REP. GABRIELLE GIFFORDS KILLED in Arizona mass shooting. Not clear what happened, but haven’t several other Arizona politicians suffered assaults lately?
UPDATE: Gateway Pundit has more.
ANOTHER UPDATE: More here.
And judging from the comments to this post, people are already trying to score political points. Well, they kind of telegraphed this strategy, didn’t they? Remember Bloomberg making a fool of himself by blaming the Times Square bombing on the Tea Party? How about waiting until we actually know something, this time? That’s likely to be soon enough.
MORE: KOLD reports Giffords is alive and in surgery. Stay tuned.
MORE STILL: A blogger-email from Speaker Boehner’s office: “I am horrified by the senseless attack on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and members of her staff. An attack on one who serves is an attack on all who serve. Acts and threats of violence against public officials have no place in our society. Our prayers are with Congresswoman Giffords, her staff, all who were injured, and their families. This is a sad day for our country.”
Ed Driscoll is updating with news. Kos is airbrushing.
EVEN MORE: His name’s Jared Lee Loughner and he seems like a garden variety nut:
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.
Doesn’t sound much like a Tea Partier. And what the hell is “conscience dreaming?”
Media Matters: Don’t Score Political Points. Oh, wait . . . .
MORE: High School Friend: “As I knew him he was left wing, quite liberal. & oddly obsessed with the 2012 prophecy.” More here.
Also: Man linked to Giffords shooting called ‘very disturbed.’
A former classmate of Loughner at Pima Community College said he was “obviously very disturbed.”
“He disrupted class frequently with nonsensical outbursts,” said Lynda Sorenson, who took a math class with Loughner last summer at Pima Community College’s Northwest campus.
Sorenson doesn’t recall if he ever made any threats or uttered political statements but he was very disruptive, she said. He was asked to leave the pre-algebra class several times and eventually was barred from class, said Sorenson, a Tucson resident. . . . In a youtube.com video dated Dec. 15, entitled “Introduction: Jared Loughner” the accused gunman describes himself as a U.S. military recruit who had applied to join the Army. The Army, however, said it rejected Lougher as a recruit in 2008.
Stay tuned.