Friend claims that Jared Loughner didn’t watch television or listen to talk radio
Shortly after Jared Loughner shot and killed six people while wounding dozens of others in Arizona the media went on a witch-hunt to see where they could lay the blame for Loughner’s actions. Personally, I would have blamed Jared Loughner and I suppose the media would have also if they weren’t being driven by their agenda.
It didn’t take long for the media to find their target and set their sights on Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, conservative talk radio, and the Tea Party; Blaming the violent, angry, hate-filled, vitriolic rhetoric that the media claims these people spew on a daily basis for driving Jared Loughner to murder. Once the narrative was set there was not stopping it in the media–station after station claimed that while nobody actually condoned or called for violence, the right’s figurative use of symbols and verbiage could easily drive an unstable person who doesn’t understand the difference between figurative talk and literal talk to act on the words that the media claimed were so carelessly spoken by the right. (Ignoring the fact that many on the left actually have called for violent revolution and assassination for the whole eight years of the Bush administration.)
And then Sheriff Clarence Dupnik added ammunition to the narrative by injecting his personal belief (with no proof whatsoever) that it was indeed the right wing talkers and bloggers who drove Jared Loughner over the edge. Once Sheriff Dupnik did this, the media felt legitimized and emboldened and upped the rhetoric against the right wing “extremists.” (Hillary Clinton’s word.)
As more and more was learned about Jared Loughner it became clear to everyone that this person had nothing in common with any of the right wing politicians, radio hosts, and bloggers at whose feet the media was laying blame. But still the media couldn’t let it go–they doubled down and continued to blame talk radio and bloggers, the Tea Party and conservative politicians for this shooting.
There is only one problem with this narrative. Jared Loughner would actually have to have been listening to those people in order to have been affected by their words. Here is what a friend of Jared Loughner had to say when he was asked about whether or not it was possible that the “angry, hate-filled, vitriolic rhetoric” is what drove Jared Loughner to murder:
He did not watch TV. He disliked the news. He didn’t listen to political radio. He didn’t take sides. He wasn’t on the left. He wasn’t on the right.
Jared Loughner did not watch the news and he did not listen to talk radio. In other words, Jared Loughner was a madman who acted alone and was not influenced by Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, conservative talk radio or the bloggers as the media had hoped. The media has lost whatever credibility they had left. The coverage of this shooting was irresponsible from the very beginning and it only worsened as the media attempted to place the blame anywhere but where it actually belonged–with Jared Loughner.
Newspaper circulation is down, as is the ratings of most main stream media news outlets and I think that this is a perfect example as to why this is the case–people know they can no longer trust the media to REPORT the news, because the media outlets are only interested in MAKING the news.
I will be waiting for the retractions and apologies, which should be forthcoming, but I won’t be holding my breath.
America's Watchtower 
But don’t you understand? Sarah Palin used her amazing powers of telepathy to transfered her evil thoughts to Jared Loughner.
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Damn, I forgot about her Jedi mind tricks!
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Facts? Those don’t matter. We must spin this to help our side! By any means necessary: there’s a reason why the left loves Malcolm X.
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So true, the end justifies the means!
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Definitely do not hold your breath. They are incapable of behaving in any way other than the one that supports their narrative.
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So true, and they will continue the narrative even though it has been totally discounted.
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You said “The media has lost whatever credibility they had left.” Gee, I’ve been thinking for at least….mmmm .. the past two years they didn’t have any credibility! 🙂
I think it is a total farce to even refer to them as media because that is just total bunk. The media reports the news without bias. That no longer exists where they are concerned.
I think referring them as propogandist is much more accurate. But that’s just me. 🙂
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Yeah, they lost all credibility with me a long time ago, but there are still some out there who think that the media still reports the truth with no bias. I know how hard that is to believe, but once those people learn the facts I think even they will have a hard time believing anything the media tells them–unless they WANT to believe it!
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Sesame Street was too *deep* for this moonbat…
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And yet the media still continues to make excuses for him…
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After reading more information coming out, Sheriff Dupnik may have a lot to worry about since he could have stopped the sicko at several points along the way, but used misdirection to deflect the blame from him to others.
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I think that Sheriff Dupnik was trying to deflect the blame before we learned the truth about how duplicitous he was in enabling Loughner.
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I concur. I am truly surprised by the tone of Obama’s speech tonight, and still am wondering about the Attorney General and Homeland reading scripture tonight…….something fishy about that.
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Obama’s speech at times had that phoney sound to it, but then again I just don’t trust this man.
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The hypocrisy of the left is unbelievable. Great post Steve!
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I think people have caught on to this and I expect (hope) they will be less influential than ever.
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Every time Liberals concoct a story to push their agenda it turns out to be false. When I read this headline I laughed to myself. They keep putting egg on their face and yet nobody calls them on it like the weatherman who never gets it right.
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The more that they try to pin on the right, the more it comes back to bite them. Whatever happened to the time when facts were verified before they were reported?
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Ask Dan Rather…
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The way the left reacted to this shooting still blows my mind, after nearly a week. The reaction I received by writing a post that called the left out on this still blows my mind. I don’t understand how anyone could think the left has a legitimate right to make such baseless accusations, with no evidence to support said claims.
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The problem that I saw in the reaction to your post was the fact that the people who defend the media on this issue refuse to acknowledge that the type of rhetoric now being blamed for the shooting has been going on for more than just the last two years. In fact I believe the anti-Bush rhetoric was much worse than what we have seen over the last two years. But they just won’t admit that this is nothing new, it is so frustrating!
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You have a point, Steve. At the same time, I was accused of “joining the conservative rhetoric”, when all I did was point out the glaring fact that the left was accusing the right with no evidence to support those accusations. That didn’t go over very well.
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That was Mike that made that accusation, wasn’t it? I can’t see how anyone can deny that only the left tried to make political gain in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, the Republicans were forced to respond and when they did they were vilified for responding. I don’t understand how anybody can deny this!
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Now I understand by these two postings…………..wow……….Now I understand why the campaign attitude that prevailed instead of a memorial………..and why Holder and Nepolantio (sp) did what they did…………..was nothing but a move to the conservative side of things to centralize Obama for the next run in 2012…………gawd………..the callousness of that man………….wow……….
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/205824.php
The above link shows that campaign t-shirts were drapped over the seats for the college kids to claim if they came…………..
And it comes via the threads that were addressed by this quality poster………..
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2011/01/the-cheering-in-arizona.html
Go get them Steve and all……………take this info and tell them the Redcoats are coming……..
Jon
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That was Barack Obama’s re-election campaign kick off speech we saw last night and I found it to be in incredibly bad taste!
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No arguement here Steve, I fully agree. Now if we can get Bill O’Reilly straightened out, we’ll have a good gameplan for moving forward.
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No, it was your marijuana that caused this. heck the guy is paranoid to being schizo because of his marijuana addiction. It’s the liberals who want to cover up the truth. Do you really expect me to believe that he listened to Glen Beck and then started shooting. your kidding right. Loughner went out, smoked a couple of joints, got all wacked out and paranoid and started shooting.
He told the army recruiter he couldn’t quit smoking the crap, he’s a heavy user, well that means addiction you dinkle dorks
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