***BREAKING NEWS***

Folks, this event is live and unfolding minute by minute. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was one of more than a dozen who were shot, and several were killed. Please check out the post at HotAir, as the good bloggers there are keeping up-to-date on all that’s going on.

Ms. Gifford is reported to be in critical condition, but hospital personnel say her outlook is “optimistic.” The doctor said she was shot in the head, through-and-through, at point-blank range. The shooter has now been identified as Jared Lee Loughner. He is currently in police custody.

UPDATE: From Loughner’s YouTube channel (which will be pulled down soon, I’m sure – his MySpace is already down) he lists his favorite books:

“Animal Farm, Brave New World, The Wizard Of OZ, Aesop Fables, The Odyssey, Alice Adventures Into Wonderland, Fahrenheit 451, Peter Pan, To Kill A Mockingbird, We The Living, Phantom Toll Booth, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Pulp,Through The Looking Glass, The Communist Manifesto, Siddhartha, The Old Man And The Sea, Gulliver’s Travels, Mein Kampf, The Republic, and Meno.”

UPDATE:

These videos were plucked from his YouTube account, just in case it gets scrubbed like his MySpace page did, and uploaded to my account at LiveLeak. Here they are in succession:

“Introduction to Jared Loughner”

“Hello My Name is Jared Loughner”

“How To: Your New Currency”

“How To: Mind Controller”

“This Student at Pima Community College”

“Your Last Memory In a Terrorist Country”

This video was not created by Loughner, as best I can tell, but it is the single video he has listed on his YouTube channel as his “favorite.” In this video the uploader calls local police “cult leaders.” Whoever made the video inserted a few captions – you have to watch for them. But he’s obviously an anarchist at the very least, and the intent of the video, to my eyes, is to denounce America, thus burning the American flag. All to the tune of “Let the Bodies Hit the Floor” by Drowning Pool.

Now is not a time for politicization, although some just can’t let that be. Let us all pray for a nation whose soul is devastated and wounded today. May the victims get justice through the judicial process, and may Jared Loughner never see the light of day…..EVER. AGAIN.