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Why even look for a Tea Party connection?

Why even look for a Tea Party connection?

After a day of the media investigating James Holmes, the mass murderer at the Aurora, Colorado movie theater, a profile is emerging of someone who did not have any overt political agenda or affiliation.

Yet once again, the Tea Party was injected into the crime through a media which immediately looked for a Tea Party connection.

In this case it was ABC News led by Brian Ross which linked the gunman to a Tea Party profile it found online of “Jim Holmes.”  That Tea Party Jim Holmes was not, in fact, the gunman.

Perhaps what distinguishes this case is that there was no full-blown media attempt to link the murders to the Tea Party, unlike in the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords by the deranged apolitical Jared Loughner, and so many other cases.  This time other networks and even most of the left-blogosphere did not jump on the ABC News bandwagon.

With good reason.  There is a recent yet long history of false accusations in the minutes and hours after a high profile act of violence trying to link the perpetrator to the Tea Party and/or to the “right-wing,” including:

Why look for a Tea Party connection?  What violent crimes have been committed by Tea Party members, much less on behalf of or with the knowledge of Tea Party groups?

If there is a high profile act of violence, the Tea Party is the last place to which attention should be directed, as the list of false accusations of Tea Party involvement shows.

The most important list, of course, is the list of the victims of James Holmes.  That list has not been released by the police as of this writing, but we do know some of the names, including Jessica Ghawi.

Update 7-21-2012 —  A list of the victims was released this morning.

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Comments

The Tea Party Jim Holmes needs two things. First a hungry vicious lawyer and then a yacht broker.

    David Yotham in reply to Anchovy. | July 21, 2012 at 3:15 am

    The American media meme is about perception – not about ‘truth’. The only response that the American media can give to these accusations is: “The TRUTH is what I say it is!”. This is why the media propagandists loathe the Internet blogs, Twitter and the social networks – to them ‘truth’ is like a virus that must be combated. The real issue is not they attacked the ‘Tea Party’, but WHY attack the Tea Party?

    Rosalie in reply to Anchovy. | July 21, 2012 at 8:20 am

    I totally agree. Ross should be fired and then sued. I would have thought that he’d check the Occupy misfits first.

TrooperJohnSmith | July 20, 2012 at 8:51 pm

As Iowahawk showed us, that “net search” cuts both ways!!

http://youviewedblog.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/brian-ross-one-man-crime-wave/

Maybe ABC should suspend him until he’s officially cleared of all wrongdoing!

    I don’t think Brian Ross went “off the reservation” (apologies to Lizzie Warren) with his report. He was just using his “out-loud voice” in applying the MSM world-view to the story. All day, as I thought about his report, my recurring thought was “Why did they go there (tea-party connection) first? The question answers itself. Thanks to the Professor and commenters for putting my thoughts into words.

Juba Doobai! | July 20, 2012 at 8:54 pm

It’s about delegitimization and securing votes for Obama. Now, James Holmes should make ABC grovel and demand financial satisfaction, starting with $5,000,000. Rags suggested $250,000, but that’s chump change to ABC. They are bleeding heart liberals; well, make them bleed.

In a act of random coincidence, the HBO series, The Newsroom, tackles this very subject in its most recent episode (Ep #4) as it shows how the ficitional ACN newsroom treats the shooting of former Representative Giffords.

Cowboy Curtis | July 20, 2012 at 9:02 pm

I guess its a sign of how far Sarah Palin’s star has fallen that she’s not even mentioned this time around.

    punfundit in reply to Cowboy Curtis. | July 21, 2012 at 10:20 am

    She may well be thanking the Lord for this brief respite. Just this once someone didn’t try to throw her under the proverbial bus.

This is a great example of “When we do it, it is different”, as Kathy Shaidle said lately.

For all my life, Conservatives have been accused of seeing a Communist behind every rock. This was, of course, a lie.

Plus, there WERE Communists…but usually UNDER rocks.

But the point is that the Collective DOES see a TEA Party person behind every act of evil, because they are looking SO terribly hard for that, and they have that image planted in their “minds”.

Even when they are disappointed, they merely glance off reality and take up a slightly modified delusional blood libel.

    Everybody has that crazy uncle who does weird stuff.
    Coastal progressives see the Tea party as that crazy uncle.

      TrooperJohnSmith in reply to Neo. | July 21, 2012 at 12:32 am

      Coastal Progressives see anyone who eats red meat, who knows someone in the military or who doesn’t read The Atlantic Monthly as a cross between that nutty uncle and Adolf Eichmann.

      When Progressive ideology renders NY, California and parts of New England and the PAC-NW uninhabitable from an economic standpoint, it will finally hit the Sheeple Majority that they’ve been duped, lied to and tricked. By then, we’ll have those areas fenced off and isolated. Maybe those “social democracies” of Europe will allow a reverse Ellis Island thing.

        Methinks you were looking for this quote …

        “Oh, I say and I say it again, ya been had! Ya been took! Ya been hoodwinked! Bamboozled! Led astray! Run amok!”

      punfundit in reply to Neo. | July 21, 2012 at 10:21 am

      Heck, our crazy uncle in the attic is Ron Paul and he wouldn’t do this kind of stuff.

BannedbytheGuardian | July 20, 2012 at 9:08 pm

The British papers were right on top of this incident with details that were far more correct than the US media.

I was reading the Telegraph as it came on. When I read he US stuff 6 hours later it was all foggy ,emotional & throwing out all sorts of grenades.

It s not perfect but the Brit media (not the BBC ) still have some intellectual faculties.

I am off to see if the American LSM has blamed Sarah Palin yet after all she shoots mooses.

It’s sufficient to create an association, which even after a correction will persist in some subset of the population. They are, and have been, playing the odds, and, unfortunately, experiencing varying but progressive degrees of success. However, as they push individuals to extreme and often unrealistic perceptions of reality, there will be a renewed individual dignity to protest the paradox. Most people will not resort to dissociation (e.g. psychotropic drugs, promiscuous sex, etc.), but will confront and overcome the emergent instability. The intrinsic paradox is the problem suffered ultimately by all philosophies which engender denigration of individual dignity and devaluation of individual human life, whether it is a cult or an ideology which subordinates an individual to the collective.

Brian Ross should be fired. Concerted pressure should be exerted to demand he is fired. This isn’t a free seech issue but a volation of responsibility too grotesque to ignore and one committed so cavalierly (Stephanopoulis is implicated as well by abiding it), as to compel outrage and action. Pain must be felt, a lesson must be taught; the MSM must suuffer for this. Ross has no business ever serving on a major network again, and other “journalists” must witness his disgrace and removal.

Sadly, people do not remember history. Look at how the Germans referred to Jews in the 30s. Not a whole lot different. They even devised cleaver “scientific” ways to describe conservatives and those who don’t care for a statist economy psychologically unbalanced.

They are evil to their core.

But the point is that the Collective DOES see a TEA Party person behind every act of evil, because they are looking SO terribly hard for that, and they have that image planted in their ‘minds’.”

And, hate to say, but the fact is, sooner or later, there probably WILL be a heinous and notorious crime of some sort done by a tea partier, or at least someone who had previously expressed some sort of tea party affiliation. And that will serve to forever thereafter confirm their bias, which we will never hear the end of.

Why look for a Tea Party connection?

This is rhetorical, right? They desperately need a TEA Party crime so they can continue to pretend conservatives are as bad as liberals.

I think what upsets me the most with the media is that the victims get forgotten in their rush to blame anyone but the shooter himself. They did the same thing with the Arizona shooting.
I am heartened to see that even Mother Jones and Gawker are denouncing ABCNews’s despicable behavior.

The media does not seem to understand that attacking the Tea Party does NOT help their guy in the White House. Keep attacking the voters ie Tea Party and watch for the repeat of 2010.

Why look for a Tea Party connection? Why not?

Ruthless disinformation is the left’s specialty.

And John McCain, his useful idiot daughter and John “Jobs-Jobs” Boehner are probably right there behind them.

Back in the 60’s and 70’s when free loving meant a lot more teenagers were having sex, the authorities tried to tell us that having unprotected sex led to pregnancy. That’s true, but not every time. So people would have sex, not get pregnant, and figure they could do it some more. The authority lost credibility. Same thing with smoking pot, it may or may not lead to harder things. Same with drunk driving. Lots of people drive drunk many times before they are caught or have an accident. My point? The “authorities” blame the TEA Party, and are wrong, again. The LSM just keeps losing their credibility.

My prediction is that when the patriots in the TEA Party start engaging in violent acts that means that the revolution started a while ago. They’ll keep their powder dry and be ready when the day comes. Innocents in movie theaters won’t be the targets. The targets won’t be symbolic. 0bama and his ilk think it won’t happen, and they keep pushing their luck.

This shooting was so damned senseless yet perhaps there can be lessons learned from this terrible, horrible mass shooting.

However, I fear that soon movie theaters will become more like airports, with a TSA like security presence making a show without actually doing anything productive in the sense of safety.

I’d really like to know if anyone tried to fight back or fend off that shooter J. Holmes.

In the Kileen restaurant shooting in the 1990s, 23-persons were killed and no one fought back. That Kileen Restaurant was a “Gun free” zone too; one woman left her gun in her car, her parents were two of the victims.

    Doug Wright in reply to Doug Wright. | July 20, 2012 at 11:00 pm

    Two corrections: 1.) Her Dad tried to fight back, he was killed, then her Mom. 2.) It’s Killeen, not Kileen; my bad! 🙂

    Plus: One person make escape possible from that restaurant for others plus himself.

    theduchessofkitty in reply to Doug Wright. | July 21, 2012 at 1:15 am

    “However, I fear that soon movie theaters will become more like airports, with a TSA like security presence making a show without actually doing anything productive in the sense of safety.”

    Yet another reason for a home theater, Netflix, cable OnDemand, or whatever movie rental service you choose for your own use…

To add to the list of “Not Tea Party” acts that were initially blamed on them – The Tides Foundation shooting, and the Discovery Channel shooting…

These are the same ace journalists who have even broken the secret racist code the Tea Party had with the candidates. They changed the code frequently, but you just can’t fool those towering intellects…they just kept deciphering them and telling the American people what the candidate was really saying. Hard to get anything past them.

You forgot George Zimmerman – they were so desperate for the radical white gun-toting right-winger that they resorted to calling Zimmerman a ‘white hispanic’ to cover their horrific miusdeeds.

I’m guessing they Googled the name and the Tea Party association came up, and they could not resist, because in their mind, this was VINDICATION for being wrong with Loughner. SURELY this time it was a horrible Tea Partier and all would be right with the world.

Brian Ross could have gotten an innocent man killed, on top of all this tragedy, by shooting his mouth off before he checked his facts. We’ve seen what he said on air. Too bad we can’t see the behind the scenes and leading up to that report chatter with him and his people. It would undoubtedly curl your hair.

I tense up every time one of these ‘events’ happens, knowing what is coming, and knowing they are just waiting to kick the ‘right-wing’ hatred up several notches, and launch the full force of government to quash all dissenting voices.

And I breathe a sigh of relief each and every time, as it is proven that the guy is anything but a right-winger.

But – we know they will stop at nothing, even if they have to invent a right-winger to pull some well-choreographed staged stunt to accomplish their aim. And by ‘they’ I mean the DNC/Soros/Team Obama

    Moonbeam in reply to Rose. | July 21, 2012 at 12:35 am

    Rose, I agree with you, but would just like to add that I’m sure they looked for the Tea Party connection first. I don’t think they “Googled the name and the Tea Party connection came up”. I think they Googled “James Holmes+Tea Party” and HOPED it would take them exactly where they wished to go in the first place. Why not Google “James Holmes+ OWS” first? From the Ann Hathaway preview clip that we have all seen, there appears to be an OWS-sympathetic thread in the movie plot. Why not look for the connection there? This is where we see their bias showing- in the fact that they did not- they didn’t want to go there- they wanted to go after the Tea Party.

    I would have no problem laying a bet that, had Ross not been proven so grievously wrong so quickly, the rest of the MSM and lefty bloggers would have pulled a full-blown Loughner on this story. Granted, we are lucky that this dope was called out so quickly,

      Neo in reply to Moonbeam. | July 21, 2012 at 10:52 am

      The new Batman movie plot can be summed up as “Doctor Zhivago at Gotham” as they have #OWS-s “99%” rise up against the “rich” with a scene with a photo of a family that reminded me of “Doctor Zhivago” when the “rich” were turned out of their homes.

NC Mountain Girl | July 21, 2012 at 12:19 am

I haven’t seen an accusation this stupid since 1996 when conservative US Senate candidate Al Salvi used information off the then fledgling internet to claim that paralyzed gun control advocate James Brady held a federal gun dealer license. The media jumped on that bit of name confusion and ended Salvi’s political aspirations. This bit of name confusion should cost Ross his career as a journalist but I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for it to happen.

Off-Topic, but the Republicans raised 107 million dollars in June, while the Democrats raised 77 million. Obama’s is spending much more than he’s earning, he spent nearly 12 million dollars more than he raised (58m spent to 46m raised).

Insufficiently Sensitive | July 21, 2012 at 12:46 am

What violent crimes have been committed by Tea Party members, much less on behalf of or with the knowledge of Tea Party groups?

That’s an irrelevant question. Go no further than the formation of the Tea Party in spring 2009, its activists asking unwelcome questions at Obamacare town meetings (questions the MSM would never have dreamed of asking), and its culminating sweep of the 2010 elections.

The MSM is 100% invested in the Obama admin, and was staggered that despite its careful spinning of the news (perhaps even in daily collusion with the White House), the Tea Party got out a message that resonated with most of the public – ending MSM control of what the peasants saw on the news, and how the now fully-informed peasants would vote. The Tea Party ended MSM’s mind control of the voters, and that meant war, in the form of the most scurrilous attacks it could deliver. By any means necessary, by any hint, suggestion, implication or outright calumny that it could pour over those evil Teabaggers.

Brian Ross was just marching in step with The Mission. OF COURSE a suggestion of mass murder as an act by a Tea Party ‘extremist’ was the first thing that came to his mind. This might have been Ross’s Big Chance to Score – had that fantasy turned out true – and save the sacred Obama admin by ‘discrediting’ the main public engine of Obama’s 2012 Opposition.

It’s been a cynical kinda day, hasn’t it?

theduchessofkitty | July 21, 2012 at 1:33 am

Someone out there already is calling for a massive boycott of the Walt Disney Company and all its subsidiaries for this. Sorry, but that won’t work.

What will really work, though, is going for the jugular: a libel lawsuit filed by the wronged Holmes, his family, and/or Tea Party patriots around the country, for a hefty sum should do the trick. Nope, I don’t mean $5 mil. I mean $50 – $100 million – enough “seed money” to counteract anything the Soros/DNC/MSM machine have against us.

Plus, a repeated, five-month long penance of apologies (the equivalent of writing on a chalkboard, “THE TEA PARTY ARE NOT TERRORISTS”), and two years’ worth of the Tea Party version of “community service” – broadcast lessons for the whole nation on the Founding of this nation, the Founding Fathers, the U.S. Constitution, the meaning of the entire Bill or Rights (including the First, Second and Tenth Amendments), the Federalist Papers, the meaning of Free Markets, Liberty, and Citizenship, given by trustworthy instructors of the highest caliber – NOT HARVARD, please. All of it to be televised on prime time – no more “Modern Family” or “Breaking Bad”. Learn something from your TV for a change.

If people don’t want to watch, fine – the means they never cared for the American experiment in the first place.

Because… they are bigots?

I keep hearing all these calls for Ross to be fired, and I can’t say he doesn’t deserve it – or that he hasn’t deserved it for being a leftist hack long before now.

BUT why is everyone giving Stephanopoulus a pass on this? He was the anchor, he validated the unfounded and untrue suspicion.

Back in the Reagan years when Donaldson was their top reporter, ABC News ranked #1 of the networks. A younger Charles Krauthammer noted that “The 13 most frightening words in the English language are: ‘More people get their news from ABC News than from any other source.'” [Kids: that was their slogan]

Are things are so screwed up, that there is actually argument about taking ABC seriously at all?. The hell with Brian Ross — how about pulling ABC’s license to use the public airwaves until their entire management (and parent corp management) is replaced? There’s no Constitutional barrier to that.

Imagine if the GOP House Speaker wasn’t a piece of @#$% sell-out named John Boehner, and had some semblance of resolve — if not shame: ABC’s management would be dragged before the House for hearings, and the agency refusing to pull their license would be de-funded.

A story of historical, and major import. In fact, a current crisis, dwarfing Batman shootings:

FEDS CRACK DOWN ON OBAMA’S ENEMIES:
AP
July 20, 2012 11:37

A Republican donor featured prominently on President Obama’s “enemies list” is facing intense scrutiny from federal authorities, the Wall Street Journal’s Kim Strassel reports.

Frank VanderSloot, an Idaho businessman who has contributed significantly to Mitt Romney’s campaign, was previously targeted by the Obama campaign as a “less-than-reputable” individual, as well as a “litigious, combative and a bitter foe of the gay rights movement.”

That was only the beginning of his troubles, apparently.

Mr. VanderSloot has since been learning what it means to be on a presidential enemies list. Just 12 days after the attack, the Idahoan found an investigator digging to unearth his divorce records. This bloodhound—a recent employee of Senate Democrats—worked for a for-hire opposition research firm.

Now Mr. VanderSloot has been targeted by the federal government. In a letter dated June 21, he was informed that his tax records had been “selected for examination” by the Internal Revenue Service. The audit also encompasses Mr. VanderSloot’s wife, and not one, but two years of past filings (2008 and 2009).

VanderSloot has never been flagged for auditing until now.

Two weeks after receiving the IRS letter, Mr. VanderSloot received another—this one from the Department of Labor. He was informed it would be doing an audit of workers he employs on his Idaho-based cattle ranch under the federal visa program for temporary agriculture workers.

http://freebeacon.com/feds-crack-down-on-obamas-enemies/

    Midwest Rhino in reply to TheFineReport.com. | July 21, 2012 at 9:54 am

    So if you are in a line of border crossers carrying plastic bags, it is racist to check for ID or ask if they are American.

    But random checks of a Republican donor business is encouraged.

    Another Obama presidential promis kept … he will use office to reward his political friends, and punish his political enemies.

TeaPartyPatriot4ever | July 21, 2012 at 4:32 am

In the wake of this movie house massacre by a deranged individual, just like the Tucson Az massacre shooting, the far left media complex of course attacks and targets, thus blames the Tea Party / Reagan Constitutional Conservatives and Republicans for all of it, regardless of the facts and truth that it is a lie.

We are, and will always be the target of the far left anti-American media complex to be used as a point of focus, aka a villain. Hitler used the very same tactic against the Jews, as a scapegoat to propel his desire, thus become his pedestal to absolute power and control, to see his hate filled mad insane ideological schemes to fruition.

This is their goal to destroy us, Freedom, Liberty, and Democracy in an open society. These anti-American liberal statist propagandist puppets are in every area and avenue of the media complex, whom have forsaken any sense of established journalistic integrity that they might have even ever remotely had at one point in time, if they even had any at all to begin with, but whom are now the useful marxist idiot pawns of the radical far left hierarchy and echelon that dictates that their radical leftist ideology and future American Marxist State, are the only things that matters, and anyone and anything that even threatens that ideology and their future Marxist State regime, ie; the Tea Party Reagan Conservatives, must be destroyed.

This is all for the public to make them perceive as the lie as the truth, to make the public their willing accomplice.

But in  a free democratic society, there comes a point in time where the public is either aware of, acknowledges, and understands the truth after countless examples of liberal media biased lies and propagandist attempts to paint the peaceful Tea Party people and movement as something they’re not, ie; racist and violent.. Along with over a year of exact opposite examples of violence, anarchy, rapes, assaults, rioting, and property destruction riots from and by the “Occupy Wall Street” crowd.

In other words, if they cannot, or will not see the truth for what it is in reality, then the public as a whole are doomed to their fate of eventual self-inflicted enslavement by those they choose to ignore.

The public as a whole must either acknowledges the facts and truth of the liberal media complex of projectionist lies and propaganda, and thus disbelieve everything they say and do, or remain apathetic, indifferent, and or ignorant to the truth and facts of that truth, thus become part of the radical anti-American movement complex of the far left.

Either way, the patriotic American Reagan Constitutional Conservative Tea Party folks must never give in and capitulate, for that prospect will only end in the complete collapse of our Republic as a free democratic s

TeaPartyPatriot4ever | July 21, 2012 at 4:42 am

ociety.

Because they can and no one holds them accountable. There is probably an OWS supporter named James Holmes. Look long and hard.

Midwest Rhino | July 21, 2012 at 5:38 am

Perhaps the reason ABC floats a Tea Party connection into the news cycle is the same reason Leno has included a series of attacks on Bachmann in his monologue the last two days, for her questions about the Muslim Brotherhood family of Huma Abedin.

Of course only 5% of Leno’s audience has a clue about the details (which Leno avoids), but the other 95% love chuckling along with the bashing of conservative Republicans. Media and teachers have trained them to respond like barking seals being tossed a red herring.

Leno’s “jokes” were sixth grade level slams on how incredibly stupid Bachmann is, fitting with his other attacks on the “amazingly stupid” Palin. Jay conflates more westernized Muslims with the radical Muslim Brotherhood, and anti PC thinking with stupidity.

Pushing the leftist PC acceptance of all diverse culture seems part of a coordinated effort to “fundamentally transform America”, by attempting to destroy anyone that questions radical influences. Leno, Stewart and Maher would make excellent soldiers in the army that uses Alinsky tactics, since one of the rules for radicals is “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. There is no defense”

Maybe Leno could do a series of jokes trashing Hillary’s aide (wink wink) and Weiner flasher’s wife.

Leno: Huma’s mother advocates against “criminalization of female genital mutilation” since it is “completely incompatible with Islamic law”. Why can’t Christians appreciate other religions?

flash the APPLAUSE signs. Right on Jay. Way to stand up for diversity.

Leno: No wonder Congressman Weiner was exposing himself all over the internet, his wife is a cold fish since her genitalia was mutilated by her radical Islam mother. What’s a Democrat pervert to do?

Ha ha ha … flash the LAUGH signs. Hilarious Jay.

That’s about as logical and funny as the Bachmann and Palin “stupid” attacks, but of course doesn’t advance the destruction of our country, so doesn’t fit in the program.

Terrorist journalism, under the guise of fact finding, seeks to harm innocent people. In this case both the older Jim Holmes, a Tea Party member, and the Tea Party as a whole were attacked by implication. An injustice in both cases.

More people die from medical mistakes than from gun violence. More people die from drunk drivers than from gun violence. Almost all gun violence in urban areas [with strict gun laws like Chicago, New York, LA] is between drug dealers protecting their “sidewalk stores”. The media never tell of or show stories from the millions of people each year who have protected themselves and their families from burglars, home invaders, street robbers, car jackers and other criminal activity because they were armed and either used their weapon or threatened to use it.

[…] Why even look for a Tea Party connection? […]

To the reactionary left, The Narrative™ is more important than The Truth.

Insufficiently Sensitive | July 21, 2012 at 10:23 am

The hell with Brian Ross — how about pulling ABC’s license to use the public airwaves until their entire management (and parent corp management) is replaced?

Unfortunately, that sort of abuse of Executive branch power is all too common already under this Administration. The FCC is run by Obama through Obamacrony Julius Genachowski, and had ABC smeared one of Obama’s own inner circle, suggesting that their Chicago-style political acts were no different than extortion or simple theft, ABC’s license might really be in jeopardy.

A better remedy would be use of the Internet to fully inform the public of ABC’s frequent abuse of its ‘news’ function to falsely shape public opinion.

quiksilverz24 | July 21, 2012 at 2:01 pm

Morgan Freeman stars in this new Batman flick. He also recently donated $1M to Obama’s Super PAC. Wonder if he will find it in his heart to donate to any of the funds being established for the victims’ families?

Something tells me he won’t…