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Sunday, June 12, 2011

Gabrielle Giffords: First photos reflect Giffords' recovery


by Jaimee Rose - Jun. 12, 2011 05:15 AM
The Arizona Republic

Staff seeking to appease public, deter paparazzi

Today, the public gets its first look at Rep. Gabrielle Giffords since she was shot through the head Jan. 8 at a constituent event near Tucson. P.K. Weis of SouthwestPhotoBank.com
Today, the public gets its first look at Rep. Gabrielle Giffords since she was shot through the head Jan. 8 at a constituent event near Tucson.



Today, the public gets its first look at Rep. Gabrielle Giffords since she was shot through the head Jan. 8 at a constituent event near Tucson.
Her staff provided two photographs to The Arizona Republic and also planned to share the images with the Arizona Daily Star and on Giffords' Facebook page. According to her staff, the decision to share them was made by Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly, who hope the photos will help Giffords avoid the glare of camera lenses when she begins outpatient therapy later this month.


The goal was to satisfy "public curiosity about her appearance," said C.J. Karamargin, Giffords' communications director. "We want to avoid a paparazzi situation."
The photographs were taken on May 17 in the hours before Giffords' cranioplasty surgery by P.K. Weis of SouthwestPhotoBank.com, who photographed Giffords in the garden of the Houston rehab hospital where she is recovering. Weis, the former photo editor of the Tucson Citizen, is also Giffords' friend and said the photos were not altered.
The images depict Giffords alone and with her mother, Gloria Giffords. Her face shows almost no visible vestige of the bullet, which pierced her forehead, traveled through the left side of her brain, and exited her head. Her left eye appears slightly smaller than her right eye, likely because a piece of Giffords' skull was still missing when this photo was taken, her staff explained. The cranioplasty has since repaired her skull. In the photo, her brown hair has grown since it was shaved by Tucson doctors, and it covers surgical scars on her scalp. There is a scar at her throat left by a tracheotomy. Around her neck, she wears her husband's wedding ring on a chain.
"It is remarkable to think that this is a woman who was shot at point blank range in the head less than six months ago," said Karamargin. "We all came to the same conclusion: 'Wow, Gabby looks great.' "
In the five months since the shooting, Giffords has been shielded from view while undergoing intensive speech and physical therapy. Meanwhile, the public wondered about her progress and the news media asked her staff for definitive answers. The lingering, large question is whether Giffords will be able and wanting to return to her work as a third-term congresswoman, and when, but her doctors say that question is unanswerable, for now. Brain-injury patients require 12-14 months of recovery, doctors say, before informed prognoses can be considered about their future quality of life.
In the meantime, her staff is tasked with protecting her political future and the public trust. Giffords is an elected official, but while she recovers, how much does the public deserve to know?
Beyond medical assessments, not much, political analysts and professors say.
"I don't think (her family and staff) are obliged to tell (the public) the details of her condition," said Richard Parker, senior fellow and lecturer at the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University and a co-founder of Mother Jones magazine. "But I think they're obliged - at some point - to be completely honest, via the press, when it is likely or plausible when she can return to doing her job."
For now, Parker says, "they're within their rights to say, 'This is a delicate period, and we will not know until Christmas, from her doctors. But we would ask the public to bear with (her).' "
Media outlets and private citizens have criticized the amount and the clarity of the information shared, and the lack of access to Giffords, 41, who has not spoken to the news media or been observed by the media since the shooting that killed 6 and wounded 13. The suspect in the shooting is being held in a federal psychiatric facility until he is determined mentally competent to stand trial.
The public and the media could use some patience, said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. The question of whether she can serve "is not even fair to bring to the public right now," he said. "She's not expected to serve . . . until she recovers. If she can't recover, then you have a new reality, but we're not there yet."
However, "at a certain point - and we're probably approaching that point - her staff needs to give . . . people a full sense of what's happening" medically, Sabato said. "Because she is a U.S. representative, her constituents have a right to know what's going on to a certain degree. . . . I don't think it will generate anything but sympathy," Sabato said. "People want her to do well."
Giffords "knows she's not ready" to speak publicly or to the media, her chief of staff, Pia Carusone, has said in recent interviews with The Republic. "She does not want to do that right now."
Giffords communicates most often in one- and two-word sentences and struggles to find the words she wants to say, Carusone said this week. She uses gestures and facial expressions to get her points across, and her staff and family sometimes "infer" what Giffords means, Carusone said.
Her family and staff have protected her privacy amid rumors that TMZ was offering a $250,000 bounty for a current photo, Carusone said. TMZ reps did not return messages seeking comment.
Nurses have turned in cellphones before their hospital shifts at TIRR Memorial Hermann, where Giffords will continue as an outpatient. Black tarps kept her from cameras at NASA in Florida while she watched as her husband, a space-shuttle commander, launched Endeavour on its final mission in May. When Giffords left the hospital for a recent dinner out in Houston with her husband and some friends, reporters got tipped afterward and the event made headlines.
The only glimpse of Giffords was blurred: A TV camera filmed her from a distance in Houston while she boarded a plane bound for Florida, on her way to the shuttle launch. Her back was to the lens while she climbed stairs to the plane.
Political analysts say a photo or an interview that depicted Giffords in a weakened or compromised state could have damaged her political future in this image-obsessed age. Think 24-hour cable news networks, endless smartphone updates and citizen cellphone videos that turn into YouTube sensations.
"People are used to seeing her look a certain way," said Jennifer Duffy, a political analyst and senior editor at Cook Political Report in Washington, D.C., who had not seen today's photos of Giffords when she was interviewed. "And I think when people see such a change, no matter what it is, you know, they sort of draw their own conclusions, and create their own perceptions, and I . . . think the staff and the family want her to be seen in the best light, when she's not wearing a protective helmet and maybe her hair has grown back enough so they can make it all one length."
If her staff released a photo themselves, analyst Duffy said, "They decide the setting, they decide what she's wearing, whether she's wearing makeup, and they control the image . . . The media will think it's a bad thing, regular people won't care, and team Giffords will think it's a brilliant thing.
"The media has been so frustrated by having to take the staff view and family view of (Giffords') progress," Duffy said. "They want to see it for themselves, and the picture's the same way."
But Giffords' staff has had "an awful lot on their plates," Duffy said, and they're mourning the loss of their colleague, Gabe Zimmerman, killed in the shooting. But "this time, the politics and the personal cross . . . and the staff has worked pretty hard at making sure that when Giffords is ready to think about (future elections) or discuss them, all her options are open to her."
In the case of the photos released Sunday, Giffords' family and staff offered pictures taken immediately prior to her May cranioplasty, before surgeons shaved her head and replaced a missing piece of her skull.
Image control is not the reason more recent photographs weren't released instead, her staff said. They were working with the photographer's busy schedule, communications director Karamargin said, and wanted to use Weis in particular because of his history as a journalist and as Giffords' friend.
Maintaining political strength wasn't discussed by Giffords' staff in regard to these photos either, said Rodd McLeod, Giffords' interim district office coordinator.
"That's not really what we've been talking about," McLeod said. "Our primary concern is - I love Gabby. If she's going to be driven back and forth to the hospital and home, I don't want her to be chased around."
The staff hopes to sidestep intense media attention, he said.
"We're trying to give (Giffords' doctors) the space to do their work so Gabby can get better."
Though a trip to Tucson is in Giffords' near future, her staff says, that visit won't include a speech or media interviews.
"There's no timetable for anything like that," Karamargin said. They want Giffords to open that discussion.
"She'll have to say, 'I have something to say.' We're not pushing her into anything. . . . We understand it's frustrating. It's frustrating for us, for everyone, that there is no way to predict the course that this is going to take, but the one thing that we've learned throughout this entire process is the importance of being patient.
"When you consider that the congresswoman was injured while performing her job," Karamargin said, "We know - and we believe the public knows - that she deserved the time necessary to recover."



GOP 2012 Candidate Ed Report Card - Tim Pawlenty


Uploaded by  on Jun 10, 2011
University of Texas at Austin student John Iadarola creates a 'report card' for 2012 Republican presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty on the topic of education


Greenroom: Gender Politics


Cecilia Attias, Torie Clarke, Claire Shipman.
06/12/2011


News From Your Morning Papers

Photos of Gabrielle Giffords and Fazul Abdullah and calls for Weiner to resign.
06/12/2011


Fazul Abdullah Mohammed Dead


The head of Al Qaeda in East Africa has been killed in Somalia.
06/12/2011



Afghanistan Troop Withdrawal


ABC's Martha Raddatz reports on the latest on the war in Afghanistan.
06/12/2011



Roundtable: Sex and Politics



Cecilia Attias, Torie Clarke, Claire Shipman.
06/12/2011



Economy Panel: Jobless Recovery?


Sen. Richard Shelby, Robert Reich, Jonathan Karl.
06/12/2011


Richard Shelby:' We Grew Government, But Did Not Grow Economy'






Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL), the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, rejected the idea that any new federal stimulus would help improve the dire unemployment picture, calling instead for tax reform and investment incentives to spur private sector jobs growth.

"I don't believe any new stimulus is going to pass in Congress. I don't think it has any credibility," Shelby said on "This Week." "What we need to do is create some certainty, some conditions for people to invest, to grow, to have some confidence. There's not a lot of confidence in the economy right now all over America."

Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich disagreed, saying that when consumers and private sector investors are not spending, "then government has got to fill the gap."

He called for federal initiatives such as exempting the first $20,000 of income from payroll taxes to put more money in individuals' pockets to spur demand, as well as calling for a WPA-style direct employment program, as done by President Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression.


"Under these circumstances, consumers are pulling in. They are not spending. And if they are not spending, then jobs are not going to be created," Reich said.

But Shelby dismissed the notion that previous stimulus efforts had succeeded during the Obama administration.

"I believe that stimulus basically doesn't work for the most part. We've tried that," Shelby said. "The market grows the economy. We've grown the government, but we haven't grown the economy."

Shelby said that greater stability and reform on tax policy will create confidence for small and large businesses that currently have "a lot of money on the sidelines."

"We're talking about real income tax reform to give people incentives to create jobs," Shelby said. "The government stimulus will never turn the economy around."

Reich said he has been surprised by the lack of action to spur job growth, saying there has been a "deafening silence" from Washington on the issue.

This is not business as usual.

"The President has got to come up with a jobs plan," Reich said. "Even if it doesn't get through a Republican Congress, he's got to be fighting for it, and fighting for Americans."

Reich also disagreed with the current focus on the deficit debate, saying that while "the deficit is important over the long term," the focus should remain on job creation.

"Right now the issue is not the deficit, the issue is not the debt ceiling,' Reich said. "The issue is jobs."


This Week with Christaine Amanpour

The videos that follow are from this weeks program






This Week 6/12: Anthony Weiner Under Fire
46:31 | Aired on ABC 06/12/11
Calls for Weiner's resignation, photos of Gabrielle Giffords and Fazul Abdullah..

This Week 6/05: Politics of the Economy
45:52 | Aired on ABC 06/05/11
ABC's John Berman reports on how the economy shapes the 2012 presidential race.

This Week 5/29: Interview with Tim Pawlenty
47:44 | Aired on ABC 05/29/11
Former Minnesota Governor and GOP hopeful on Medicare reform and the budget.

'Bumps on the Road'

The choice is more jobs reports like Friday's or a growth agenda.



You've got to hand it to President Obama and his White House economic team. Faced with yesterday's dreary May jobs report, they did their best and rolled out the old "bump in the road" analogy for comfort. As chief White House economist Austan Goolsbee put it, "there are always bumps on the road to recovery, but the overall trajectory of the economy has improved dramatically over the past two years."
Nice try, but there's no way to spin news that the economy in May created only 54,000 new jobs, which is about one-third the number necessary to keep up with the growth in the labor force. The jobless rate rose for the second straight month to 9.1%, which is especially depressing nearly two years after the end of a very deep recession.


At this stage in the Reagan expansion, after a comparably deep 1981-82 recession, the economy was growing by 7% a year and the jobless rate was plunging. This time the economy is growing by less than 2%, and we still have 6.8 million fewer jobs than when the recession began in late 2007.
In other bad news, the average duration of those out of work jumped by 1.4 weeks to 39.7 in May, and the percentage of those jobless for at least six months climbed by 1.7% to 45.1%. The overall labor participation rate stayed the same at 64.2%, but as the nearby chart shows that rate has now fallen to its lowest rate since the mid-1980s.
This is an important economic measure because it reflects the opportunities that Americans perceive in the marketplace. In the long boom from the Reagan years through 2000 or so, the labor participation rate took a historic leap upward as women, immigrants and others entered the job market. The rate dipped after the 2001-2002 downturn, and we recall the media giving much attention to a Federal Reserve study raising alarms even as the rate began to climb again in mid-decade. It has now fallen off a cliff, and we doubt this is what Mr. Goolsbee means when he hails the "trajectory of the economy."
Chances are that job creation will improve in future months after the effects of Japan's earthquake and Midwest tornadoes and if oil prices level off or fall. But the longer the jobs slowdown continues, the greater the danger that the U.S. settles into a new normal of high "structural" unemployment, with employers reluctant to hire workers until they absolutely must. This is a symptom of Eurosclerosis.
The same economists and pundits who promoted the economic policies of the last four years are now lamenting the jobs bust and demanding that Washington double down: More stimulus spending, more Federal Reserve easing, more temporary tax rebates. They can't explain why these policies have failed to date, but we are supposed to rinse and repeat.


The real "bumps on the road" to recovery are these policies and the larger climate of hostility toward job creators that still prevails in Washington. A National Labor Relations Board that wants to stop businesses from moving plants; a $20 billion political raid on banks over foreclosures; hundreds of major new regulations from ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank and the EPA's war on carbon energy; federal deficits that Mr. Obama says require higher taxes; near-zero interest rates for 30 months that have sent commodity prices soaring, and so much more.
The economy doesn't need more of this. It needs a return to the growth agenda that created the long post-1982 boom.

Cellos surprisingly well suited to Guns n Roses


 There is nothing I can add to this post, except   Bravo I have never seen nor heard Cellos played like this with such energy or feeling

 

Welcome to the Jungle

Stjepan Hauser - Hungarian Rhapsody Op. 68 (Concert for 

 Japan)

Luka Sulic' plays de Falla Ritual Fire Dance

2CELLOS Interview (Hrvatska Uzivo)



Jon Huntsman’s Gun Ban Gaffe


Throughout the day, ABC News' political team contributes to The Note with the very latest news and analysis from the nation's capital.



June 09, 2011 2:14 PM


ABC News' Sarah Kunin (@Sarah_Kunin) Reports:
In an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Wednesday, former Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman said that he would not veto an assault weapons ban. 
Unfortunately for Huntsman, this statement is not true. The former governor  “would absolutely” veto a weapons ban, and he immediately issued a statement to affirm it.
"Hugh, I clearly misunderstood your question regarding the assault weapons ban,” Huntsman wrote in an email to Hewitt. “I would absolutely veto the ban. I have always stood firmly for 2nd Amendment rights, and my record in Utah reflects it. With a name like 'Huntsman' it really goes without saying.”
Hewitt posted a transcript of interview to his website, which included the quick exchange that led to the blunder.
“Governor, let’s close with four quick issue sets to get you located on the political map,” said Hewitt in yesterday’s interview. “Do you support a right to life amendment?”
“I do support a right to life amendment,” replied Huntsman.
“Would you veto an assault weapons ban?” asked Hewitt.
“I would not veto an assault weapons ban,” said Huntsman
As he comes closer to announcing a presidential run, everything Huntsman says will be examined under a microscope. Of course, the same rule applies to everything he does not say; particularly that unlike fellow Republicans vying for the nomination, Huntsman has avoided direct criticism of President Obama.
“He’s not one to tear anyone down by name, whether that person is Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Gov. Mitt Romney or President Barack Obama,”  Huntsman’s communications director, Matt David, told Politico. “I think he’ll make it clear where he disagrees when it comes to policy and where he wants to take this country, but for him this is a campaign based on substance and not names.”
Huntsman has distanced himself from President Obama since returning from his post as Ambassador to China, a position awarded to him by the president himself.
President Obama, on the other hand, has made every effort to highlight his working relationship with Huntsman, once joking to a crowd, “I'm sure he will be very successful in whatever endeavors he chooses in the future. And I'm sure that him having worked so well with me will be a great asset in any Republican primary."


last week, a six year old girl, in my daughters class, was shot and killed by her 2 year old brother. Congratulations to you gun lovers for another Successful year with your buddies in the NRA. 
People don't kill people, People with guns kill people.
I am sure this will send you guys into a comment frenzy, but I had to tell my daughter her friend was dead, as the police collected 53 guns from the dad. Nothing you can say will make that OK. Rest in peace Emily. You deserved better from our society.
POSTED BY: HERBISSIMO | JUN 9, 2011 3:34:55 PM




HERBISSIMO
Why do people like you think the government has to be the nanny to dictate personal responsibility? 
Your friend was carless. Flat out. That doesn't mean that I am, nor should that mean that my guns be taken away.
I'll tell you another story. I was taught to handle a gun and shoot at the age of 8. It was very common to take a gun to school for show-n-tell. Nobody freaked, nobody died and nobody got shot.
The more we give our responsibilities away to others, the more hopless we become.
POSTED BY: JUICE | JUN 9, 2011 3:49:44 PM




Laws are not for responsible people. They are for people who have to have a higher authority require them to be responsible or else. I was taught to use guns safely too. I support the second amendment. I, however, do not understand why the NRA is against EVERY law that promotes safety and sanity, claiming a "slippery slope" defense in attacking every attempt to reign in the idiots of the gun world. There are good technologies out there that the NRA is against implimenting. Why?
POSTED BY: HERBISSIMO | JUN 9, 2011 4:00:07 PM



would the two year old have killed his sister without a gun?
POSTED BY: HERBISSIMO | JUN 9, 2011 5:44:20 PM




Herbissimo asks "would the two year old have killed his sister without a gun?"
I say, possibly. Kids get into household chemicals, kitchen knives and other potentially deadly items around the house all the time.
The solution isn't to ban said items or mandate changes to their designs by legislative, judicial or executive fiat. The solution is for adults to be responsible and safely use and store said items.
This can be accomplished by educating people instead of teaching them to irrationally fear potentially dangerous items.
POSTED BY: DUSTONEGT | JUN 9, 2011 7:19:47 PM



Juice,
Because the gun control side claims every single idea they think up is "just common sense", and they constantly keep coming up with more and more ways to step on the 2nd Amendment.
Sorry, you don't get to ban "assault weapons", which are really semi-automatic rifles. The Supreme Court says you can't ban guns in common use for lawful purposes. Semi-automatic guns are very much in common use (just look at the sales of them) and they are used for lawful purposes like hunting and target shooting.
Not-to-mention that lots of people have large collections of "assault weapons". They didn't spend their hard earned money on them just to turn them in to be melted down. Sorry, not going to happen. If the anti-gun people said "turn'em in", the people that own them would say "f you, come get'em".
It's sad that there is a % of gun deaths per year in the United States, but that is collateral damage that is worth having the right to own firearms. If a few people have to die so the rest of us can go to the gun range and shoot targets with are cool-looking AR-15s and AK-47 Clones, then so be it.
We own Congress and we own the Supreme Court. We win. You lose.
POSTED BY: MANBEARPIG | JUN 9, 2011 8:41:21 PM

Can't we ban the sale of bullets, instead? People with knives, blunt objects, and loaded guns kill people. You may the right to bear arms but it doesn't say anything about ammunition.
POSTED BY: CAMERON BARRETT | JUN 10, 2011 12:32:01 AM


Cameron,
No, you can not ban the sale of bullets. The right to bear arms means bearing functional firearms; they don't function without ammo. I know comedians like Chris Rock are fun for anti-gun people to take literally, but just like Bible-thumpers, your literal crap is wrong. Try banning ammo, just try it, and see how far you get. Your bill won't even make it out of committee in congress; let alone pass strict scrutiny under the Supreme Court.
We pro-Constitution people have won the war. We own congress and we own the SCOTUS. We already have two SCOTUS decisions (Heller and McDonald) which are as set in stone as Roe v Wade. Please, for the love of God, put up more fights so that we can get the current SCOTUS to give us more victories that you will never be able to undo (as the SCOTUS is the highest court in the land and does not simply undo it's decisions based on who is in the majority).
In the mean time, I'm gonna go to the local gun range with my cool-looking "assault weapons" and play Rambo against some paper targets, because I can, because it's my right, and because there's not a darned thing any anti can do about it.
POSTED BY: MANBEARPIG | JUN 10, 2011 1:49:03 AM


manbearpig wrote, "...as the SCOTUS is the highest court in the land and does not simply undo it's decisions based on who is in the majority".


Yet when they ruled FOR Citizens United last year, they ignored 2 previous SC rulings as well as a hundred years of lower case law.....
POSTED BY: SEARAMBLER | JUN 10, 2011 2:09:26 PM