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There’s no evidence political vitriol of any kind drove Jared Loughner’s murderous rampage, ABC, CBS and NBC all acknowledged, but that didn’t deter them on Monday night from taking up the left-wing line holding conservatives culpable as NBC, incredibly, managed to castigate Sarah Palin and go back more than five years to find an incendiary quote from Glenn Beck – but couldn’t find anything over the line from its own Keith Olbermann or Ed Schultz.

“It was, by all accounts, a lone and very disturbed man who shot that gun on Saturday,” ABC’s Diane Sawyer noted, “but nonetheless, as we all know, a lot of people began asking questions for different reasons. Is this a moment we can talk about what is civility and respect in America?” From Tucson, on CBS Katie Couric set up a story: “We may never know for sure what drove Jared Loughner to open fire here last Saturday, but some, on both ends of the political spectrum, say the vitriolic rhetoric we hear every day was a factor.”

NBC anchor Brian Williams intoned: “Has political speech in this country become too charged, too toxic, and did it play a role in this tragedy?” Reporter Andrea Mitchell contended any link to the shooting is irrelevant: “Whether or not there is any connection between Saturday's shooting and angry rhetoric, it has certainly reignited the debate over political speech between right and left.”

After running a soundbite of FNC’s Glenn Beck denouncing the media for blaming Palin, Mitchell proceeded to regurgitate that very charge: “This map from Palin’s Web site targeted Giffords' district and the others with the iconic cross hairs of a gun sight. Giffords' Tucson office was vandalized that week, and the Congresswoman criticized Palin's map with Chuck Todd and Savannah Guthrie.”

Skipping over everything aired on MSNBC, Mitchell went back to 2005 to discredit Beck: “Beck himself has been widely criticized for comments like this about liberal activist Michael Moore.” Viewers heard audio from Beck on his radio show from May 17, 2005: “I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore. I could just be choking the life out of him. Is this wrong?”

Only at the very end of her piece did Mitchell slip in: “In the wake of the shootings, a liberal blogger on the Daily Kos took down his recent post that Giffords was quote ‘dead to him’ for voting against Nancy Pelosi for Democratic leader.”

On ABC’s World News, Jake Tapper pointed out: “One acquaintance from 2007 said the shooter was liberal and his obsession with Giffords pre-dates Sarah Palin's much criticized map of congressional targets for defeat, including Giffords, by three years. So, from the right, come charges of political opportunism by the left.”

After a clip of Rush Limbaugh castigating Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, Tapper aired a bite of Dupnik trashing Limbaugh: 

The kind of rhetoric that flows from people like Rush Limbaugh, in my judgment he’s irresponsible, uses partial information – sometimes wrong information – attacks people, angers them against government, angers them against elected officials and that kind of behavior, in my opinion is not without consequences and I think he’s irresponsible.

 

Jeff Greenfield, on the CBS Evening News, recalled how “a generation ago some intellectuals on the left were flirting with revolutionary violence espoused by the black panthers and the weathermen. One leading literary magazine put a diagram of a Molotov cocktail on its cover,” but, he insisted in leading into comments from Newt Gingrich and Dick Morris, “these days the harshest words about government usually come from the right.”

Couric ended her newscast by quoting from an e-mail sent days ago by Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords:

She said, quote: “We need to figure out how to tone our rhetoric and partisanship down,” unquote. No matter what the shooter’s motive, this tragedy provides us all with an opportunity to step back, take stock and have a conversation.

 

From the Monday, January 10 NBC Nightly News:

BRIAN WILLIAMS: We're back now from Tucson with more on the shootings here and the political fallout. A question was raised almost as soon as the news broke. Has political speech in this country become too charged, too toxic, and did it play a role in this tragedy? NBC's Andrea Mitchell in Washington for us tonight with more on that story. Andrea, good evening.

 

ANDREA MITCHELL: Good evening, Brian. Whether or not there is any connection between Saturday's shooting and angry rhetoric, it has certainly reignited the debate over political speech between right and left, with conservative commentator Glenn Beck tonight challenging the media to show leadership and everyone to denounce violence. On Fox News tonight, conservative commentator Glenn Beck accused the media of trying to destroy Sarah Palin.

GLENN BECK, ON FNC: They're desperately using every opportunity to try to convince you that somehow or another, Sarah Palin is dangerous.

MITCHELL: His complaint, criticism that Palin crossed a line when she used gun imagery last year against twenty Democrats, including Gabrielle Giffords.

SARAH PALIN, MARCH 26, 2010: But this BS coming from the lame stream media lately about this, about us inciting violence.

MITCHELL: But this map from Palin’s Web site targeted Giffords' district and the others with the iconic cross hairs of a gun sight. Giffords' Tucson office was vandalized that week, and the Congresswoman criticized Palin's map with Chuck Todd and Savannah Guthrie.

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, ON MSNBC ON MARCH 25, 2010: The way that she has it depicted  has the croshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they’ve got to realize there are consequences to that action.

MITCHELL: After Saturday's shooting Palin's team defended the map on a conservative podcast.

AUDIO OF REBECCA MANSOUR: We never ever, ever intended it to be gun sights. It was simply cross hairs like you see on a map.

MITCHELL: Still, they removed the map from their Web site on Saturday, but today it was still up on Palin's Facebook page. Today, Palin e-mailed Beck to say-

BECK, READING E-MAIL: Our children will not have peace if politicos just capitalize on this to succeed in portraying anyone as inciting terror and violence.

MITCHELL: Beck himself has been widely criticized for comments like this about liberal activist Michael Moore.

AUDIO OF GLENN BECK, MAY 17, 2005: I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore. I could just be choking the life out of him. Is this wrong?

MITCHELL: The issue blew up right after the shooting with the Tucson sheriff's first briefing. He lit up the Internet by blaming the media.

SHERIFF CLARENCE DUPNIK: The vitriolic rhetoric that we hear day in and day out from people in the radio business and some people in the TV business.

MITCHELL: In the wake of the shootings, a liberal blogger on the Daily Kos took down his recent post that Giffords was quote “dead to him” for voting against Nancy Pelosi for Democratic leader.

And today, we learned that the day before she was shot, Giffords' e-mailed a Republican friend saying: “I would love to talk about what we can do to promote centrism and moderation. We need to figure out how to tone our rhetoric and partisanship down.” Brian?

 

— Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow him on Twitter.

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-baker/2011/01/11/nbc-s-mitchell-digs-back-2005-locate-beck-s-hate-speech-can-t-find-any-#ixzz1AjHCMutI

A prehistoric complex, including two 6,000-year-old tombs, has been discovered by archaeologists in Hampshire.

The Neolithic tombs, which until now had gone unnoticed under farmland despite being just 15 miles from Stonehenge, are some of the oldest monuments to have been found in Britain.

Archaeologists say they will hold valuable clues about how people lived at the time and what their environment was like.

The discovery is also close to Cranborne Chase, one of the most well researched prehistoric areas in Europe.

“It’s one of the most famous prehistoric landscapes, a Mecca for prehistorians, and you would have thought the archaeological world would have gone over it with a fine tooth comb,” Dr Helen Wickstead, the Kingston University archaeologist leading the project, said.

From examining similar sites, archaeologists know that complex burial rituals were common at the time. Typically bodies would be left in the open air until the flesh had decayed, leaving only a skeleton. Then bones were put in special arrangements in the tombs.

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“The tombs were like bone homes for important people in the community,” Dr Wickstead said.

The tombs were discovered by Damian Grady, an English Heritage photographer, who flew over the area in a light aircraft taking aerial photographs of the land, looking for marks or features on the landscape suggestive of ancient monuments. One photograph showed two long mounds.

After discussions with colleagues, Mr Grady was left in little doubt that the mounds were the site of ancient tombs. He contacted Dr Wickstead inviting her to investigate.

After carrying out a survey of the land using electromagnetic detectors and ultrasound, Dr Wickstead created a map of what lay beneath the fields. She was able to identify the two tombs with troughs on each side, known as long barrows, typical of Neolithic burial sites.

Her team was also found artefacts, including fragments of pottery, flint and stone tools, close to the surface.

So far Dr Wickstead’s team have only used non-invasive techniques to figure out what lies inside the tombs, which are located on the land of a local female farmer.

Because the original surface of the land has been preserved beneath the mound, scientists will be able to examine it for traces of pollen and identify which plants and trees were common at the time.

Whether they are excavated will depend on local feeling, she says.

“We’re treading very carefully on the excavation issue,” Dr Wickstead said.

“We want to be sure that it’s what people living in Damerham village want. It’s their heritage.”

The Kingston University team are due to publish preliminary findings of their research in the journal Hampshire Studies.

Federal Debt Approaches 100% of GDP

Federal Debt Approaches 100% of GDP

Even when The End of the American Century went to press in early 2008, the U.S. federal debt was reaching alarming levels, and was a central element of my forecasts of U.S. economic decline. At that point, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget projected the gross federal debt to expand to $10.6 trillion by 2009, constituting 72% of GDP.

Since then, the federal red ink has become a tidal wave. The OMB now expects the debt at the end of this year to be $12.7 trillion, and to expand to over $15 trillion by 2011, which would then be (at 97% of GDP) almost as large as the entire economy (see chart).

David Leonhardt of the New York Times, one of the few economists to have been tracking and raising concerns about the deficits, writes that erasing the deficits “will be one of the great political issues of the coming decade.” In his article “Sea of Red Ink” in the June 10 issue, he reports on a New York Times analysis of the composition of the debt accumulation over the last decade, “with the aim of understanding how the federal government came to be far deeper in debt than it has been since the years just after World War II.”

The analysis finds that the growth in the federal debt since 2001 comes from four main sources. The first, the business cycle (especially the 2001 recession and the current downturn) is the largest component, accounting for 37%. Another 33% of the recent debt comes from legislation signed by President Bush, including his tax cuts. Another 20% derives from President Obama’s continuation of several Bush policies, including spending on the Iraq War and the Wall Street bailouts. Only about 10% comes from new Obama policies, including the stimulus bill, and news spending on health care, education, energy and other areas.

Leonhardt sees little hope that the Obama administration can reduce or eliminate the deficits with “pay-as-you-go” government spending plans. The solution, he writes, “is no mystery” and involves inevitable tax increases and government spending cuts. These are political tinderboxes, of course, and pose a huge challenge to President Obama’s leadership skills.

Reporting from Seoul — North Korea has positioned its most sophisticated long-range ballistic missile at a launch site for a test firing that could come within weeks, a newspaper here reported today.

Pyongyang, which last month raised tensions worldwide by conducting a nuclear test, could even fire its missile June 16, when South Korean President Lee Myung-bak meets with President Obama in Washington, according to the report.

In recent days, North Korea has ordered all shipping traffic from waters off its western coast, a ban it said was effective through July.

The move comes while the U.N. Security Council contemplates new sanctions against North Korea’s underground nuclear test and launching of five short-range missiles last month.

The Dong-a Ilbo newspaper in Seoul reported that the new missile set for launch from the Dongchang-ni launch site on North Korea’s west coast may be a version of the Taepodong-2 rocket that Pyongyang fired in April.

The report, citing unnamed sources, said the missile had a range of up to 4,000 miles and could reach Alaska.

Both South Korea and Japan acknowledged today that a new North Korean long-range missile test could come within weeks.

“Given that North Korea has carried out a nuclear test, we can’t deny the possibility that they will further test-fire an intercontinental ballistic missile,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura told a news conference in Tokyo.

Without mentioning the new North Korean missile, South Korean President Lee said in a radio address that his nation would not tolerate further provocations from Pyongyang.

Advertisements –> Email Archiving | Exchange Hosting | Bonita Web Design “North Korea’s second nuclear test last week brought great disappointment and shock not only to our people, but the entire world,” Lee said, who echoed U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ claim that the world would not accept a nuclear-armed North Korea.

During a news conference in Manila, where he is meeting with Filipino military officials, Gates confirmed that North Korea appears to be preparing a long-range missile. But, Gates added, “at this point, it’s not clear what they’re going to do.”

Following last month’s nuclear test by North Korea, Seoul joined a U.S.-led initiative to halt the proliferation of nuclear weapons — by North Korea or any other nation.

Pyongyang responded with anger, implying that it would no longer abide by the armistice that was signed to bring an end to fighting between north and south in 1953. But Lee indicated today that Seoul would not back down.

If Pyongyang “refuses to take the path to dialogue and chooses the path of military threats and provocation, [South Korea] will never tolerate such threats.”

“We sincerely hope for peace but will sternly deal with any threats,” said Lee, who is attending an Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations summit on the southern island of Jeju.

South Korean newspapers have reported that a train carrying a long-range missile arrived at a missile base 120 miles northwest of Pyongyang, where a launch pad had been erected. The press reports speculated that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il might visit the site in early June.

In a release on Friday, Pyongyang’s state-run Korean Central News Agency said that the nation had “a right to conduct as many nuclear tests or missile launches as it wants in the event that the supreme interests of the state are infringed upon.”

“Such self-defensive measures do not run counter to any other international law,” the release stated.

Analysts say Pyongyang may be looking to disrupt the June summit between Lee and Obama, who will discuss the ongoing crisis on the Korean peninsula. Pyongyang’s last rocket launch, in April, was timed to coincide with an international summit in Europe.

“North Korea could possibly launch its missile during the summit between South Korea and the United States,” said Choi Choon-heum, senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul. “The last rocket launch was in April when the G20 meeting took place.”

Other analysts agreed that a missile launch appeared certain if the U.N. lays out new sanctions.

“North Korea has said that if the U.N. Security Council agrees on sanctions, it would stage a nuclear test or missile test,” said Paik Hak-soon, director of the Center for North Korean Studies at Sejong Institute near Seoul.

“They think this is their chance to test fire an ICBM. They’re thinking: Let’s get a status of a nuclear state. And besides that, we can achieve a capability for the ICBM.”

In belligerent language, North Korea continually has defied the international community in recent weeks. The communist state is angry over sanctions enacted by the Security Council following its April 5 rocket launch.

Pyongyang insisted that it placed a communications satellite into space although intelligence reports suggested that the launch was a disguised missile test.

In recent days, the Korean peninsula has become more tense with Pyongyang’s nuclear test and the firing of five short-range missiles.

On Thursday, North Korea also will put on trial two U.S. journalists who were taken into custody in March, reportedly while on North Korean soil.

The reporters, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, who work for a San Francisco-based television station, are accused of entering the country illegally and engaging in “hostile acts.”

john.glionna@latimes.com

News assistant Ju-min Park in The Times’ Seoul bureau contributed to this report