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Read: President Obama’s Tucson Arizona Memorial Speech

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To the families of those we’ve lost; to all who called them friends; to the students of this university, the public servants gathered tonight, and the people of Tucson and Arizona: I have come here tonight as an American who, like all Americans, kneels to pray with you today, and will stand by you tomorrow.

There is nothing I can say that will fill the sudden hole torn in your hearts. But know this: the hopes of a nation are here tonight. We mourn with you for the fallen. We join you in your grief. And we add our faith to yours that Representative Gabrielle Giffords and the other living victims of this tragedy pull through.

As Scripture tells us:

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells.
God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.

On Saturday morning, Gabby, her staff, and many of her constituents gathered outside a supermarket to exercise their right to peaceful assembly and free speech. They were fulfilling a central tenet of the democracy envisioned by our founders – representatives of the people answering to their constituents, so as to carry their concerns to our nation’s capital. Gabby called it “Congress on Your Corner” – just an updated version of government of and by and for the people.

That is the quintessentially American scene that was shattered by a gunman’s bullets. And the six people who lost their lives on Saturday – they too represented what is best in America.

Judge John Roll served our legal system for nearly 40 years. A graduate of this university and its law school, Judge Roll was recommended for the federal bench by John McCain twenty years ago, appointed by President George H.W. Bush, and rose to become Arizona’s chief federal judge. His colleagues described him as the hardest-working judge within the Ninth Circuit. He was on his way back from attending Mass, as he did every day, when he decided to stop by and say hi to his Representative. John is survived by his loving wife, Maureen, his three sons, and his five grandchildren.

George and Dorothy Morris – “Dot” to her friends – were high school sweethearts who got married and had two daughters. They did everything together, traveling the open road in their RV, enjoying what their friends called a 50-year honeymoon. Saturday morning, they went by the Safeway to hear what their Congresswoman had to say. When gunfire rang out, George, a former Marine, instinctively tried to shield his wife. Both were shot. Dot passed away.

A New Jersey native, Phyllis Schneck retired to Tucson to beat the snow. But in the summer, she would return East, where her world revolved around her 3 children, 7 grandchildren, and 2 year-old great-granddaughter. A gifted quilter, she’d often work under her favorite tree, or sometimes sew aprons with the logos of the Jets and the Giants to give out at the church where she volunteered. A Republican, she took a liking to Gabby, and wanted to get to know her better.

Dorwan and Mavy Stoddard grew up in Tucson together – about seventy years ago. They moved apart and started their own respective families, but after both were widowed they found their way back here, to, as one of Mavy’s daughters put it, “be boyfriend and girlfriend again.” When they weren’t out on the road in their motor home, you could find them just up the road, helping folks in need at the Mountain Avenue Church of Christ. A retired construction worker, Dorwan spent his spare time fixing up the church along with their dog, Tux. His final act of selflessness was to dive on top of his wife, sacrificing his life for hers.

Everything Gabe Zimmerman did, he did with passion – but his true passion was people. As Gabby’s outreach director, he made the cares of thousands of her constituents his own, seeing to it that seniors got the Medicare benefits they had earned, that veterans got the medals and care they deserved, that government was working for ordinary folks. He died doing what he loved – talking with people and seeing how he could help. Gabe is survived by his parents, Ross and Emily, his brother, Ben, and his fiancée, Kelly, who he planned to marry next year.

And then there is nine year-old Christina Taylor Green. Christina was an A student, a dancer, a gymnast, and a swimmer. She often proclaimed that she wanted to be the first woman to play in the major leagues, and as the only girl on her Little League team, no one put it past her. She showed an appreciation for life uncommon for a girl her age, and would remind her mother, “We are so blessed. We have the best life.” And she’d pay those blessings back by participating in a charity that helped children who were less fortunate.

Our hearts are broken by their sudden passing. Our hearts are broken – and yet, our hearts also have reason for fullness.

Our hearts are full of hope and thanks for the 13 Americans who survived the shooting, including the congresswoman many of them went to see on Saturday. I have just come from the University Medical Center, just a mile from here, where our friend Gabby courageously fights to recover even as we speak. And I can tell you this – she knows we’re here and she knows we love her and she knows that we will be rooting for her throughout what will be a difficult journey.

And our hearts are full of gratitude for those who saved others. We are grateful for Daniel Hernandez, a volunteer in Gabby’s office who ran through the chaos to minister to his boss, tending to her wounds to keep her alive. We are grateful for the men who tackled the gunman as he stopped to reload. We are grateful for a petite 61 year-old, Patricia Maisch, who wrestled away the killer’s ammunition, undoubtedly saving some lives. And we are grateful for the doctors and nurses and emergency medics who worked wonders to heal those who’d been hurt.

These men and women remind us that heroism is found not only on the fields of battle. They remind us that heroism does not require special training or physical strength. Heroism is here, all around us, in the hearts of so many of our fellow citizens, just waiting to be summoned – as it was on Saturday morning.

Their actions, their selflessness, also pose a challenge to each of us. It raises the question of what, beyond the prayers and expressions of concern, is required of us going forward. How can we honor the fallen? How can we be true to their memory?

You see, when a tragedy like this strikes, it is part of our nature to demand explanations – to try to impose some order on the chaos, and make sense out of that which seems senseless. Already we’ve seen a national conversation commence, not only about the motivations behind these killings, but about everything from the merits of gun safety laws to the adequacy of our mental health systems. Much of this process, of debating what might be done to prevent such tragedies in the future, is an essential ingredient in our exercise of self-government.

But at a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized – at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do – it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.

Scripture tells us that there is evil in the world, and that terrible things happen for reasons that defy human understanding. In the words of Job, “when I looked for light, then came darkness.” Bad things happen, and we must guard against simple explanations in the aftermath.

For the truth is that none of us can know exactly what triggered this vicious attack. None of us can know with any certainty what might have stopped those shots from being fired, or what thoughts lurked in the inner recesses of a violent man’s mind.

So yes, we must examine all the facts behind this tragedy. We cannot and will not be passive in the face of such violence. We should be willing to challenge old assumptions in order to lessen the prospects of violence in the future.

But what we can’t do is use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on one another. As we discuss these issues, let each of us do so with a good dose of humility. Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame, let us use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy, and remind ourselves of all the ways our hopes and dreams are bound together.

After all, that’s what most of us do when we lose someone in our family – especially if the loss is unexpected. We’re shaken from our routines, and forced to look inward. We reflect on the past. Did we spend enough time with an aging parent, we wonder. Did we express our gratitude for all the sacrifices they made for us? Did we tell a spouse just how desperately we loved them, not just once in awhile but every single day?

So sudden loss causes us to look backward – but it also forces us to look forward, to reflect on the present and the future, on the manner in which we live our lives and nurture our relationships with those who are still with us. We may ask ourselves if we’ve shown enough kindness and generosity and compassion to the people in our lives. Perhaps we question whether we are doing right by our children, or our community, and whether our priorities are in order. We recognize our own mortality, and are reminded that in the fleeting time we have on this earth, what matters is not wealth, or status, or power, or fame – but rather, how well we have loved, and what small part we have played in bettering the lives of others.

That process of reflection, of making sure we align our values with our actions – that, I believe, is what a tragedy like this requires. For those who were harmed, those who were killed – they are part of our family, an American family 300 million strong. We may not have known them personally, but we surely see ourselves in them. In George and Dot, in Dorwan and Mavy, we sense the abiding love we have for our own husbands, our own wives, our own life partners. Phyllis – she’s our mom or grandma; Gabe our brother or son. In Judge Roll, we recognize not only a man who prized his family and doing his job well, but also a man who embodied America’s fidelity to the law. In Gabby, we see a reflection of our public spiritedness, that desire to participate in that sometimes frustrating, sometimes contentious, but always necessary and never-ending process to form a more perfect union.

And in Christina…in Christina we see all of our children. So curious, so trusting, so energetic and full of magic.

So deserving of our love.

And so deserving of our good example. If this tragedy prompts reflection and debate, as it should, let’s make sure it’s worthy of those we have lost. Let’s make sure it’s not on the usual plane of politics and point scoring and pettiness that drifts away with the next news cycle.

The loss of these wonderful people should make every one of us strive to be better in our private lives – to be better friends and neighbors, co-workers and parents. And if, as has been discussed in recent days, their deaths help usher in more civility in our public discourse, let’s remember that it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy, but rather because only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to our challenges as a nation, in a way that would make them proud. It should be because we want to live up to the example of public servants like John Roll and Gabby Giffords, who knew first and foremost that we are all Americans, and that we can question each other’s ideas without questioning each other’s love of country, and that our task, working together, is to constantly widen the circle of our concern so that we bequeath the American dream to future generations.

I believe we can be better. Those who died here, those who saved lives here – they help me believe. We may not be able to stop all evil in the world, but I know that how we treat one another is entirely up to us. I believe that for all our imperfections, we are full of decency and goodness, and that the forces that divide us are not as strong as those that unite us.

That’s what I believe, in part because that’s what a child like Christina Taylor Green believed. Imagine: here was a young girl who was just becoming aware of our democracy; just beginning to understand the obligations of citizenship; just starting to glimpse the fact that someday she too might play a part in shaping her nation’s future. She had been elected to her student council; she saw public service as something exciting, something hopeful. She was off to meet her congresswoman, someone she was sure was good and important and might be a role model. She saw all this through the eyes of a child, undimmed by the cynicism or vitriol that we adults all too often just take for granted.

I want us to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it. All of us – we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children’s expectations.

Christina was given to us on September 11th, 2001, one of 50 babies born that day to be pictured in a book called “Faces of Hope.” On either side of her photo in that book were simple wishes for a child’s life. “I hope you help those in need,” read one. “I hope you know all of the words to the National Anthem and sing it with your hand over your heart. I hope you jump in rain puddles.”

If there are rain puddles in heaven, Christina is jumping in them today. And here on Earth, we place our hands over our hearts, and commit ourselves as Americans to forging a country that is forever worthy of her gentle, happy spirit.

May God bless and keep those we’ve lost in restful and eternal peace. May He love and watch over the survivors. And may He bless the United States of America.

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News

Mark Robinson Scandal Could Bring Trump Down in ‘Reverse Coattails’ Effect: Expert

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12 hours ago

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September 19, 2024

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Thursday’s bombshell revelations about North Carolina Republican Mark Robinson could not only doom his gubernatorial candidacy, but Donald Trump’s campaign as well, according to one of the most respected political experts.

According to CNN, Robinson, the current Lt. Governor who is the GOP’s gubernatorial nominee, “made a series of inflammatory comments on a pornography website’s message board more than a decade ago, in which he referred to himself as a ‘black NAZI!’ and expressed support for reinstating slavery.”

CNN’s KFile also reveals that Robinson, a far-right Christian nationalist who has targeted the LGBTQ community, “said he enjoyed watching transgender pornography, a review of archived messages found in which he also referred to himself as a ‘perv.'”

On the website Nude Africa, “Robinson discussed his affinity for transgender pornography.”

READ MORE: ‘Straight Up Fascist Project’: Vance Slammed for Vowing to Call Legal Immigrants ‘Illegal’

“I like watching tranny on girl porn! That’s f*cking hot! It takes the man out while leaving the man in!” Robinson wrote, according to CNN. “And yeah I’m a ‘perv’ too!”

The article also notes that “CNN is reporting only a small portion of Robinson’s comments on the website given their graphic nature.”

Professor of politics Larry Sabato, the highly-respected political scientist and political analyst and founder and director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics and Sabato’s Crystal Ball says his team has held an “emergency session” to review the report and is moving its prediction for governor of North Carolina from “Lean Democratic” to “Likely Democratic”:

“The Crystal Ball team has just met in emergency session, and in the fastest rating change in our history, we are moving NC GOVERNOR from Lean D to LIKELY D.”

READ MORE: Donald Trump Just Made One of His Most Racist Attacks Yet – and the Media Is Ignoring It

Sabato adds, “Our Crystal Ball rating for NC Governor has been Lean D. Mark Robinson (R) was going to lose even before this new story. The question is whether Robinson brings down the top of the ticket (Donald Trump) with him. Those 16 electoral votes could be the whole election.”

Asked on social media, “What kind of drag can the Gov race have on the Presidential race in NC?” Sabato replied: “Reverse coattails. It happens from time to time. Can dampen a party’s turnout.”

Trump also vociferously and enthusiastically endorsed Robinson. The Harris campaign was quick to post video of that endorsement after the scandal broke.

Political analysts have been saying North Carolina is a critical state given the current Electoral map.

“There are really only three states that will decide the presidential election: Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia,” Politico reported Thursday morning. “If Vice President Kamala Harris can’t carry Pennsylvania, her only hope is on a Southern strategy. Harris must win either Georgia or North Carolina. She has no other path to the White House.”

And if Trump “wins the East Coast trio of Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia, he will go back to the White House,” Politico added.

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: Yes, Republicans Are Lying — and They’re Not Going to Stop: ‘Enjoy It’

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OPINION

Donald Trump Just Made One of His Most Racist Attacks Yet – and the Media Is Ignoring It

Published

15 hours ago

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September 19, 2024

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For the most part, the mainstream media has largely (though not entirely) stopped holding Donald Trump accountable by reporting just how much more extreme he is becoming, just how much more racist and divisive he has grown.

At his Wednesday rally in Long Island – the largely purple neighbor to New York City and one that has many right-wing staunchly conservative areas – the former president continued to push his attacks on immigrants. And not just undocumented immigrants, but all immigrants – or at least, non-European immigrants.

Political strategists have been questioning why Trump is campaigning in states he is all but guaranteed to lose (New York, California) and states he is all but guaranteed to win (Florida), but here’s just a small portion of what the ex-president told Long Islanders just 48 days before Election Day (full video.)

READ MORE: Yes, Republicans Are Lying — and They’re Not Going to Stop: ‘Enjoy It’

“For every New Yorker being terrorized by this wave of migrant crime, and I’ve been talking about migrant crime for five years. I said, if you let them in, it’s going to be hell. They are vicious, violent criminals that are being led into our country, their people that their countries, who are very smart, they don’t want them. That’s why, all over the world, a lot of people coming from jails, out of the Congo in Africa.”

“‘Where do you come from?’ ‘The Congo,'” Trump said, mimicking a pretend conversation.

“‘Where in the Congo?’ ‘We come from jail.’ ‘What did you do?’ ‘We will not tell you’.”

“They’re coming from the Congo. They’re coming from Africa. They’re coming from the Middle East. They’re coming from all over the world, Asia, lot of it coming from Asia, and what’s happening to our country is we’re just destroying the fabric of life in our country, and we’re not going to take it any longer. And you got to get rid of these people. Give me a shot. You will have a safe New York within three months. Three months.”

Trump continued:

“For every New Yorker being terrorized by this wave of migrant crime, November 5 will be your Liberation Day. It’s going to be liberation because you are living like hell. You’re living a life like hell.”

(There is no “wave of migrant crime,” crime is largely way down.)

READ MORE: ‘Straight Up Fascist Project’: Vance Slammed for Vowing to Call Legal Immigrants ‘Illegal’

After talking about “MS-13,” Trump added:

“They’re coming in by the millions. Not by the hundreds. They’re coming in by the millions. Think of it, probably 21 million people. That’s probably a low number. We can do all of this and more, but patriotic New Yorkers must get your asses out to vote,” Trump urged, before launching into another pretend conversation.

“‘Harry, get up. Harry, Harry, get your fat ass out of the couch. You’re going to vote for Trump today. Harry, get up. Harry, come on. Let’s go. Let’s go, Harry.'”

Watch a portion of those remarks below or at this link.

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OPINION

Yes, Republicans Are Lying — and They’re Not Going to Stop: ‘Enjoy It’

Published

16 hours ago

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September 19, 2024

By

This week, a Christian podcaster offered up what might be seen as a permission slip – or a “get out of jail free card” – for Republicans who have been lying to the American people: “enjoy it.”

“It’s okay to use deception in service of defeating the left. It’s not sinning in order to do good. It’s being righteously shrewd in order to do good. It’s also okay to enjoy it. Lighten up.”


Those are the words of Josh Daws, whose bio at Founders Ministries says he is “dedicated to helping Christians navigate the complex and rapidly changing cultural landscape through his biblically-based cultural analysis.”

Daws “strives to provide insightful and thought-provoking commentary on current events and cultural trends on his podcast and Twitter. He hopes to be a valuable resource for those looking to engage with culture in a meaningful and informed way.”

The tweet has been viewed well over a half-million times in just 48 hours, and it seems to sum up where the right and the far-right are at this moment in time – ethics be damned, the ends justify the means.

When a reporter for Politico on Wednesday confronted Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance, the U.S. Senator for Ohio who has been spreading racist and dangerous lies about his own constituents – immigrants from Haiti legally living and working in the city of Springfield – falsely claiming they are stealing pets and eating them, he dug in his heels.

Donald Trump during the debate had lied, saying infamously off the Haitian immigrants, “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating, they’re eating, the pets of the people that live there.”

The reporter reminded Vance that the Haitian immigrants, whom he has been calling “illegal migrants,” are in the United States under a 1990 law signed by President George H.W. Bush, “so they are here legally.”

The freshman junior senator made clear he did not care.

“Well, if Kamala Harris waves the wand illegally and says these people are now here legally, I’m still going to call them an illegal alien. An illegal action from Kamala Harris does not make an alien legal. That is not how this works,” declared the defiant Vance, who holds a law degree from Yale and knows that they are, in fact, here legally and the Biden Administration’s decision to grant them protection means they are not, as he claimed, “illegal.”

In short, Senator Vance was lying, and lying to a crowd, however small, who ate it up, cheering, applauding, and at times nodding in agreement.

RELATED: ‘Straight Up Fascist Project’: Vance Slammed for Vowing to Call Legal Immigrants ‘Illegal’

“This is just shocking,” declared former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, now a professor of political science. “Mr. Vance is blatantly calling a legal action illegal. I’ve studied my whole life how democracies break down. This is how it happens folks. I hope he really doesn’t believe this. Politicians say a lot of crazy things during elections. I fear he might.”

Senator Vance has been lying since Monday of last week, when he first promoted the racist “pet-eating” lie.

“Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country. Where is our border czar?” Vance asked on social media, referring of course to Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for President, who has never been the “border czar.”

Vance, or his staff, according to a Wall Street Journal report Wednesday, knew he was lying, or at least knew after his remarks were posted. They remain up to this day, never corrected or removed.

Over the weekend, Senator Vance, now infamously, told CNN, effectively, that he is willing to lie to promote his agenda.

“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do,” Vance told host Dana Bash.

“You just said that you’re ‘creating’ a story,” Bash responded, as The New Republic reported. “You just said that this is a story that you created.”

“Yes!” Vance replied, before twisting his own words in a nonsensical defense.

“We are creat—we are creating … Dana,” Vance said. “It comes from firsthand accounts from my constituents. I say that we’re ‘creating a story’ meaning we’re creating the American media focusing on it.”

The New Republic’s Greg Sergeant added, “JD Vance is also claiming that because of Haitians, communicable diseases in Springfield have ‘skyrocketed.’ I talked to the health commissioner in Clark County, where Springfield is located. Vance’s claim is nonsense.”

READ MORE: GOP Furious Trump-Appointed Fed Chair Cut Interest Rates ‘This Close to an Election’

Republicans outright lying have making headlines of late.

“The Real Reason Trump and Vance Are Spreading Lies About Haitians” (The Atlantic)

“How J.D. Vance Became Trump’s Pet Liar” (New York Magazine‘s Intelligencer)

“How the Trump Campaign Ran With Rumors About Pet-Eating Migrants—After Being Told They Weren’t True” (Wall Street Journal)

“One of the Republican Convention’s Weirdest Lies” (New York Times)

“The Grand Old Party of Liars” (The Nation)

There is, 0f course, Donald Trump, who lies so often the media stopped bothering to keep up. Questions have been flowing about his lies of late that are so off-the-wall and so provably-false, his grasp of reality is being called into question.

Wednesday night, in a rare on-camera, in-studio Fox News interview, Trump, (still talking about last week’s debate,) falsely claimed the ABC News moderators corrected him, “I think nine times, or eleven times.”

The right-wing New York Post reported Trump was fact-checked five times, not nine, not eleven.

CNN reported Trump made 33 false statements during the debate, Harris just one.

But it was Trump’s next remark, also false, that has many calling into question not just his moral character, but his mental health.

“And the audience was, they went crazy.”

There was no audience at that debate.

The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols remarked: “How is it that Trump hallucinated an audience being present during the debate and we’ve just moved on as if this isn’t a sign of a serious mental problem? Biden – wisely – agreed to step aside for far less than that.”

On Wednesday, journalist and SiriusXM host Michelangelo Signorile wrote at Substack, “Why MAGA views blatant lying as a righteous and important act.”

Signorile highlighted this recent lie by Donald Trump: “Think of it. Your kid goes to school and comes home a few days later with an operation. The school decides what’s going to happen with your child. And many of these childs 15 years later say, ‘What the hell happened? Who did this to me?'”

Signorile noted Trump’s claims were “so deranged and kooky—as if there are hospitals in schools or kids are being transferred to hospitals in the middle of the day from their classrooms—that many of us thought it was a clear example of Trump’s continued cognitive decline. He did, after all, say ‘many of these childs’ instead of ‘children,’ and that was more evidence of his faltering mental acuity.”

But.

“But Trump repeated the claim again days later at a rally, continuing to push something that was deemed false even by his staunchest supporters,” Signorile continued. “And that is a real tell.”

He explains, “the goal of the lying by Trump and his running mate JD Vance,” is “to hijack discussion and redirect it to issues they want to talk about, even if it means they are exposed as having told a lie.”

Signorile says, “the MAGA masses are perfectly fine with that strategy. They don’t care about the lies being exposed because the lies are a means to an end.”

As for Daws’ s defense of using “deception in service of defeating the left,” attorney Andrew L. Seidel writes, “I often speak about Christian Nationalism as a permission structure. For instance, CN gave the insurrectionists the moral and mental license they needed for the treasonous assault on our democracy on January 6th. Here is that permission structure laid out explicitly.”

SiriusXM host John Fugelsang remarked, “I have never read a purer distillation of MAGA Christianity than ‘thou shalt bear false witness.'”

Others have remarked simply, “Romans 3:8.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: New GOP Strategy: Skyrocket the Cost of Health Insurance and Prescription Drugs

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