of the valley. And we're here to maintain surveillance over the bottom of the valley and to keep the people herded into those narrow corridors where they can -- where the border control can really concentrate on them.

We watch them parade around with night-vision scopes mounted atop .50-caliber rifles, watching for anyone their searchlight beam turns up. Of course, no one is caught using these tactics, so the report concludes:

JENKINS: It's a few hours from dawn now. Lynn realizes that his bright beam certainly gives away his location of surveillance. However, after spending several hours through the night surveilling things, even with the border patrol actually on operation not far from here, he's pretty sure that his light will serve as deterrent for any other foot or drug-smuggling trafficking in the area.

Lynn, we didn't see anything tonight. It'll be dawn soon. What do you make of it?

KARTCHNER: I think we've lit up and beat up the area enough here that we're not going to see anything else. So it's time to pack it up and go home. But we can say that at this place tonight, no criminal activity happened.

JENKINS: What's your message to the cartel guys on the other side of that border may be watching us?

KARTCHNER: Well, this is our country, and we're not giving it up, not without a fight.

Makes you wonder if this crew had anything to do with those shootings of border crossers earlier this year, in an area about a hundred miles west of where Jenkins shot this segment:

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Our favorite neo-Nazi-friendly legislator, Arizona's own Russell Pearce, has been hankering to revoke Latinos' birthright citizenship for a long time. But now he's actually the president of the Arizona State Senate -- which means he has real power.

And with SB1070 under his belt, he's ready to roll -- not just in Arizona, but nationally.

Interestingly, a recent Arizona Republic editorial actually begged him not to, considering that it's not going to do a thing to help Arizona get out of its budget crisis:

With Arizona facing huge shortfalls, this is no time for distractions.

It's hard to imagine a worse distraction than trying to write our own rules on citizenship.

Unfortunately, Senate President-elect Russell Pearce is a keen promoter of trying to reinterpret the 14th Amendment, which establishes birthright citizenship, through state law.

Never mind that the U.S. Constitution is completely outside the jurisdiction of state legislators. Or that the state faces its worst financial crisis ever.

This is like calling the fire department when your house is in flames - and the firefighters responding by rushing to Washington, D.C., to spray water on the Capitol.

There are wiser perspectives among the incoming legislators. Some senators supported Pearce, a Mesa Republican, for the top leadership job with the understanding that he wouldn't file a birthright bill.

That was, it turns out, more than a bit naive. Because there's nothing to stop someone else from dropping such legislation.

"I never pledged not to hear the bill," Pearce said in a recent Editorial Board meeting. "Will I facilitate it getting passed? Yes, I will."

Pearce claims that Arizona suffered no harm from Senate Bill 1070, his last do-it-yourself immigration-enforcement job. That's not what business people say. Arizona is still suffering from the economic damage, not to mention the bitter divisions, of that misguided law. The consequences - the opportunities lost, the long-lasting stain on our image - will stretch on for years.

In other words, Pearce pulled a fast one on his fellow Republicans in order to win the Senate presidency. Because yesterday, there he was on Fox's Your World with guest host Brian Sullivan, not only touting the bill essentially as his project -- and vowing to unveil it as a national project:

SULLIVAN: You are not keeping this in the Arizona borders. You are announcing this at the National Press Club, right, next week.

PEARCE: Yes. Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

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We all know this, right? We all know the birther goal is to delegitimize this country's first African-American President. It's just code for racist and even supremacist attitudes. Some things just shouldn't be articulated and this is one of them. When we're at a place in our discourse where we're chortling over the elected President of our country possibly being banned from one of the states he is governing, we have a serious problem.

Think Progress:

Today, a right-wing organization called Judicial Watch hosted a panel discussion on the “current and upcoming fights over immigration enforcement” featuring Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce (R). Pearce, the author of Arizona’s controversial immigration law, railed against the Obama administration for “siding with a foreign government” against the state of Arizona. However, looking on the bright side, Pearce joked that Obama may not want to come to Arizona as they will require him to show his papers:

A little levity is okay, I hope cause I like to [inaudible] at most things. But I can tell you that the best thing about [SB]-1070 is that Obama may not be visiting Arizona because we actually require papers now.

Here's another gem, this one aimed at Grijalva:

During the panel discussion, Pearce also suggested that Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) should run for “presidente” of Mexico.

When does free speech become seditious? Inquiring minds want to know.

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Well, we already knew that Sheriff Joe Arpaio's plan to create a "citizens posse" to hunt down illegal immigrants was one of the stupidest publicity stunts we'd ever heard of (not to mention a profoundly bad idea bound to end badly).

Now we get the proof: HULK SMASH IMMIGRANTS!

Television 'Hulk' actor Lou Ferrigno has joined an Arizona sheriff's posse targeting illegal immigrants in the Phoenix valley area, the sheriff's office said on Wednesday.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said Ferrigno, 59, a body builder who donned green makeup to star in the popular 1970s television series 'The Incredible Hulk,' was among 56 people sworn in as volunteers for an armed immigration posse.

Arpaio said the posse would work with sheriff's deputies in operations targeting smugglers and businesses suspected of employing illegal immigrants in the county, among other duties.

Also sworn in alongside Ferrigno: Steven Segal, world's biggest wanker action star.

As a protester who showed up at the event said:

"They must have sunk pretty low in their career to stand by Sheriff Joe Arpaio."

This whole scheme gives me the willies. You just know it's going to turn out badly, for everyone involved.

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Well, for anyone who's watched the saga of Sheriff Joe Arpaio's corruption bubbling along, this won't be a big surprise:

On November 10th, Fox News released their list of America's "toughest sheriffs" on immigration, applauding local law enforcers who want to file suit against Mexico and are encouraging armed vigilante groups in their Counties to name a few notable mentions. Not coincidentally, those named are also America's Worst Sheriff's with Sheriff Arpaio at the top of both lists.

The Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona runs an unaccredited jail facility due to poor standards and is the subject of more than 2,700 lawsuits for civil rights and other violations. Additionally, he's the subject of a two year Department of Justice investigation and an additional criminal investigation for misuse of funds.

The other mentions on the list share a similar profile. Frederick County, MD Sheriff Jenkins is the subject of a one million dollar civil rights racial profiling suit. Similarly the Cobb County, NC Sheriffs earned a lawsuit when their "toughest" officers stopped a 23 year old Latino man riding his bicycle and beat him up, breaking his nose and eye socket in the process.

That's pretty much backed up by the latest revelations regarding Arpaio's corruption. Eric W. Dolan at Raw Story has the rundown:

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Breitbart is carrying on in his usual fashion. Did you know he's Juan Williams now? FWIW, Alaska's KTVA has denied all claims made by Palin and Andy.

I was asked to go on ABC's Arizona event with Breitbart and I declined. The Plum Line makes a good case on why this matters.

Time and time again, Breitbart has shown himself willing to manipulate information in order to make easily falsifiable claims, a pattern that has most news organizations displaying greater caution in adopting his "scoops."

ABC News' decision to host Breitbart isn't a matter of ideological balance, since there are conservative media critics just as partisan who aren't as prone to distorting the truth who might have been tapped.

In this context, ABC News' decision to host Breitbart, in any capacity, is a political act that extends credibility where none has been earned. It legitimizes a figure the mainstream press should have learned by now to be suspicious of. It sends the message to other media organizations that Breitbart is someone who can be trusted not to deliberately mislead an audience that is presumably coming to ABC News to be informed about matters of politics and public policy, when evidence suggests the opposite is true. Most importantly, it's the first step in Breitbart's journey back to mainstream legitimacy.

And Kos knocks down more garbage from a man who is a vicious race-baiter.

From the lying sack of crap, Andrew Breitbart, on being invited on ABC News:

Apparently, a Daily Kos blogger has also been asked to participate. Daily Kos, as many of you may know, has been widely discredited for spreading malicious falsehoods and political extremism

Ha ha ha. No, we're not going to be on ABC News website this election night. We have our own website to focus on. Nice try, trying to drag us into this, Andrew, but why would we want to share a stage with a pathological liar?

I also find it funny that Breitbart is going around bragging about being an analyst, while ABC News furiously claims otherwise. Memo to ABC News: You invite a pathological liar and paranoid schizophrenic on your network, and he will lie. Lesson learned?

Tuesday will be a busy time for this website and truth and facts do matter to all of us here. Not so much with Andrew. He's been helping to drag this country backwards in race relations since he began to selectively edit audio and video. I made the mistake of doing a panel with him for a small charity event months ago for the LA Weekly and he turned it into a farce. So I won't be part of this event. He's not interested in policy or analysis -- only smears, racial resentment and distortions. And here's some info about his pal, Dana Loesch.

Digby caught Spitzer calling Loesch out on her nonsensical spin, which he described as "hoax and hokum from the Tea Party."

I think Spitzer did the best thing -- just call it gibberish, hokum and a hoax, which it is. If you grant this crap any validity at all, you've already lost the argument.