I lack words to express my revulsion, but then, none are really necessary in response to this (TPM via Huffpo):
Eyebrows shot up all over the country Thursday following news that that the Republican Party in Pima County, AZ — home to Tucson and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ (D) district — is raffling off a Glock similar to the one used to shoot Giffords in the head in January.
Props to the ousted Pima County GOP chief for his condemnation of this — but it ain’t his party any more. Now, it seems, in order to be a 21st century Republican, you need to have both your moral sense and your capacity to imagine the emotions of others surgically excised at birth.
I got nothin’ more to say on this. I gotta go OD on antiemetics.
Image: Hieronymus Bosch, Hell (detail), 1500-1504
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
Lets have a fund raiser and give away a Röhm RG-14 .22 cal. blue steel revolver , a replica of the one that Hinckley used to shoot Reagan.
Raenelle
This isn’t, IMO, a failure of Republicans to imagine the emotions of others. They do it precisely in order to freak us out. It’s another form of purity test for them. They are demanding that their tribe root in favor of ever more outrageous ideas. They exclude us and include themselves. In a Venn diagram, us and them don’t overlap–or that seems to me to be the goal.
Judas Escargot
Look on the bright side: Jared Lee Loughner doesn’t turn 35 until 2023.
Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .
Coming soon to Balloon Juice: posts that consist entirely of tags!
sophronia
Who knew there were enough sociopaths in this country to fill an entire political party?
They don’t even seem to be trying to appeal to anyone else anymore. It’s all sociopathy, all the time.
PurpleGirl
@Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .: There are only 3 lines of tag and not even full lines at that on this post. A couple earlier posts had many, many more lines of tags.
soonergrunt
@Judas Escargot: ummm, huh?
Tom Levenson
@Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .: Reminds me of a wonderful old Journal of Irreproducible Results article on footnotes that consisted of a six word sentence fragment in the body of the article and multiple nested footnotes consuming the rest of the 1000 word or so text limit.
Spaghetti Lee
I wonder if you went back in time and told people that one day a political party would try to fundraise off an attempted assassination attempt of the local congresswoman of the opposing party-if they’d even believe it. I mean, imagine Republicans in 1963 raffling off the gun used to kill Kennedy. That would be like a Tom Lehrer song that he wasn’t allowed to perform. Yet here we are 50 years later.
I mean, what’s the fucking message supposed to be, exactly? “Be the highest bidder then go out there and finish the job”? Are they even trying to have some sort of coherent message?
Tom Levenson
@Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .: Also too: which tags should I cut? I truly am reaching for ways to express my loathing/remove the taste of mouth-vomit.
Rick Massimo
The GOP is an eight-year-old in the back seat of a car, holding his finger an inch away from the face of his sister, saying “I’m not TOUCHING you!”
Then when the car goes over a bump and he pokes his sister in the eye, he shouts, “It was an ACCIDENT! It wasn’t MY fault!”
Zifnab
I’m sure someone will be able to find an example of an instance in which a Democrat did the exact same thing except ten times worse.
@Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937: Here we go! Winner!
This sonofabitch totally justified every mean-spirited and violence-extolling piece of rhetoric that Republicans in Arizona will churn out for the next thirty years.
dpCap
@Tom Levenson: Well, like the companion tags, “Fucked-up-edness” and “Fucksaw”.
Very clever.
Zifnab
@Rick Massimo:
Fix’d.
Roger Moore
@soonergrunt:
I think he was suggesting that if Loughner were 35, there would be Republicans picketing outside his jail demanding him to run for President.
TruthOrScare
Sadly, as an Arizonan, I don’t find this at all surprising and agree with the poster above who speculates it was intentionally chosen to ‘piss off libruls.’ They appear now to operate from the assumption that all Real Murkans, save a small band of libruls, are impressed by their dick-swingin’ antics.
This is coming from the same group of people who showed up for Jesse Kelly fundraisers like this in 2010:
“Giffords’ Tea Party opponent in the 2010 election, Jesse Kelly, went even further with the violent rhetoric. Kelly’s campaign held an event called “Get on Target for Victory in November.” Description: “Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office. Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly.”
Link: http://inyourfaceradio.net/?p=3158#
She beat that asshat by fewer than 5,000 votes and probably would have lost to him if a Libertarian hadn’t been in the race as an alternative to voting for Kelly.
Judas Escargot
@soonergrunt, @Roger Moore:
Yeah, this.
HUMOR FAIL (if it needs explanation, it isn’t funny).
Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .
T-Lev: Oh, whichever you like. It’s not that the tags aren’t appropriate, just that “Tag Creep(TM)” has rendered tags somewhat irrelevant, if, indeed, they ever had relevance.
Joel
@Raenelle: It is, of course, a conscious display of evil.
rlrr
The Pima County GOP must hate America — raffling an Austrian pistol…
Mnemosyne
The only iota of silver lining I can see here is that we’ll be able to power the entire East Coast just from the rolling William F. Buckley will be doing in his grave.
That’s right, you fake-patrician asshole — this is the Republican Party you created.
gex
It makes complete sense under the theory that their every action is determined by whether or not it will piss of reasonable/liberal/moderate/non-warrior Christian people.
gex
@Zifnab: You forgot the part where the brother demands an apology, like the jackboot TPer that nearly curb stomped that woman.
SteveinSC
@Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937:
Now that is wit. We could make it out of plastic with batteries that make sounds, kind of like the Animatronic Gipper himself.
aisce
if they raffled off a beretta, would that have been ok?
jewelbomb
Ha, Ha, Ha. I find the tag-related exuberance really funny for some reason. Moar plz.
rlrr
@aisce: No
SteveinSC
@aisce:
I had a Lancia one time and if the Berreta being raffled was as reliable as the car, it would be a harmless curiosity.
Butch
@Tom Levenson: Remember the Journal’s article on whether it is possible to destroy a Peep?
Elizabelle
Yeah, this is a “have you no decency, sir?” moment.
For sure.
The Dangerman
I wonder if the raffle winner has to pass the standard background check…
Edit: A little more; can you imagine the problems if the raffle winner used this particular Glock in a violent crime?
trex
@Mnemosyne
That’s right, you fake-patrician asshole—this is the Republican Party you created.
Nice. It’s comments like this one that absolutely necessitate the invention of time travel.
catclub
I see that no one recognized the genteel restraint of the GOP. There was no high capacity clip included. That would have been too much.
Alex S.
They want her to die, that´s what they really think.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
They want us all to die. Only white straight Real Americans deserve to live in America.
Cliff in NH
Only difference is larger caliber.
They are sick fucks.
Here, for 10 buck you can shoot someone in the head with no chance of survival, and we can profit too! ($1250sales>$500cost)
Cliff in NH
@Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937:
No, make it the .38 special, cause the .22 wasn’t enough.
feebog
And we are suprised at this latest outrage, why exactly? After all this is the same party that passed out purple bandaids at their 2004 convention, mocking a three time purple heart winner, while stroking their own AWOL draft dodger. And yes, he did dodge the draft; a few years flying obsolete jets around the Southwest instead of putting your ass on the line in Viet Nam makes you at the very least a draft dodger, if not a coward.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Tom Levenson:
My dear boss always says “if your appeals brief is full of footnotes then your argument is fucked up”.
Frances Campbell
Why the surprise? They had to get rid of the evidence somehow. Or perhaps they just want to arm the next nut job who wants to take out a Democrat.
JerseyJeffersonian
The text of an email I sent to a few folks upon hearing of this:
So, the Republican Party in Pima County is having a fund-raising raffle:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/09/01/gop-in-giffords-district-holds-raffle-for-glock/
I don’t know, maybe they ought to dial it back a bit? It’s not too late to substitute another prize. Say, I’ve got an idea! How about a nice Hummel figurine? Maybe a figure being lynched, and with interchangeable heads, one of a Darkie, and it being Arizona and all, another one of a Mexican! Since it’s such a super special sort of occasion, maybe it could include a music box that plays the song, Strange Fruit. Of course, since it would be only the music, and not the lyrics, they wouldn’t have to worry about modification for the local conditions; but it’s the spirit of the thing, don’t you know.
Southern trees bear strange fruit
Blood on the leaves
Blood at the root
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees
Pastoral scene of the gallant south
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth
The scent of magnolia sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh
Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck
for the rain to gather
for the wind to suck
for the sun to rot
for the tree to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop
Composed by Abel Meeropol (aka Lewis Allan)
Originally sung by: Billie Holiday
Knowing that audience, I’m betting that they could sell a whole lotta tickets for that raffle.
Sorry, sometimes things just need to be said.
Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .
LitleBritDifferent: That’s because lawyering ain’t an academic discipline!
gelfling545
@Rick Massimo: Perfect.
Trakker
I’m going out on a limb here. When I as growing up I had a friend who kept doing things that were more and more outrageous and more and more dangerous. The amazing thing was that his parents never criticized him, never demanded that he stop his behavior, and never punished him for it. I believe he desperately wanted them to act like the the adults they were supposed to be and punish him.
I see the same thing with the tea party/GOP. No matter how outrageous their behavior, no one ever punishes them for it. They just keep getting away with it. Their party leaders, their corporate sponsors, and the MSM to a large extent keep treating these dangerous morons like rational people. My friend eventually ran away and later ended up homeless. That’s where my analogy gets scary.
rikyrah
they have no decency.
period.
they are sociopaths.
period.
piratedan
@TruthOrScare: aye Truth, it was scary that Kelly wasn’t Right enough for some of the folks here (mainly in Cochise County) and it was an incredibly ugly race (as I experienced from the phone bank trenches) with a whole boatload of outside money and smear ads that took a grain of truth and used it as a foundation for an anthill of lies. These guys still promote that gun fetish as if it was a badge of honor and that they’re the ones being persecuted.
Doug Kahn
The Bosch art is appropriate. I really live in Flori-duhh, but will have to spend most of my time here (Scottsdale) for another 2 years.
I live in the Sunshine State. This is the Inferno State.
fuckwit
forget it, jake, it’s america: http://prn.s3.amazonaws.com/16259qf.jpg