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Hate Speech And Shootings: Why Can’t The Right See The Connection?

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A few months ago, just after September’s devastating anti-gay bulling suicides that took the lives of at least ten teens, the Public Religion Research Institute released an amazing study that showed sixty-five percent of Americans — a vast majority — blame churches for the “higher rates of suicide among gay and lesbian youth,” and that seventy-two percent of Americans believe “messages 
about 
the 
issue 
of 
homosexuality
 coming 
from
 places
 of 
worship 
contribute
 to negative
 views 
of 
gay 
and 
lesbian
 people.” Additionally, forty-three percent of Americans, a plurality, “think 
messages
 on
 the 
issue 
of
 homosexuality 
coming 
from
 America’s
 places 
of 
worship 
are
 generally 

negative.”

Saturday’s unthinkable tragedy in Tucson, Arizona, which left six dead, including a nine-year old girl, three women in their seventies, and a federal judge, and a dozen or more wounded, including Gabby Giffords, the Democratic Congresswoman for that district, has sparked more conversation around the world about the connection between hate speech, virulent and violent rhetoric, and shootings than I could ever imagine.

From the Tea Party in Tucson, which refuses to tamp down its rhetoric even after Saturday’s massacre, to Fidel Castro in Cuba, to Sarah Palin’s aide’s lie that they never intended her crosshairs map to look like it had crosshairs, (rather, “surveyor’s symbols,”) and elsewhere around the world, people everywhere are talking about whether or not there is a connection between America’s climate of hate speech and the Tucson shootings.

Many on the Left immediately pointed fingers at the politicians and pundits on the Right: Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, Sharon Angle, Michele Bachmann, the GOP in general, and others who have peddled their wares of hatred, hate speech, and division upon an all-to-eager to accept the politics of hate as acceptably American “free speech” public.

The Right fought back, just as virulently and hatefully as ever. In fact, Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips falsely wrote, “We need to remind everyone, the shooter was a liberal lunatic.” Of course, this is a lie; Jared Lee Loughner, the man who shot nineteen people on Saturday in Tucson, including Congresswoman Giffords, is a registered Independent, showing no signs of being a liberal or a Democrat, or fitting into any reasonable political mold.)

The conversation America is pretending to have now is, sadly appropriately Fox News-inspired: pseudo-“fair and balanced.”

Those on the Right have ponied-up their encyclopedias of Left-inspired hate against Bush, Palin, et al. Those on the Left have ponied-up their encyclopedias of Right-inspired hate against, well, everyone. Gays, immigrants, Obama, Hispanics, Muslims, etc. (Here’s my contribution.)

But the debate we need to have is impossible, and that became crystal-clear to me yesterday when I hear Rachel Sklar debate conservative radio host Steve Malzberg on CNN’s “Reliable Sources.”

Malzberg was ranting about how Palin had nothing to do with the shooting and there was no way she should be held accountable, while Sklar said Palin’s crosshairs map, which targeted twenty Democratic Congressmen, including Giffords, contributed to the virulent climate and that it wasn’t a “stretch” to say that Palin’s map was “a bad idea.” Sklar met him half way; Malzberg couldn’t even make that connection.

The Right is so focused on protecting their way of life of regulation-free gun-carrying, regulation-free verbal assaults, regulation-free everything, that they have created an expensive climate for the rest of us. And sometimes, the cost of “regulation-free” is death.

But the real question here is, why can’t — or won’t — the Right accept the fact that their own hate speech contributed to the climate and environment of hate that led to Saturday’s killing of six people, and wounding of a dozen more?

And why can’t — or won’t — the Right accept the fact that phrases like, “Don’t Retreat, Instead – RELOAD!” or, “If ballots don’t work, bullets will,” invite and incite the very violence we saw Saturday.

The other important question is why won’t America accept the fact that guns kill, and guns need to be, yes, controlled.

According to Daniel Vice of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, “In a typical weekend in the United States, more people are shot and killed than in an average year in Australia; the same is true in Britain, and other countries that have tougher gun laws.”

Just look at these all-too-recent headlines from polling giant Gallup:

In U.S., Continuing Record-Low Support for Stricter Gun Control

Fewer Americans Want Stricter Gun Laws

In U.S., Record-Low Support for Stricter Gun Laws

Sadly, America is a very “gun-friendly” country, but not a very “gay-friendly” one.

But if our not very gay-friendly America can finally make the connection between churches and houses of worship contributing to the suicides among gay and lesbian youth, surely America can make the connection between the hate speech of rabid right wing politicians and pundits — the Sarah Palins and the Glenn Becks, the Michelle Malkins and the Michele Bachmanns, the Rush Limbaughs and the Sharron Angles — and the massacre in Tucson?

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‘Grave Concern’: Democrats Demand DHS Preserve All Corey Lewandowski Records

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Three top House Democrats have requested the Department of Homeland Security preserve all records concerning longtime Trump ally Corey Lewandowski, a DHS special adviser to outgoing Secretary Kristi Noem. The Democrats have also separately requested that the Inspector General open a review into Lewandowski.

Investigative reporter Scott MacFarlane reported in an exclusive that the three top Democrats on the House Homeland Security, Oversight, and Transportation and Infrastructure Committees alleged Lewandowski, a Special Government Employee, served as a “shadow chief-of-staff” to Noem. They also “alleged Lewandowski might have violated rules and restrictions of designated Special Government Employees.”

“We write with grave concern regarding reports alleging serious misconduct at the highest levels of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS),” reads the letter from the three ranking members to Secretary Noem’s office.

“At the center of these allegations sits Mr. Corey Lewandowski, who continues to use his access to DHS leadership to wield outsized and undue influence over the Department,” they charge. “We demand DHS preserve all communications and internal records concerning Mr. Lewandowski’s role within the Department, as well as the Department’s practices, policies, and procedures related to contracting, personnel, and the handling of classified materials.”

READ MORE: ‘Is Tulsi Next?’ Questions Swirl About Future of National Intelligence Director

“Any deviation from standard record-keeping will be treated as an attempt to hide or destroy evidence,” they warned.

They also “alleged Lewandowski might have violated rules and restrictions of designated Special Government Employees,” MacFarlane reported.

The letter requests a broad range of records, including communications between Lewandowski and DHS personnel, contractors, and advisers regarding personnel, contracting, and other department operations, as well as “all communications between Mr. Lewandowski and personnel associated with the United States DOGE Service.”

Lawmakers are also seeking documents on Lewandowski’s finances, recusals due to potential conflicts of interest, and involvement in DHS decision-making.

READ MORE: White House Scrambles for Damage Control After National Security Official’s Abrupt Exit

 

Image via Reuters 

 

 

 

 

 

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‘Is Tulsi Next?’ Questions Swirl About Future of National Intelligence Director

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Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s future in the Trump administration is being questioned after her top aide and “closest adviser,” Joe Kent — who served as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center — abruptly resigned in protest against the Iran war on Tuesday.

Trump White House reporter Jake Lahut commented that Kent’s resignation “puts Tulsi in an even more precarious position.”

“Embarrassing for Tulsi,” remarked Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark.

Gabbard’s standing in the administration has at times appeared tenuous, and has been questioned before, including over Iran — the reason Kent quit.

As The Hill reported last June, Gabbard’s “strength and standing within the Trump administration” were coming under question “after the president twice publicly brushed off her testimony that Iran is not close to developing a nuclear weapon, and amid reports of tensions between the two.”

Gabbard’s “anti-war stance” at the time fit in with the “MAGA movement’s aversion to getting the U.S. sucked into foreign conflicts,” although now Trump voters largely support his Iran war.

Gabbard was told by the White House to fire Kent for being a “known leaker,” but “she never did,” according to Fox News’ Aishah Hasnie, citing a senior Trump administration official. Hasnie also reported that Kent “was cut out of” the president’s intelligence briefings “months ago,” and that Kent “has not been part of any Iran planning discussions or briefings at all.”

MS NOW national security contributor Marc Polymeropoulos, a former CIA officer, called Kent’s resignation a “nuke from a true MAGA member,” and commented, the “big question, is Tulsi next?”

Michael V. Hayden Center director Larry Pfeiffer asked, “Over/under on how quickly Gabbard throws Kent under the bus at the hearing tomorrow?” Last year, Pfeiffer called Gabbard “the perfectly dangerous mix of incompetence, narcissism, sycophancy, and malign intent.”

Gabbard is slated to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday and before the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday.

Republican former U.S. Rep. Barbara Comstock summed it up, asking, Gabbard “kept on a known leaker in a national security position?”

“Let’s face it,” she added, “Tulsi has been cut out too because she agrees with Kent – or at least always did before Trump flipped his position.”

Far-right political activist Laura Loomer, who at times has had the ear of President Trump, responded to Kent’s resignation by predicting that Gabbard “will resign next.”

 

Image via Shutterstock

 

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White House Scrambles for Damage Control After National Security Official’s Abrupt Exit

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The Trump White House is scrambling to contain fallout after Tuesday’s sudden, very public, and high-profile resignation of its top counterterrorism official — the first senior departure linked to the Iran war.

Joe Kent, who served as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, resigned in a letter to President Trump that he posted to social media.

“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation,” wrote Kent, whose wife was killed by ISIS. “Until June of 2025, you understood that the wars in the Middle East were a trap that robbed America of the precious lives of our patriots and depleted the wealth and prosperity of our nation.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt quickly pushed back on Kent’s resignation, declaring that there are “many false claims” in his letter, including, she said, that “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation.”

Leavitt charged that this claim “is the same false claim that Democrats and some in the liberal media have been repeating over and over.”

READ MORE: ‘Clear All Along’: Backlash Grows as Trump Aide Shrugs Off Consumer Pain From Iran War

“As President Trump has clearly and explicitly stated, he had strong and compelling evidence that Iran was going to attack the United States first.”

Just five days ago, Leavitt reportedly “declared that Iran poses no threat to the United States,” as The Daily Beast reported.

“TO BE CLEAR: No such threat from Iran to our homeland exists, and it never did,” she wrote.

On Tuesday, multiple high-profile social media accounts mocked the Press Secretary over those very remarks.

According to a New York Times report two weeks ago, Trump’s “decision to order the attack on Iran, he said, was mostly a matter of gut instinct about Iranian intentions.”

“We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first,” he said. “I think they were going to attack first, and I didn’t want that to happen.”

The Times added that Secretary of State Marco Rubio “had offered the opposite explanation the previous day, telling reporters that because Israel was going to act, Mr. Trump had no choice but to join what he called a ‘pre-emptive’ strike before Iran counterattacked U.S. bases and allies.”

But according to Leavitt on Tuesday, Trump’s decision to go to war against Iran was based on evidence that “was compiled from many sources and factors. President Trump would never make the decision to deploy military assets against a foreign adversary in a vacuum.”

Leavitt appeared to dismiss any other interpretations of what constitutes a threat to the nation.

READ MORE: ‘Sick, Demented, or Deranged’: Trump Issues Harshest Threat Yet Over Voter ID Bill

“The Commander-in-Chief determines what does and does not constitute a threat, because he is the one constitutionally empowered to do so – and because the American people went to the ballot box and entrusted him and him alone to make such final judgments,” she wrote.

Leavitt denounced what she called the “absurd allegation that President Trump made this decision based on the influence of others, even foreign countries,” calling it “both insulting and laughable,” despite what Secretary Rubio had said earlier.

She lashed out at Kent’s allegation that “it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby,” remarks that have been derided by both sides of the aisle.

Heath Mayo, founder of the pro-democracy center-right group Principles First, on social media on Tuesday warned his followers to not hold Kent up “as some paragon of principle.” He urged them to “recall this is the same man who flunked his congressional bid for his outspoken anti-Semitism, his ties to Nick Fuentes, and his insistence that the 2020 election was rigged.”

READ MORE: ‘He Was the Only One’: Trump Mocked for Declaring Iran’s Moves ‘Shocked’ Him

 

Image via Reuters 

 

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