Jack Kelly Sunday

Ah, Jack.  Selective evidence only discredits those who make the selections - once they are found out.

So let's take a closer look at your "evidence" in this week's column at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Jack's first point, dear readers, is to try to erase the connection drawn between Jerald and Amanda Miller, the Las Vegas shooters, and The Tea Party. And here's his evidence:

Alas for liberals, reality — as it has so often before — soon harshed their mellow. Jerad and Amanda took part in a lot of anti-government activities, including Occupy Wall Street.

Setting aside the oh so subtle yet smugly patronizing counterculture drug reference, we have to ask what is the connection between The Millers and Occupy.

This is probably the source of this information:

While living in Lafayette, Jerad and his wife Amanda took part in last November’s “Million Mask March” – a gathering of protesters from the Occupy movement, anarchists, and hacktivists.

Nick Wertz, one of the organizers of the Lafayette march, said it attracted many people upset over a lot of issues.

Um.  So if that's the case, it wasn't exactly an Occupy Wall Street occupation, right?  But it's there and it's documented.  Does that mean that the murdering Millers were actually leftists?  As Jack wants you to believe?

Well let's take a look at the counter evidence.  What did Jerad Miller leave on his facebook page?

This, for one.  He shared it on June 7 (shared, meaning someone else posted it on Facebook and he agreed with it enough to pass it along):

But that's just a 2nd Amendment thing.  Miller was a gun guy so that part fits. Did he share any other non-firearm artwork?

Why, yes he did.  On June 3 he posted this image:

And this one:

Let's see on top of the 2nd Amendment stuff we have a Benghazi truther and a Climate science denier.  The only thing missing is a demand to see the "real" Birth Certificate and it would be an Fox "News" Trifecta.

So, Jack? I hate to be a buzz kill and everything, but Jared Miller was a right wing nut job.  An armed right wing nut job who killed a pair of police officers for the sake of "freedom."

Misconstruing his presence at a Million Mask March in order to characterize him as an Occupy supporter ain't gonna change that.  Selecting the evidence (badly) to support your argument is nothing new for you.  Still doesn't work at proving what you're looking to prove, of course.  But you keep trying (and failing), don't you?

But let's move on.  Here's more of Jack:

Rick Santelli’s epic rant on CNBC Feb. 19, 2009, triggered the largest grassroots political reform movement since the People’s Party of the 1890s. Between 440,000 and 810,000 people attended Tea Party rallies on Tax Day 2009, according to a Harvard study.

The rallies were peaceful. Those who attended picked up after themselves.

Liberals, terrified by their numbers, rushed to demonize and suppress. The IRS went after them.

Tea Partiers are “racists” and “domestic terrorists,” some liberals charged, without a shred of evidence.

Let's start with the obvious.  The IRS also "went after" progressive groups:

In an apparent contradiction with earlier comments made by House Oversight Committee chair Darrell Issa, new documents obtained through a FOIA request by ThinkProgress show that yes, the IRS targeted both conservative and liberal groups for extra scrutiny. According to ThinkProgress's analysis of the heavily redacted "be on the lookout" lists, the IRS may have targeted a higher number of progressive groups than conservative groups overall.

There's that.  Then there's the issue of how there's not "a shred of evidence" of Tea Party racism.  Take a look at this:

This is a real thing, by the way. It's creator doesn't see it as "racist" however. From Talkingpointsmemo:

The creator of the now-infamous "Tea Party Comix" has spoken. The response, sent to Comics With Problems' Ethan Persoff last week, ends speculation by some that the black-and-white comics featuring a racist caricature of President Obama might be a liberal parody gone wrong (or just misunderstood). In the rambling email sent early Thursday morning, the unnamed creator of the comics (the name was withheld by Persoff) suggests that they were created out of anger at Obama, but -- according to the creator -- not out of any intention to make a racial statement.

Of course not.

Do I need to continue, Jack?  Do I really need to keep going to show how you're picking and choosing your evidence to support your feeble argument no matter how different reality might be?

UPDATE: Thanks Ed for the grammar correction, ya bastid.