The case against Arizona's draconian anti-immigrant law

By Michael J.W. Stickings

WaPo:

A federal appeals court ruled Monday that the most contested provisions of an Arizona immigration law passed last year will remain blocked from taking effect, handing the Obama administration a victory in its efforts to overturn the legislation.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit upheld a lower court ruling that put on hold key provisions of the Arizona law, which empowers police to question people whom they have a "reasonable suspicion" are illegal immigrants. The measure has triggered a fierce national debate, and the legal case is being watched by other states and advocates on both sides of the issue.

In a split decision, a three-judge panel found that U.S. District Judge Susan R. Bolton "did not abuse" her discretion in blocking parts of the law that, among other things, require police to check immigration status if they stop someone while enforcing other laws.

The court ruled only on Bolton's order, not on whether the Arizona measure is legal, and the Justice Department's move to have the law thrown out will proceed. But the judges gave strong indications that they accept the administration's argument that the legislation is unconstitutional and that they would rule that way in the end.

Of course, the Supreme Court, where this is headed, is another matter entirely, and there hardly seems to any doubt that Scalia et al. will side with Arizona, unless Kennedy breaks with the right and votes with the liberals against the authoritarian police state that so much of the country is becoming, particularly Arizona.

Craziest Republican of the Day: Russell Pearce

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Anti-American "tentherism" is rampant on the nativist, Tea Party right:

During a speech at the Oceanside Tea Party rally in recent months, Arizona State Senate President Russell Pearce (R) took this philosophy to a new extreme. In the speech, where he denounced the federal government's efforts to stop the implementation of the state's radical anti-immigrant law, Pearce claimed that Americans aren't even citizens of the United States, that they are rather citizens of "sovereign states," meaning that we should be loyal to the laws of individual states rather than the federal government:

PEARCE: U.S. history, most of us weren't around when the Constitution was written. But you remember we kind of existed before Congress, the states. We created the Congress, we created the federal government, by compact. Do you know what existed before the Congress, the states? Do you know, you're not a citizen of the United States. You're a citizen of a sovereign state. The fifty sovereign states makes up United States of America, we're citizens of those sovereign states. It is not a delegated authority. It's an inherent authority that states have over the federal government. [applause] It's about time somebody gets it right!

It's like the Civil War never happened. (Which I suppose Republicans like Pearce would like to think.) And it's like the whole Founding meant nothing.

Why do so many Republicans -- and this is a widely-held view in the GOP -- hate America?

This right-wing extremist thinks he's a patriot? Only if patriotism means trying to undermine the very foundations of your entire country.

(photo)

Gun sales soar after Arizona shooting

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Yes, that's right, the Arizona shooting that left six dead, including a nine-year-old girl, has spurred gun sales across the country:

One-day sales of handguns in Arizona jumped 60 percent to263 on Jan. 10 compared with 164 the corresponding Monday a yearago, the second-biggest increase of any state in the country,according to Federal Bureau of Investigation data.

Handgun sales rose 65 percent to 395 in Ohio; 16 percent to672 in California; 38 percent to 348 in Illinois; and 33 percentto 206 in New York, the FBI data show. Sales increasednationally about 5 percent, to 7,906 guns.

Federally tracked gun sales, which are drawn from sales ingun stores that require a federal background check, also jumpedfollowing the 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech, in which 32 peoplewere killed.

"Whenever there is a huge event, especially when it'sclose to home, people do tend to run out and buy something toprotect their family," said Don Gallardo, a manager at ArizonaShooter's World in Phoenix, who said that the number of peoplesigning up for the store's concealed weapons class doubled overthe weekend. Gallardo said he expects handgun sales to climbsteadily throughout the week. 

Really? For self-protection? Then why did sales of the weapon Jared Lee Loughner (is alleged to have) used, the Glock 19 semi-automatic pistol, also increase dramatically following the shooting? Do people really need to protect themselves, and their families, with a gun that is designed to kill large numbers of people in short order? And why, in any event, would a targeted political shooting, an assassination attempt, compel so many people to arm themselves? It's not like violent crime was about to go up.

As another Arizona gun-store owner explained, "[w]hen something like this happens people get worried thatthe government is going to ban stuff." Ah, so now we find ourselves in the vicious cycle. It was very much the anti-government, pro-gun right-wing political culture that provided the broader context for the shooting. And now, in direct response to the shooting, that culture, already a powder keg on the brink of explosion, feeds upon itself and expands, with more and more people acting on their anti-government, pro-gun fantasies and arming themselves against the "enemy."

Honestly, if the shooting wasn't all that surprising, should we really be surprised it if happens again and again, and perhaps to even worse degrees?

The pattern takes hold

By Mustang Bobby

The pattern is sadly the same. A horrible incident occurs with people being killed by a single person. The media coverage saturates everything, spreading out like rising flood waters. In the initial minutes and hours no one really knows any answers so they grab the slightest bit of speculation and put it on the air to fill the space between the re-running of the initial reports and endless video loops of flashing lights at the scene to cautious -- and often wrong -- rumors, including false reports of deaths of the victims.

As the situation begins to solidify and the facts become known, the hastily-called press conferences begin with updates from the hospital and the police and new names are added to the American lexicon. The cable news networks have come up with a concise title for the incident and even put up somber music and graphics to go with it. Special broadcasts are scheduled for later that evening, giving the producers time to call in their analysts so the first round of speculation, navel-gazing, and finger-pointing can begin.

Meanwhile, the news media is trying hard to fill the time, so they are interviewing everybody, even themselves. If the suspect has been caught, the police are leaking information about the person, apparently in the hopes of shaking something loose, such as background or motive; the public can always be counted on to come forward and tell what they know if it gets them on TV. The friends and neighbors invariably report that the suspect was a kind of quiet person, always kept to themselves, never gave much of a hint of trouble, but they always knew there was something a little "off" about him. Thanks to the social networks, the suspect will have posted subtle warning signs about his plans; it is hard to resist the need to let the world know, however cryptically, that they were planning this for some time. And the sketchy and incoherent image of a tortured soul comes forward. But for now, he is as quiet as the dead; it won't be until a trial that we hear anything from him again... assuming he did not turn the gun on himself.

The political framing is already taking shape. Each side has pronounced their horror and outrage -- on that they are equally firm -- but already the posturing is being framed for the inevitable contest of soundbites that blame one side or the other, or, most maddeningly of all, both sides equally. The political parties will instantly search their databases to determine if there was any connection between themselves and the suspect, and the one that comes closest will immediately gulp and then issue a defiant statement condemning the action and, at the same time, disavow any connection, knowing full well their opponents are focusing on them. (Meanwhile the conspiracy theorists are seeing a vast connection between both sides and the CIA.) Within 24 hours all the resources have been mustered to air a special round-table broadcast of all the best pundits, including the fringe types just to keep in interesting, and the inevitable spokesperson for the gun lobby will confidently report that guns don't kill people; people kill people. With guns.

Everyone will scratch their chins, shake their jowls, nod their heads at the profound prepared off-the-cuff remarks, and then, after they have all decided what the incident portends for everyone involved -- the president, the political parties, and anyone that happens to be there, including the heroic people who got their moments in the spotlight -- the networks and the blogs, including this one, will return to the status quo, and the regularly scheduled programming already in progress will be rejoined.

Within a surprisingly short time, most of the details of the incident will be forgotten. By the time the seasons change, the names of the dead will have faded from our short-term memory; the only reminders will be the trial of the suspect, but that will be the fourth or fifth story on the news, just ahead of the update on a celebrity in rehab. And the only people who will remember this with the clarity and pain are the victims; the families of the dead and the survivors who, even if they recover from the physical trauma, will never be truly healed.

Worst of all, we will immediately seek to absolve ourselves of any culpability. One person did this; one "lone wolf," with serious mental problems, we're told, as if that is a way of comforting ourselves that we are not to blame. It wasn't anything we did; maybe it was the other guys, and when the other guys are confronted, they turn back and say, well, you had something to do with it. And then everyone agrees that if we all had something to do with it, then nothing can be done about it.

As I said, the pattern is always the same; Dallas 1963, Memphis and Los Angeles 1968, and, more recently, Oklahoma City, Columbine, Virginia Tech, Fort Hood, and on and on. It devolves to a single name to cue the recollection; this past weekend will be known as "Tucson." We follow the script because that's the way we process the information, and we try to put it behind us and move on because to dwell on it would not make it any better; the healing -- such as it is -- could not happen. But it rarely changes us. No profound shift will come to our national psyche; no deep assessment and re-evaluation of our social make-up will occur; it didn't after the murder of a president or the countless number of other rampages since then. It is both the blessing and the curse of our collective mind that we have the ability to move on; it is a sign of optimism, but it also means we give up much of a chance of learning anything. The pattern takes hold.

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Not even bloodshed is cause for pause

By Nicholas Wilbur

Hope died this weekend, at least one of the faces of hope – that of Christina Green, whose life was taken by a gunman at a political event in Tucson Saturday morning.

The 9-year-old Christina, who studied ballet and had just been elected to student council, according to news reports, was one of the children featured in a book titled, Faces of Hope: Babies Born on 9/11.

The gunman, Jared Lee Loughner, took the lives of at least six people and injured 14 others in an attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.). Giffords, a known foe of the Tea Party, was shot point blank in the head. Miraculously, she is in critical condition but recovering from surgery.

If I am guilty of heartlessly "politicizing" a tragedy by commenting on the attempted assassination of a politician, then so be it. Loughner shot a politician. It doesn't get more political.

We do not yet know the motives of the shooter. We know only that he was obsessed with the gold standard, a regular Glenn Beck talking point; that despite his attempts he was denied from serving in the Army; and that he was regarded by neighbors and former classmates as rather odd.

We also know that the past several years have been some of the craziest, politically, in decades.

After the shooting, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said this: "When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government... The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous, and unfortunately Arizona has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry."

Dupnik is correct, but he's wrong to fault Arizona. This is not Gov. Jan Brewer's fault, just as it is not the fault of Beck or Sarah Palin. Putting Congresswoman Giffords in the political "crosshairs" during a heated election campaign was thoughtless and irresponsible. But it has not been cited as Loughner's motivation for murder. Neither is there any indication that Loughner killed simply because Palin advised "commonsense Americans" to "RELOAD."

He killed because, in his mind, killing was the logical next step to all of the radical talk of revolution that is now commonplace in the media. He was putting rhetoric into action. 

No, television didn't kill Christina Green, and it is not solely responsible for the moral decay of one man, just as guns are not solely responsible for violence in general. But no one can deny the conscious and subconscious influence of the images we absorb on a daily basis, the violence, the hatred, the scandals, the anger, the pointed political rhetoric and the accusations of treason, of domestic terrorism, of socialism, of Marxism against anyone who thinks differently, believes differently, and lives differently than the media celebrities we tune into throughout the day.

If we are still wondering how such hatred is allowed, we need not look any further than our own bathroom mirrors. The programs and media celebrities who spread this hatred are given airtime because we tune in, blindly, faithfully, daily.

We have devolved into a nation of TV-obsessed spectators, where the average American spends two months of every year tuned in to a box of lights and wires, as Edward Murrow once put it, that seeks no longer to educate and enlighten the people of a great nation, but to polarize it.

And it has succeeded, again.

Earlier this year, a New Yorker slashed the throat of a Muslim cab driver at the political peak of a weeks-long media blitz surrounding the "Ground Zero Mosque." Every day, the news talked about the "terror dollars" funding the "terror mosque," how Sharia law was taking over the American judicial system, how the president of the United States was a Muslim, a Kenya-born colonialist, a racist!

We tuned in and drank it down without pausing to reflect on the effects of this political passion and the influence such lunacy could have on the morally malleable among us. And then a man nearly died. Not five months later, a 9-year-old face of hope did die.

Have we learned nothing? Will we learn anything from this tragedy? Will we tone down our political discourse even a notch? Will the murder of a child make it clear just how sick we have become?

It does not appear so.

Here is a small sampling of comments made on several major news networks covering the Tucson shooting:

Unfortunately people lose their lives violently every day in our country. The root cause of most of this evil is liberalism.

There’s a reason behind all this. Maybe (Giffords) pissed Reid off.

GOOD RIDDANCE!!!

Was this a “second amendment solution” to a political problem?

THIS IS A GREAT DAY IN NATIONAL POLITICS. TEH BIMBO SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN THE KITCHEN, BAREFOOT AND PREGNANT. THAT’S WHAT WOMEN WERE MADE FOR.

And this, from a blogger by the name of Andrea Rouda in a post titled "Speaking of Target Practice": 

Caligula. JFK. Anwar Sadat. Martin Luther King, Jr. Medgar Evers. Benazir Bhutto. John Lennon. Bobby Kennedy. Sam Cooke. Abraham Lincoln. Marvin Gaye. Indira Gandhi. George Tiller. Malcolm X. All killed by a crazy person.

What a waste, especially since there are so many good targets still out there. Take Keith Olbermann. In the wake of yesterday’s horrific shooting of a young congresswoman, the Devil himself who walks among us in the form of a TV "journalist" has decided that Sarah Palin and the Tea Party are responsible and is spreading his usual vitriol.

Please, won't somebody stop him? 

UPDATE: I have just discovered that the Rouda blog post has just been deleted. Fortunately, it is preserved here and at at least one other site (Mediaite), if for no other reason than to serve as a reminder of just how inhumane humanity sometimes is.

The rush to judgment in Arizona?

By Distributorcap

The narrative has already taken hold -- due to the lightning speed of the Internet, Twitter, Facebook, and non-stop cable coverage with opinions spouted from so-called journalists -- the sides are already set on the causes of the incident in Tucson.  From the perspective of the nation's political psyche -- there are some similarities to the rush to judgment on 11/22/63 -- the day we lost a president, our innocence, and belief in leadership. Are we rushing to judgment on 1/8/11?

We did lose six people today -- and another notch in the beltway tightens around the leaders of the country. As for innocence -- no matter what the shooter's motivations were (random act, voices in his head, political message, attention, etc.) -- the political process of this country again is forever changed, and changed away from being the open democracy (did we even have one?) the documents of the 1700s set out to pursue.

The shooting of Rep. Giffords is a tipping point -- and, yes, both sides are going to take every opportunity to politicize this to their advantage, without any proof of motivation from Loughner or from his alleged companion, the speculation will become the narrative. Whichever side (wanna take a bet on which side it is?) is more persuasive in arguing its case, that will end up being the truth in bizarro America. 

I will go with the statement from Sheriff Dupnik of Pima County, a man on the front line:

When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And, unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the Capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.

How fast before the right labels him a "liberal sheriff"?

Should we rush to judgment on the cause of Loughner's action? Of course not. Even I am guilty of that. What is very apparent to any sane person is the amount of vitriol coming from supposed leaders and people who can influence the narrative is really poisoning this country. Even if this is a "lone nut" (apparently the sheriff says they are looking for a white man in his 50s, a companion to Loughner), the hate speech that comes from the right in the form of Beck, Limbaugh, Palin, and Bachmann ("armed and loaded") can easily tip over a "lone nut." Can anyone name one person on the left that espouses the same violent rhetoric as Beck or Palin? If it it sounds like I am contracting myself -- about rushing to judgment -- I am. This country needs to carefully examine the limits of crying fire in a crowded theater, even if there is NO direct relationship between today's horrific incident and Palin's crosshairs.

The headlines on the talk shows tomorrow -- "everyone does it." The spin on this will make Linda Blair's head from The Exorcist (which was on today) look like a slow walk in the park. Any references to hate speech from the likes of Beck and Palin will of course be whitewashed by the media, as they direct all thinking towards the "lone nut."

There will be no learning from this experience, no examination of how or why it happened, only ways to prevent it from happening. Hopefully Giffords does recover, though six others for sure will not. The sad part is that America will probably never recover. If we thought in 2011 America that Congressmen were removed from their constituents now, well, wait till you see what the connection will be post-Tucson. NONE of them will be allowed to have these open forums or public gatherings, and they will become more and more isolated and more and more removed from common folks. This will mean they are more and more vulnerable to the influence of those than can get to them -- lobbyists, for example.

This is a watershed day in American politics, but sadly the media will spin it away from America looking at itself and into the "lone nut" theory. Call it the Warren Commission redux: much easier to blame one lunatic than examine society as a whole.

We have a lethal cocktail running around this country, a cocktail combining the lack of adequate care for the mentally ill with Constitutional protection of "First Amendment" hate speech from Beck and Palin and "second amendment" remedies, tossed in with weakened gun laws. And this concoction is a recipe for total disaster. If we don't examine and admit this is more than a "lone nut," this will be just become more cancerous. We know the NRA will somehow spin away the fact that a mentally ill person can carry a concealed weapon to a political rally or that the rhetoric from people like Palin actually encourages more violence. Are we willing to let that go on because it is too painful or too politically difficult to talk about? You betcha.

None of this will be talked about by politicians or the media.

P.S.: Of all the sights and sounds on the tube today, NONE was more disgusting than watching Jan Brewer, who as governor has drastically axed medical coverage in Arizona, to the point of denying transplants, AND encouraged hatred to be the norm in her state with the passage of the draconian immigration bill, shed those crocodile tears. As sure as anything, she will be portrayed her as the caring governor. I refer the good governor to Sheriff Dupnik: "vitriol might be free speech, but it's not without consequences."

Arizona killing: Thoughts on the Gabrielle Giffords assassination attempt

By Michael J.W. Stickings

UPDATED.

I was out and about this afternoon when I heard a brief report on a local radio station about a shooting in Arizona.

My first thought: Great, another shooting in the U.S. Another sad story from a violent, gun-crazy country.

I pulled out my BlackBerry and quickly discovered what had happened -- and who the target was.

My second thought: Well, we sort of knew this was coming, right, this sort of political violence, likely by someone steeped in right-wing ideology? It was only a matter of time.

This is when Twitter is such a useful tool, and I used it gather as much information as I could from the many reliable sources I follow.

My third thought: Okay, we don't yet know all the details, and we do need to be careful not to jump to conclusions, but the circumstantial evidence is already piling up.

Giffords is an enemy of the Tea Party. She narrowly beat a Tea Party GOP opponent in November. She's a Blue Dog, a moderate Democrat, but she voted for health-care reform and supported DADT repeal. She's apparently extremely well-liked.

But her office had been vandalized and there are reports she had to cancel a recent event because of the threat of right-wing violence.

Sarah Palin and others had targeted her specifically, using the rhetoric of violence in their campaign literature and propaganda. Palin specifically had put her "in the crosshairs."

Yes, it was only a matter of time that something like this was going to happen.

I retweeted a great deal and tweeted a great deal of my own this afternoon. You can find all that, should you be interested, @mjwstickings.

My fourth thought: Perhaps this will be a turning point, a tipping point. Perhaps now the media and others will start paying attention to the rhetoric of violence that animates American conservatism today. You don't have to go far to find it. Just listen to the Tea Party, to Beck, to Palin. They need to be held accountable.

To be fair, not all conservatives are like this, even if so many of them either partake of it in some way or at the very least enable it by not speaking out against it.

Boehner, Bachmann, McCain -- these three and others quickly condemned the shooting, and I suppose I take them at their word, even if their hands are not entirely clean, particularly Bachmann's, who is the spinner of many a right-wing conspiracy theory, among other craziness.

(Update: Not surprisingly, Fox News is protecting Palin.

(Update 2: Remarkably, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik provided some much-needed perspective, pointing the blame in the right direction: "When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on this country is getting to be outrageous and unfortunately Arizona has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.")

My fifth thought: Let's not get ahead of ourselves. As Rachel Maddow tweeted: "There is nothing to be gained from speculating on the motives and affiliations of AZ shooter w/o facts."

True, but, again, the evidence is piling up. See the many tweets I retweeted, including:

-- Digby: "The shooter sounds nuts, but he also sounds like he's influenced by fringy wingnut politics.

-- Peter Daou: "A shooter like this may be mentally ill, but that doesn't mean a stream of rightwing hate has no effect."

And a thought throughout: How horrible.

In all, so far, the shooting left six dead the 12 wounded. The dead include a federal judge (John Roll, who has faced right-wing threats before), a Giffords staffer, and a nine-year-old girl.

Yes, a child.

**********

The shooting took place outside a Safeway grocery store in Tucson, Arizona, where Giffords was holding a constituency meeting.

The killer is Jared Lee Loughner. He is in custody.

Giffords was shot once in the head. She made it through surgery and is in critical condition. Doctors are "optimistic" about her chances for recovery.

**********

As FDL's Jane Hamsher reports, Giffords's Tea Party opponent, Jesse Kelly, held an event in June described as such: "Get on Target for Victory in November Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office Shoot a fully automatic M15 with Jesse Kelly."

As Politico's Ben Smith reports, Loughner "left social media hints," including a YouTube clip:

The police have named a suspect in the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords, Jared Loughner. A person under that name has a YouTube account that includes suggestions of anti-government political views.

"You don't have to accept the federalist laws," the video above says; It also insists on the gold and silver standard, talks of revolution, and suggests that the government is imposing "mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar."

His linked MySpace page, no longer available, included statements about the gold standard and about SWAT teams paying for their equipment with illegal currency.

Among his long list of favorite books in his YouTube profile are Mein Kampf, The Communist Manifesto, Siddhartha.

Loughner also "favorited" just one video on YouTube, which shows the burning of an American flag and is accompanied by an anti-government screed.

No, this isn't just pure Republican extremism, and so I think it's wrong to label him so simply. If this is indeed Loughner, he's an anti-government wacko who is generally on the far right but who is obviously outside of the broad political spectrum of establishment politics.

So, again, we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves. But it's pretty easy to see how the rhetoric of the right, including of the Tea Party and Republican Party right, could have had a great deal of influence on him.

Again, just listen to Beck, listen to the Teabaggers, listen even to Palin and Bachmann, among many others. They may all claim to by hyper-patriotic, but they're all deeply anti-government and especially anti-Washington.

Palin has called the shooting a "tragedy," and of course she's right, but she needs to be held to account for what she has done.

And what is that? FDL's TBogg quotes Palin herself:

Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: “Don’t Retreat, Instead – RELOAD!” Pls see my Facebook page.

And also the right-wing Townhall.com (bolding the key parts):

Twenty House Dems from districts that McCain carried in 2008 voted for the health care bill, and Sarah Palin has a target on every single one.

The targets were released on the six month anniversary of Obamacare, and include a lot of familiar names such as John Boccieri (OH), Chris Carney (P N) Gabrielle Giffords (AZ) and Ann Kirpatrick (AZ). The site invites donations, social networking, and the unbeatable Sarah love that has led to a 26:11 win/loss record of candidates in GOP primaries. Granted, some of those were in safe districts, but she’s also pulled off massive upsets that probably outshadow her less successful picks.

Regardless, this site should go a long way towards knocking off the politicians who put their party affiliation ahead of their constituent’s demands. It was announced via a tweet from SarahPalinUSA: "Lies, Damned Lies – Obamacare 6 Months Later; It’s Time to Take Back the 20!"

Here's Palin's map:

Seriously, is it any wonder this has happened?

**********

I'll conclude this post with a comment from Andrew Sullivan:

Giffords was one of twenty members of Congress placed within metaphorical "gun-sights" in SarahPac's graphic. That is not the same thing as placing a gun-sight over someone's face or person. No one can possibly believe -- or should -- that Sarah Palin is anything but horrified by what has taken place. But it remains the kind of rhetorical excess which was warned about at the time, and which loners can use to dreadful purposes. 

We'll have more on this, so stay tuned.

Some info on the Arizona shooter

By Greg Prince

Some links I received from a friend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHoaZaLbqB4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnNx0WThoF0

Clearly, a disturbed individual.

BREAKING: Arizona congresswoman shot

By Edward Copeland

A congresswoman from Arizona was shot on Saturday along with several others during at public event at a grocery store in Tuscon, according to her spokesman, C.J. Karamargin. The Tucson Citizen reported that Ms. Giffords had been shot at close range in the head.

The condition of the congresswoman, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a Democrat, remained unclear. She was taken to University Medical Center in Tucson, the trauma center for the area, about 10 miles away.

CNN quoted a public information officer as saying that 12 people had been injured in all.

What The New York Times has so far.