Originally posted at David Horowitz’s Newsreal:

Last weekend, we all watched in horror as news of a horrific tragedy played across our television screens. A psychotic gunman went on a killing spree in Tucson, Arizona, where he shot Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in the head and killed Federal Judge John Roll. In all, six people died, including a nine-year-old girl, and over a dozen were injured. Rep. Giffords’ survival and recovery have so far been nothing short of a miracle, but the nation still grieves for the lives lost and tries to understand how this happened. As more and more is known about the murderer, it becomes clear that Jared Lee Loughner was a psychotic nut unmotivated by politics either on the Left or the Right. The Left, however, still wasted no time exploiting this tragedy to smear Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, the Tea Party, and conservatives in general. If you needed an example of how unhinged they have become, you need look no further than their reaction to the Tucson shootings.

Dishonorable mention: Hanoi Jane has no shame

Almost immediately after the shootings, Jane Fonda jumped into the fray. Her Twitter feed blamed Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, the tea party, and conservatives. Palin, she said, was directly responsible for the shootings. Nevermind that there was no known motive for the shooting; nevermind that Loughner alone is responsible for choosing to take the lives of innocent people. It’s all Sarah Palin’s fault! The tweets were captured over at The Right Scoop:

Jane Fonda has an arrest record — unlike Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck — for assaulting a police officer. She’s most famous for her treasonous actions during the Vietnam War. She posed for pictures on an anti-aircraft gun used to shoot down American planes. She made radio addresses calling American troops war criminals and murderers. She then came home and told the country that our POWs were being treated leniently and that there was no torture. The ultimate irony is that Fonda’s own actions directly led to further torture and abuse and American POWs, yet she sees no problem blaming innocent people decades later for something they had nothing to do with. If anyone needs to acknowledge their own complicity in torture and violence, it’s Fonda herself.

Which brings us to the first of this top 10.

We spend a lot of time at The Feminist Hawks’ Nest exposing modern femisogynists for what they are: fake feminists and man-haters with no interest whatsoever in furthering anything beyond their own pro-abortion, socialist agenda. The “feminists” stole feminism, a movement rooted in equality for all women and which sought to make men and women equals, and turned it into a completely warped version of what it used to stand for. Instead of seeking equality between men and women, femisogynists engage in virulent man-hating. Instead of empowering women, femisogynists do all they can to make women feel like perpetual victims in need of government protectors. Instead of accepting that women have different opinions and political ideas, they shun any woman who does not strictly adhere to their approved politics: pro-abortion and big government. Are all women pro-abortion Democrats? No, but they’ve got an agenda to push, and therefore, a pro-life conservative cannot be a feminist to them. Only certain women count to these “feminists,” and we at The Feminist Hawks’ Nest have tried to expose this and reclaim feminism for what it should be: a movement that speaks for all women, not just some, and seeks equality, not hate.

Unsurprising, when the femisogynists saw an opportunity to smear the so-called patriarchy and conservative women all at once, they gleefully leapt on board. Again, it matters not to them that there is absolutely no evidence to back up their claims. They’ve got an agenda to push, remember?

10. Amanda Marcotte blames the men

Amanda Marcotte’s rambling, incoherent drivel after the shootings surprised no one familiar with her writing. A one-trick pony, Marcotte again used her one trick: blame the men, the patriarchy, and the eeeeevil right wing!

As I’ve said before, the three biggest base-moving issues on the right all have to do with anxious masculinity: squelching reproductive rights and the female control over female bodies they represent, squelching gay rights because they subvert the tradition of sex and marriage being acts of male dominance over women, and gun nuttery, which can be summed up as wingnut fears that Democrats (feminized in their minds) are coming to take away their phallic symbols.

… It’s a combination of factors. It’s the individual’s own personal problems and it’s the right wing noise machine ratcheting up the hysteria and it’s white male rage that would exist even without the amplification just because women and racial minorities are making gains.

The other thing one should remember when dealing with today’s femisogynists is that they’re absolutely obsessed with sex. It permeates so much of what they believe, and you can see an example of that in Marcotte’s inane ramblings above. The Tucson shootings somehow have something to do with reproductive rights, traditional sex, and guns as phallic symbols for men. I was curious about one point in particular: if guns are male phallic symbols, then what does that mean for me, a female, who owns two? I guess I must want to be a man, because clearly guns couldn’t be used for anything other than phallic symbols, and certainly not for protection or sport. Everything we are learning about Jared Lee Loughner has shown that he is an apolitical wack job who had an obsession with Giffords dating back to 2007, before Sarah Palin was even on the national political scene. There’s also no anti-feminist, anti-abortion ramblings among Loughner’s ramblings, yet somehow, abortion and gay rights and feminism somehow ticked this guy off and made him go on a shooting rampage.

Right.

9. Jessica Valenti: Masculinity is the root of all evil

We’re supposed to applaud strong women — provided, of course, that they are strong lefty women — and cheer their empowerment and strength. Strong men? Well, that’s just the old-school masculinity rearing its ugly head, and should be destroyed. Men are supposed to be emotional whiny boys with not an ounce of masculinity in them whatsoever. Femisogynists constantly excoriate masculinity, using it as an excuse for every social ill they can think of. Jessica Valenti has used masculinity as a scapegoat for this shooting, unsurprisingly, although she gives not one example of the “violent masculinity” she claims permeates our culture and led Jared Lee Loughner to feel empowered enough to take the lives of six innocent people.

In a country that sees masculinity – especially violent masculinity – as the ideal, it’s no wonder that this type of language resonates. But it’s a sad state of affairs when women in politics have to resort to using the same gendered stereotypes that kept all women out of public service for so long.

… In the Colorado Senate primary, Republican Jane Norton accused her opponent of not being “man enough”; in the Delaware Senate primary, Republican Christine O’Donnell said that her opponent was “unmanly”; Angle told Harry Reid to “man up”; and Palin praised Republican Arizona Governor Jan Brewer as having “the cojones that our president does not have” to enforce immigration laws.

So all of these conservative women saying things like “man up” are examples of how violent masculinity is the ideal in American culture? Call me crazy, but if one is claiming that violent masculinity is responsible for something, maybe they should use some examples of, I don’t know, actual violence to back up their claims. And while feminized sissy boys might be preferable to femisogynists like Valenti and Marcotte, it isn’t feminized sissy boys that would step into the fray to save the lives of innocent people. Daniel Hernandez ran through gunfire to come to Gabrielle Giffords’ aid; a woman and two men tackled Loughner and prevented further bloodshed. What would one of Valenti’s wussy boys do? Run and hide? Perhaps I’m biased, as the wife of a Marine and all, but strong, masculine men are a benefit to society. It’s masculine men who will risk their lives to save those of strangers; it is masculine men who are willing to give their lives to save those of their family; it is masculine men who understand the meaning and value of chivalry and true respect towards women. And regardless of how masculine or feminine a man may be, isn’t the whole point of feminism supposed to be equality? Last I checked, feminism isn’t about warping men into women. Last I checked, feminism is supposed to be about the freedom to be who you want to be and lead the life you choose to lead. Where does outlawing masculinity and turning American men into feminized sissy boys factor into feminism? And what does it have to do with the Tucson shootings, anyways? (Answer: nothing.) Anyone who looks at Jared Lee Loughner and sees “masculinity” has a warped view of masculinity indeed, and is quite clearly looking to do nothing more than further their own twisted agenda.

8. No Labels has no class

No Labels came about as a supposedly “bipartisan” organization that would welcome people who didn’t consider themselves to be either on the right or the left (otherwise known as people with no principles). Get it? No labels! Of course, most of these “independent” groups are just lefty establishment groups trying to avoid being called liberals so that they can trick people into voting for Democrats. The reaction to the shooting by No Labels founder Mark McKinnon is also telling, as it is straight out of Rahm Emanuel‘s playbook.

“It’s a real tragedy, but it’s also a real opportunity,” said Mark McKinnon, co-founder of No Labels, a nonpartisan group founded last month.

Wow, this, like, totally sucks that all those people died, but dude, this is such an awesome opportunity for us, man!

What kind of heartless ghoul must you be to look at the deaths of six innocent people, including a nine-year-old girl, and see “a real opportunity”? Why, call me crazy, but it sounds just like Rahm Emanuel’s mantra of “never let a crisis go to waste”. And that’s the entire mindset of the left in reaction to this shooting, isn’t it? It’s a real opportunity for them: an opportunity to smear the right, to smear Sarah Palin, to smear the tea party, and to get voters back to the Left. Who cares about tragedy when you’ve got such a great opportunity?

7. Sherrod Brown blames health care hate speech

Democrats forced Obamacare down the throats of Americans who overwhelmingly rejected it. They then faced a reckoning in November, when the GOP made amazing gains in Congress and ultimately took back the House. John Boehner, now the Speaker of the House, is already leading Republicans towards repealing the disastrously unpopular bill, and Democrats are not happy about it. They don’t like that the public is still unhappy about Obamacare, they don’t like that they were so resoundingly defeated in November, and they don’t like that Republicans could possibly crumble the foundation they laid to build their socialist dream. And since so many Americans were really angry about the health care bill, then hey, maybe all that “violent rhetoric” could have made Jared Lee Loughner, an apolitical psycho, kill six people! And while we’re at it, if we blame anger over the health care bill, maybe we can get more people to support it too! No one wants to be aligned with an Obamacare-hating mass murderer, right? And what do you call it when you are a Democrat and someone disagrees with you on political policy? Why, hate speech, of course!

What runs through your mind, I think about the meetings I’ve had, where I’ve had where I’ve had staff nearby and there is people that in the audience that are really, really angry. Often is was about health care, often is immigration. There is a lot of hate speech. They see a lot of it on the radio, on the TV, hear it on the radio.

Right. Because people couldn’t possibly be angry all on their own about massive government expansion and the passage of a bill constituents didn’t want passed. They’re being brainwashed by their conservative talk radio overlords and the puppetmasters on Fox News! Silly Americans can’t think for themselves.

6. Bob Kerrey: the health care bill ticked Loughner off

One of the great things about being on the left is that you never need to concern yourself with silly little things like facts. You can just say whatever you want, regardless of whether or not there is any evidence to back it up, and the echo chamber known as the mainstream media will repeat it over and over again, and voila! Instant manufactured “fact”. Bob Kerrey gives us an excellent example: Loughner was angry because of the health care bill!

Tomorrow they were going to vote to repeal this health care bill — and it’s not going to go anywhere in the Senate — it’s one of the reasons that this guy was angry and pretty obvious that he is, at least from me, where I sit that he’s mentally ill and deeply troubled.

Of course, there’s no evidence whatsoever that Loughner knew that there even was a health care bill passed. Everything we’re learning about him shows that he is a psychotic man who was apolitical and angry at Gabrielle Giffords — allegedly because he didn’t like the answer she gave to a question he asked about grammar. No matter; Republicans might repeal this health care bill and the tea party sure as heck didn’t like it, so we’ll just use that as a convenient scapegoat anyways!

5. Glenn LaFantasie: The American experience created Loughner

Anti-American chic is nothing new on the left. So naturally, if there’s some kind of tragedy, it’s America’s fault! We’ve seen this countless times on the left since 9-11: we brought it on ourselves, Islamic terrorism only exists because of American imperialism, the Taliban are murderers because our troops are baby-killers, blah blah blah. It’s nothing new, but it’s still despicable rhetoric that isn’t grounded in even a shred of reality. Now we have a new national tragedy, which is something new that lefties can blame America for.

Nowhere is America-hating more en vogue than our college campuses. Leftist academics who hate America are a dime a dozen, so it was only a matter of time before one of them came out to drone on about how America sucks and that’s what caused the shooting. Glenn LaFantasie, a Civil War professor at Western Kentucky University, has volunteered to be that America-hating leftist academic.

Public officials who condone the use of torture in recent times should, by rights, give pause when they try to condemn the actions of Jared L. Loughner, Timothy McVeigh or the Unabomber. But, typically, our public servants see no contradiction, no hypocrisy, in advocating extreme political violence against our alleged enemies around the globe while condemning political violence when it is aimed against the government—or, more precisely, against them. In other words, political violence is legitimate when the government commits it; but it is appalling when individuals commit it against the government or its representatives. Political violence committed by individuals is explained by marginalizing those perpetrators as crackpots. Political violence committed by the government is justified as guaranteeing national security.

So not only is America to blame for Jared Loughner’s actions, America is also made up of evil violent torturers who have no right to complain about violence against one of our elected representatives. They’re just getting what was coming to them. In that sense, what Jared Lee Loughner did isn’t evil or even wrong; it’s completely justified because hey, we made him this way.

LaFantasie claims that Americans are all violent and filled with bloodlust. Of course, if we truly were all bloodthirsty violent savages, we probably wouldn’t be mourning the loss of the six people killed and praying for the recovery of Gabrielle Giffords. But don’t let that get in the way of believing that America is to blame for this or anything!

4. Spike Lee: America is the most violent country in history

Another place that loves to hate America is Hollywood. Director Spike Lee sat down with Meredith Vieira and proclaimed that America is the most violent country in the history of civilization. And it’s the NRA’s fault, too!

Just ignore ancient civilizations like the Aztecs with their ritual human sacrifices. Ignore Nazi Germany and the millions of innocent people they killed and tortured. Forget about Mao’s China, with tens of millions of people butchered. Forget about Islamic terror states like Iraq or Iran, where innocent people are routinely raped and murdered, little girls forced to undergo torture in the form of female genital mutilation, sanctioned pedophilia, and stonings for “crimes” like adultery. Nevermind communist atrocities in countries like the Soviet Union, where dissidents were either murdered or thrown into gulags. It all pales in comparison to America and the NRA.

3. Daisy Hernandez thanks God the shooter was white

Race-baiting is nothing new on the left, and considering that this massacre happened in Arizona, it was just a matter of time before someone went there. And go there someone did — NPR contributor Daisy Hernandez, who breathes a sigh of relief that the shooter was a gringo.

Your tax dollars are going to pay for this racist drivel: that she, and the Latino community, are currently feeling “brown relief”. Grief, shock, anger? Eh, not so much.

When she heard the news, she wasn’t concerned with the people injured or killed. She didn’t care about the shock and grief the families of the six murdered were feeling. Nope — Loughner was a gringo, and that’s all that mattered to her. Her first thought was not for the Americans brutally murdered, it was for her own racist ideologies. Only after she determined the shooter’s race was white could she bother with the otherwise mundane details… like the murder of a nine-year-old.

2. Clarence Dupnik: It’s all because of the tea party, and no, there’s no evidence.

Typically, the job of law enforcement is to investigate, not to spread unfounded rumors and instigate anger. Clarence Dupnik apparently never got that memo.

Since the shootings, people have looked to Sheriff Clarence Dupnik for the facts. Sheriff Dupnik, however, is much more interested in spreading rumors and fanning the flames of the angry public. Within hours, the he started blaming the right for the shootings — despite the utter lack of evidence to prove it — and hasn’t stopped. He blamed Rush Limbaugh.

The kind of rhetoric that flows from people like Rush Limbaugh, in my judgment he is irresponsible, uses partial information, attacks people, angers them against government, angers them against elected officials, and that kind of behavior in my opinion is not with consequences…. The vitriol affects the [unstable] personality that we are talking about… It’s my opinion that the hard right is deliberately fueling the fire against elected officials and the administration because they think it benefits them in the election process…. [Limbaugh] is a master at this type of diatribe. He inflames people against people like me, against Democrats and liberals, and this benefits the other party… Maybe even a majority of people in this country think that government is broken, that politics at the Washington level is broken. And they’re very very angry about it. They’re tired of all the crap that goes on, where people can’t sit down and act in a fashion that’s in the best interests of the American people. Political ideology aside, I think it comes to what’s in the best interest of the people in America. And anybody with half a brain who’s been watching what’s going on for the last two years knows that just the opposite has been happening. It’s my feeling that the anger that’s being purveyed by people in radio and some on TV is done deliberately because it benefits one particular party… You’re talking about a person who is unstable to begin with, and they are motivated in some cases by the rhetoric they hear and see. In general terms I think that people who make a living preaching hate, to hate the government, to be angry at the government, to destroy the government, to do it to elected officials and so forth, have some responsibility even though it may be free speech. I don’t think free speech goes without some responsibility and some consequences.

He claimed that Arizona was a mecca for prejudice and bigotry.

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.

He went on the air with Megyn Kelly and blamed vitriol and rhetoric for the shooting… and admitted he had no evidence to back that theory up.

The most outrageous part about Dupnik’s constant ramblings is that this man is the sheriff of Pima County. He’s an elected official, but the position of sheriff was not created for someone to fight partisan battles. He is not there to take sides. He is there to investigate crimes and to discover the facts, and as Dupnik has admitted himself, the facts don’t back up any of his assertions. Yet he still keeps running his mouth, making irresponsible statements, blaming people and ideologies that have nothing to do with Loughner’s motivations. If ever someone needed to be recalled from office, it’s Clarence Dupnik.

1. It’s all Sarah Palin’s fault

When President Bush was in office, we had Bush Derangement Syndrome. With Bush out of office, lefties needed a new figure to hate, and they immediately zeroed in on Sarah Palin.

It took only moments after news of the shooting broke for lefties to immediately blame Sarah Palin. While the left pointed the finger at her for her supposedly violent rhetoric, they became more unhinged and violent themselves. Markos Moulitsas — perhaps most famous for cheering the deaths of four American contractors in Iraq and saying “screw them” — was among the first to jump on the Blame Palin bandwagon.

Moulitsas linked to a map that quickly became the center of the “it’s all Palin’s fault” meme:

Of course, as Michelle pointed out, DailyKos could be considered just as much to blame, with a post trumpeting that Gabrielle Giffords was dead to the poster, a second DailyKos post by Moulitsas himself putting a target on Gabrielle Giffords, and that Democrats had their own versions of the target map.

No matter; Moulitsas just dug in even further.

MoveOn.org also jumped into the fray, with an inflammatory e-mail claiming that Palin was responsible.

And violent tendencies have been inflamed by the careless and irresponsible rhetoric of certain political leaders. Sarah Palin’s infamous ‘target list’ displayed Democratic districts, including Rep. Giffords’, in crosshairs, as if viewed through a gunsight.

Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva also blamed Palin:

She – as I mentioned, people contributing to this toxic climate – Ms. Palin needs to look at her own behavior, and if she wants to help the public discourse, the best thing she could do is keep quiet.

Joan Walsh jumped into the fray:

Michael Daly, in the New York Daily News, went so far as to say that Giffords’ blood was on Palin’s hands.

Here is what Sarah Palin said on the Facebook page where she depicted Gabrielle Giffords in the cross hairs of a rifle scope: “Don’t retreat! Instead – RELOAD!”

Well, the guy who shot Giffords yesterday managed to keep firing until he killed six, including a child, and wounded 13 .

Palin would no doubt say that she was only speaking in metaphor, that she only meant her followers should work to unseat Giffords and 19 other Democrats who had roused her ire by voting for health care.

But anyone with any sense at all knows that violent language can incite actual violence, that metaphor can incite murder. At the very least, Palin added to a climate of violence.

This is just a small sampling — the Palin hate completely permeated the left. And what was the result of all of the Palin blaming?

Death threats.

A Palin aide also spoke out, confirming that she was receiving death threats at unprecedented levels.

An aide close to Sarah Palin says death threats and security threats have increased to an unprecedented level since the shooting in Arizona, and the former Alaska governor’s team has been talking to security professionals.

Those on the left called on Sarah Palin and the right to be more careful about their rhetoric, but had no problem with violent rhetoric being thrown at Sarah Palin. This isn’t exactly surprising (see Michelle Malkin’s primer on the progressive climate of hate), but it is revealing. Was the vitriol towards Sarah Palin from the left really about concern for Gabrielle Giffords and public safety, or did they just see an opportunity to try to smear and silence Sarah Palin and jump on it? Considering that there is no evidence whatsoever that Jared Lee Loughner even knew who Sarah Palin was, it clearly is the latter.

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These unhinged reactions show that left will use anything to smear their enemies and promote their sick, twisted agenda. Six people are dead, and all these moonbats could do was try to find ways to pin this on conservatives, engage in race baiting, blame America, and exploit the tragedy to further their own agenda. If one ever needed a primer on the sickness that infects the American left today, all they would need to do is read the examples listed here.