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Sarah Palin vs. Ernie Chambers
In January 2011, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot at a “Congress on Your Corner” constituent meeting outside a Tucson Safeway supermarket. Though the gunman murdered six others, Giffords survived, but eventually had to resign her seat due to brain and bodily damage. As is usually the case, the shooting became a political debate over gun control and mental health. Many on the left blamed the shooting on the political rhetoric of the right. Many specifically blamed Sarah Palin, even though she was not in Tucson, has nothing to do with Arizona, and didn’t pull the trigger. Palin was blamed because of this map:
The map was meant to politically target and vote out those members of Congress who voted for Obamacare. No one in their right mind would think that Palin wanted this to serve as a list of people that needed to die because of their votes, but that didn’t stop the Palin-despising mainstream media:
- New York Daily News: Giffords’ blood is on Sarah Palin’s hands
- The Wire: Did Sarah Palin’s Target Map Play Role in Giffords Shooting?
- Quora: Can Sarah Palin be liable for Giffords’ shooting, under ‘incitement to murder’?
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman also blamed Palin, and lumped in Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck as well:
We don’t have proof yet that this was political, but the odds are that it was. She’s been the target of violence before. And for those wondering why a Blue Dog Democrat, the kind Republicans might be able to work with, might be a target, the answer is that she’s a Democrat who survived what was otherwise a GOP sweep in Arizona, precisely because the Republicans nominated a Tea Party activist. (Her father says that “the whole Tea Party” was her enemy.) And yes, she was on Sarah Palin’s infamous “crosshairs” list.
Just yesterday, Ezra Klein remarked that opposition to health reform was getting scary. Actually, it’s been scary for quite a while, in a way that already reminded many of us of the climate that preceded the Oklahoma City bombing.
You know that Republicans will yell about the evils of partisanship whenever anyone tries to make a connection between the rhetoric of Beck, Limbaugh, etc. and the violence I fear we’re going to see in the months and years ahead. But violent acts are what happen when you create a climate of hate. And it’s long past time for the GOP’s leaders to take a stand against the hate-mongers.
Fast-forward to a few days ago when Omaha Police Officer Kerrie Orozco was killed in the line of duty. A member of the city’s gang unit, she was shot while attempting to serve a warrant to a known gang member. From NBC News:
[Police Chief Todd] Schmaderer said the fatal bullet struck Orozco, 29, in her upper chest — just above the top of her protective vest.
“It’s not going to cover all of our body, and it never will,” Schmaderer said. “Law enforcement is a very dangerous job.”
Paramedics performed CPR on both the officer and the suspect as they were rushed to the Creighton University Medical Center shortly after 1 p.m. (2 p.m. ET) Wednesday. Michael Wagner, a trauma critical care surgeon at the hospital, said his team provided “aggressive care” to Orozco and Wheeler, but neither could be saved.
Orozco arrived on the scene after other officers with the Metro Fugitive Task Force had already exchanged gunfire with Wheeler, who was armed with a Glock 9mm handgun with a drum magazine capable of housing 50 rounds, Schmaderer said. Wheeler also a spare 15-round magazine when his body was recovered. In all, he fired at least nine shots at police in two separate exchanges, the chief said.
As if her death wasn’t tragic enough, she delivered a premature baby recently and was supposed to start her maternity leave the day after she was killed.
Two months before the her murder, Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers, who represents a district in North Omaha near where Officer Orozco was killed, compared the police to ISIS:
“My ISIS is the police,” Chambers said, adding police can get away with shooting people if they “think” they’re going to do something — like pull a weapon.
“The police are licensed to kill us — children, old people,” he said.
“I wouldn’t go to Syria, I wouldn’t go to Iraq, I wouldn’t go to Afghanistan, I wouldn’t go to Yemen, I wouldn’t go to Tunisia, I wouldn’t go to Lebanon, I wouldn’t go to Jordan, I would do it right here,” Chambers said. “Nobody from ISIS ever terrorized us as a people as the police do daily.”
“If I was going to carry a weapon, it wouldn’t be against you, it wouldn’t be against these people who come here that I might have a dispute with. Mine would be for the police,” he said. “And if I carried a gun I’d want to shoot him first and then ask questions later, like they say the cop ought to do.”
In summary, a State Senator, who represents a district near where a police officer would soon be killed, said that he would shoot police officers, who are worse than the terrorists of ISIS.
The day after he made his sickening comments, “State senator won’t back down, apologize for saying he’d shoot a cop”
“I meant what I said and I said what I meant,” Chambers said
“I’m not going to resign,” he said. “I’m not going to apologize. Why do you think I would apologize?”
In an honest media world, Quora would write a story with the headline “Can Ernie Chambers be liable for Orozco’s shooting, under ‘incitement to murder’?” and the New York Daily News would accuse Chambers of having Orozco’s blood on his hands. But of course, we don’t have an honest media.
Let’s go back to the Palin crosshairs map. A Google news search of “Gabrielle Giffords Sarah Palin” will come up with about 3,500 national and international articles that mention Palin in light the Giffords shooting. A Google news search of “Ernie Chambers Kerrie Orozco” elicits zero. Literally, zero articles mentioning Chambers in light of the Orozco shooting. Not even in Omaha is the local press doing to Ernie Chambers, what the world’s press did to Sarah Palin.
On Twitter last night, I asked this question:
https://twitter.com/Cameron_Gray/status/601587245896716288
I got no response. But sadly, I know the answer.
RIP Omaha Police Officer Kerrie Orozco
PS – From KETV: How to help family of Officer Kerrie Orozco
Published in Politics
Of course Daily Kos had put Giffords on a target list complete with a bulls eye because she was a Blue Dog, but that’s fine. He’s a leftist.
If the left didn’t have double-standards, they’d have no standards at all.
That SarahPAC graphic has always annoyed me. Those symbols aren’t targets–they’re a device used in printing known as “registration marks.”
(Explanation: “color” printing involves running sheets of paper through four [sometimes more] printing units, each putting ink of a different color on the page. How do you make sure the images line up? Outside the margins of the printed piece, you put registration marks–so the pressmen can make sure the color registration is correct.)
You may not be aware that the content of Quora is submitted by the users. There are no paid staff or editors generating anti-Palin headlines. So you can’t expect Quora to have ideological balance.
Let me see . . . if Palin was “targeting” these people in her ad, then where were all the other assassinations? Oh, there weren’t any . . .
Nonetheless, the murder of Kerrie Orozco is heartbreaking. The State Senator that made the remarks went beyond political rheotoric – I’d even say he inspired the gang-bangers to react violently, resulting in Kerrie’s death, using the same logic.
I’d like to see the Nebraska Senate remove him from office . . .
Not surprisingly, these are all based on a lie. The symbols in the Palin poster are not crosshairs, they are points.
This is a crosshair:
This is a point, or printer registration mark, or unicode character 2316:
Or this variation:
This is a sign on a commercial strip in Redwood City, California called “Mid-Point Plaza”, scooped off Google Streetview. See the point?
The Palin poster didn’t actually contain crosshairs, but the Daily Kos poster did contain targets.
The people used term limits to get rid of him. Now he’s back, but there is no one left with the experience, knowledge, or ability to rein him in, like their used to be. He’s convinced the Nebraska Legislature to pass a repeal of the death penalty. The margin is veto proof, if no one changes their vote on the override vote.
Ernie has also sued God, proposed paying college athletes as state employees since 1986, started a witch hunt about nonexistent child sexual abuse, and tried to set up a school district segregation plan so egregious that even the NAACP sued over it.
He has been an embarrassment to Nebraska since 1970. The good news, if there is any, is that the Nebraska Unicameral only meets for 90 or 60 days in alternate years, so Ernie’s window to perform his stunts is limited.
Palin is such an easy target is why. She was not that conservative a governor yet the yeehaw leads the ignorant to think the opposite