NYT's Nagourney Suggests Gov. Brewer, Opposition to Obama-Care and Illegals Led to Toxic Atmosphere in AZ
Two days in a row, New York Times reporter Adam Nagourney has suggested that Arizona’s heated conservative rhetoric may have created a toxic atmosphere for gunman Jared Loughner to function in.
Yesterday Nagourney commented on a speech by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer the day before addressing the shootings in Tucson, in an article with the leading headline “Governor Strives to Restore Arizona’s Reputation.” As if Arizona bore some blame for anything one of its six million residents may have done.
Her remarks, a downstate reprise of the official State of the State address she gave to lawmakers in Phoenix on Monday, illustrate the challenges Ms. Brewer faces. She is eagerly trying to defend a state whose reputation has been battered in recent years, particularly since the massacre here on Saturday.
But fairly or not, Arizona’s image has been forged in part because of Ms. Brewer herself, who has been identified with the tough law aimed at illegal immigrants, budget cuts that include denying aid to people who need life-saving transplants and laws permitting people to take concealed guns into bars and banning the teaching of ethnic studies in public schools.
Nagourney sidled up to the suggestion that Brewer’s allegedly “incendiary remarks” about drug violence spreading from Mexico to the United States had something to do with threats to Giffords.
More of an obstacle might be some of the incendiary remarks she has made as governor, such as claiming, without foundation, that headless bodies had been found in the desert. She made that statement in signing the bill that gave the police wide authority to demand proof of citizenship from people suspected of being illegal immigrants.
“She really did get caught up in a lot of this rhetoric that we are now concerned about as it relates to Gabby,” said Bruce Merrill, a professor emeritus at Arizona State University.
Earlier, on Tuesday, Nagourney threw in all the potentially combustible ingredients of Arizona politics -- guns, border control, health care -- and tried to make it add up to a stew of violence in a front-page story: “In Giffords’s District, a Long History of Tension.” (The story was reported by Nagourney, with additional reporting from Sam Dolnick and Katharine Seelye).
When Nagourney discussed divisions in Arizona "over government spending, immigration, health care and Barack Obama," it was easy for readers to conjure up conservative villains.
Representative Gabrielle Giffords was distressed when the glass front door of her district office here was shattered by a kick or a pellet gun last March, an act of vandalism that took place hours after she joined Democrats in passing President Obama’s health care bill. “Things have really gotten spun up,” she told a television interviewer the next day.
But tensions have long run high in the Eighth Congressional District of Arizona, a classic swing district that shares a 114-mile border with Mexico. Protesters chained themselves to the desks of Ms. Giffords’s Republican predecessor, Jim Kolbe, 12 years ago. And over the past year, Ms. Giffords struggled in a brutal re-election campaign during which her opponent appeared in a Web advertisement holding an assault weapon. The district has become a caldron of divisions over government spending, immigration, health care and Barack Obama.
....
Ms. Giffords was seeking re-election at a time when Arizona passed a tough law aimed at illegal immigrants, which Ms. Giffords opposed, and as the state faced a threatened boycott from parts of the nation for passing a law that many people saw as intolerant.
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Comments
Was the shooter a Mexican who wants to be here illegally?
Submitted by Red Jeep on Thu, 01/13/2011 - 12:27pm.
Did the shooter attempt to kill Rep. Giffords because she is against tough immigration laws? Confusing.
"More of an obstacle might be some of the incendiary remarks she has made as governor, such as claiming, without foundation, that headless bodies had been found in the desert." ?!?! Every week I read about headless bodies here and there in that area, don't you?
What's this "Gabby" business? Informality like that leads to lack of respect for the person and the office they hold. She is Representative Giffords, period.
Is Adam Nagourney confused?
Job Prospect
Submitted by SnapTie on Thu, 01/13/2011 - 12:16pm.
Since part of SB1070 went into effect more legal citizens have found employment.They should be thanking her.
Boggling
Submitted by jon_torlin on Thu, 01/13/2011 - 12:17pm.
These liberal's concepts of the law are just absolutely mind boggling some times.....well, no, all the time. Makes one's head hurt sometimes.
I don't know how you NB people do it when it comes to reporting these things.
-Jon
Messiah's advice eschewed
Submitted by Cactus Kurt on Thu, 01/13/2011 - 12:19pm.
Apparently, the libs aren't paying much attention to the advice Obama gave during the memorial service last night.
JFK Assasination and OKC Bombing
Submitted by sevans1956 on Thu, 01/13/2011 - 12:19pm.
If one were to look at the newspapers from the day/days following the JFK assassination you will read that Texas was a hotbed of right wing conservatives and the climate in Texas was probably the cause of his death. Depending upon what you believe, L,H, Oswald was a NUT, just like this kid in AZ.
The day after the OKC bombing, the media immediately speculated that it was certainly Muslim terrorists that caused this bombing. Once they found out it was a right wing NUT, they were greatly relieved because now they could blame Rush and every other talk show host..
Sometimes rhetoric can cause violence. A peaceful demonstration can lead to mob mentality. But that did not happen here.
BTW, weren't the Weathermen (aka Bill Ayers) spewing rhetoric? They also were planting bombs that killed. But that is OK? Right?
Amazing. She points out tough
Submitted by ant on Thu, 01/13/2011 - 12:23pm.
Amazing. She points out tough law, like actually enforcing common sense laws are tough then blames that as part of the heated rhetoric and anger, further citing the rule against "ethnic studies" in the classroom. If she wants to see an example of heated rhetoric and race-based social division she should sit in on an "ethnic studies lesson". Then again, if she went to journalism school, she was probably already required to do so.
Raise or Lower?
Submitted by Caringwhiteguy on Thu, 01/13/2011 - 12:31pm.
Would it raise or lower the tone of discourse if I called Nagourney the same thing Dick Cheney called him?
The sign of a zealot is one who keeps on fighting . . .
Submitted by Galvanic on Thu, 01/13/2011 - 12:32pm.
. . . after the battle is lost.
The Left and its MSM megaphone eagerly got ahead of the facts in order to shape the story to their liking and their purposes.
Now that we know a lot more about the killer, and a recent poll indicates that 57% of the American people don't believe the "harsh political" environment was a motivation for the murders, there remain some zealots who continue throw manure all around hoping that it will stick to something.
One thing we have learned is that Loughner believed that the wars we are fighing are unconstitutional. Doesn't that put him in Obama's camp?
Sticking Manure
Submitted by NVRAT on Thu, 01/13/2011 - 2:20pm.
So far it`s sicking to them, the MSM of course thats where it belongs be cause thats where 99.9% of it comes from.
~It's funny
Submitted by Wrathful Brunette on Thu, 01/13/2011 - 2:59pm.
how the people who get all up in arms about the "Constitutionality" of things like the WOT suddenly lose interest when it comes to ObamaCare.
First the Tea Party, then Palin, Now is Gov. Brewer?
Submitted by gruyere cheese on Thu, 01/13/2011 - 12:47pm.
Seriously folks, are liberal minds so deranged that they cannot accept reality? After their list of suspects runs out; who will be to blame next?
You don't hear these lunatics cast blame or even address the fact that the shooter is MENTALLY UNSTABLE and you know why? Because, "they" the Liberals are just as crazy as he is....there I said it!!
I am from neither party (independant), but the Liberal party is having a hard time convincing the rest of us that they are the party of change, because they are still feeling the effects of the whatever they smoked or drank in 2008. Their hangover is never ending!
Yeah, yeah, the good old NYT
Submitted by StarAZ on Thu, 01/13/2011 - 12:47pm.
I keep reading it--can't quit it. Of course, they staked out Palin as the sacrificial bait and invited everyone to comment on the speech. She wasn't there that I saw. I did see a bunch of people cheering at a funeral. I am in a bad mood today--I guess I have not been folded into the American family.
"Never let a funeral go to
Submitted by ant on Thu, 01/13/2011 - 2:48pm.
"Never let a funeral go to waste.. what I mean by that is, it's a chance to have a pep rally that maybe you couldn't have had before."
LEGAL IMMIGRATION IS NOT THE PROBLEM? IT'S WHAT ILLEGAL IMMIGR
Submitted by Brittanicus on Thu, 01/13/2011 - 10:32pm.
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IS NOT ABOUT RACE, BIGOTRY OR ANY DISCRIMINATION ON THIS SUFFOCATING ISSUE. PLAIN AND SIMPLE, IT'S ABOUT MONEY! MONEY OUR COUNTRY DOESN'T HAVE ANYMORE TO SUPPORT MILLIONS OF ILLEGAL FOREIGNERS. IT’S ABOUT THE POLITICIANS PANDERING TO GET VOTES OR IMPORT CHEAP LABOR AND EXPLOIT THEM FOR BUSINESS OWNERS?
THERE ARE MILLIONS OF HONEST LEGAL PEOPLE FROM SOUTH OF THE BORDER, WITH GENERATIONS OF FAMILIES LIVING HERE IN HARMONY.THE MAJORITY OF LEGAL MINORITY ETHNIC GROUPS WANT IMMIGRATION LAWS ENFORCED? Investigate the costs on your own, about the growing illegal alien invasion. Our nation’s public welfare system is falling apart, because the indifferent lawmakers have been for years raiding the financial coffers of every State to educate children of illegal immigrants, offer free health care and whole cartload of extra monetary programs. The irony is that the majority of the occupational forces have never paid a penny into any treasury. The US Tea party is a secular, multi-racial propagating organization, which believes in the written word of America’s founders, less taxes, smaller government, secure borders and enforcement of the 1986 immigration laws.
ANY KIND OF AMNESTY, WHETHER THE DREAM ACT OR ANY OTHER IMMIGRATION REFORM WILL DRIVE MILLIONS MORE ILLEGAL ALIENS IN AMERICA'S DIRECTION TO CLAIM THEIR WELFARE HAND-OUTS.
Now is the time in joining the Tea Party movement near you and reclaim your rights and halt once and for all illegal immigration. Phone 202-224-3121 which is the switchboard number for Washington; so that you can also contact your Congressional representative In addition contact your State representative in your State. Read the undisclosed reports about the unbelievable cost in Los Angeles County, California, attributing to illegal immigration. http://articles.latimes.com/2010/sep/05/local/la-me-illegal-welfare-20100906
In Stockton, California, the Silverio family abused the welfare system fraudulently and was featured in the Wall Street Journal in 2003and the "stomach churning" financial free ride after entering America illegally. This is not an isolated case. http://www.jpands.org/vol10no1/cosman.pdf
Little known to American citizens and legal entrants is the fraudulent IRS child credit regulations, and this should be viewed by every taxpaying American: http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2009/apr/irs-gives-illegal-aliens-billions-refunds/ and for further reading to explore: http://www.cis.org/child-tax-credits
If this doesn't make you furious nothing will?
Learn all there is to know about your share of illegal immigrant tax, cost, corruption, real numbers illegally settled here and the damage of overpopulation at www.numbersusa.com and www.judicialwatch.org. We need highly skilled workers for our nation, not the penniless or uneducated of foreign governments to support.
I actually think
Submitted by mostlymoderate on Thu, 01/13/2011 - 10:40pm.
I actually think spanish-speaking, illegal-aliens caused this ordeal. Loughner "slipped through the cracks" because the public schools are too overfilled with illegals and the teacher doesn't have enough time to have any one-on-one with each student like they did 30 years ago. Somebody might have been able to stop Loughner in K-12.
Loughner might have felt isolated too because everybody in class was speaking spanish and not english.
There, I can make stupid accusations too. Just like the NYT.