Gabby Giffords triumphant return to the floor of Congress to vote on raising the debt ceiling.

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Amazing!

That was JUST what we needed at this time of acrimony and strife.

Gabby Giffords receives standing ovation during first public appearance.

Wounded Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords made her first Houston public appearance Monday night since being shot in the head in January by joining her husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly, at a Houston awards ceremony where he received the Spaceflight Medal.

Her communications director, C.J. Karamargin, confirmed her attendance, late Monday but could provide no further details.

According to a report from ABC News, Giffords was pushed into the auditorium in a wheelchair and received a standing ovation from the crowd of hundreds assembled at Space Center Houston.

Giffords reportedly rose from her wheelchair to hug and kiss her husband. The couple held hands for most of the event. The Arizona Democrat appeared to chat with people sitting around her, and laughed when the crew of STS-134, the Space Shuttle Endeavour’s last mission, was introduced, ABC reported.

Karamargin said he was not surprised his boss was out and about in Houston.

“You have to keep in mind that the congresswoman was just in Tuscon … for a Father’s Day visit. She met with the staff there and she climbed a flight of 18 stairs. I think it’s no surprise the congresswoman is getting out more and more … She’s showing greater physical strength, greater cognitive abilities and greater verbal skills, so it’s not a surprise.”

I don't know about all of you, but when I think of "steel spines" and "thick skins" THIS is the person who I picture.

Gabby Giffords is a true inspiration, and I am beginning to think that she might very well return to House someday and be a force to be reckoned with.

Gabby Giffords goes home!

Courtesy of the LA Times:

Five months after falling victim to an assassin's bullet, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was discharged from the Houston hospital where she has been rehabilitating.

Calling her release a "major milestone," the hospital, TIRR Memorial Hermann, said Giffords would continue to receive outpatient care at a home outside of Houston owned by her husband, Mark E. Kelly.

In a statement, her doctors said that the Arizona Democrat had improved to the point where she no longer needed to be a patient.

“Congresswoman Giffords has shown clear, continuous improvement from the moment she arrived at TIRR five months ago,” said Gerard Francisco, the hospital’s chief medical officer. “We are very excited that she has reached the next phase of her rehabilitation and can begin outpatient treatment. We have no doubt that she will continue to make significant strides in her recovery.”

Kelly, an astronaut who recently completed a mission aboard the space shuttle Endeavour, praised the care that Giffords received.

“Gabby gives her all to everything she does and that’s exactly what she’s been doing at TIRR since Jan. 26,” he said. “The remarkable progress she has made since then is a testament to both her single-minded determination to get better and the team of medical professionals overseeing her care.”

Am I the only one who gets misty eyed every time I read anything about this amazing woman's courage and amazing recovery?  I swear I have to dab my eyes after every other paragraph.

The ONLY reason I would ever consider going to Arizona would be to help with Giffords campaign for reelection. And believe me, she would win to.

New pictures emerge of Rep. Gabby Giffords.

Courtesy of the Daily Beast:

A much clearer picture has emerged of how Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is doing, and it's a comforting look. Two photos of a smiling Giffords were posted early Sunday on her public Facebook page by her aides. Her hair is shorter, but there are few other signs of her gunshot wound to the head five months ago in Tucson. Giffords has been in a Houston rehab facility since Jan. 26, two weeks after the deadly shooting that killed six and injured another 13, including Giffords. Her spokeswoman, Pia Carusone, cautioned that Giffords still has a long way to go in her recovery, but she said Friday that Giffords could be released sometime this month.

I have to say that this is a very pleasant sight this Sunday morning.

You can find an additional picture here of Giffords with her mother.

Time for an update on Gabby Giffords progress.

Courtesy of AZ Central:

Pia Carusone knew the day would come when the questions about her boss, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, would become more indelicate.

After answering some of those questions, Carusone, Giffords' chief of staff, told me: "We want to give people a clear picture (about Giffords). It's not in anyone's interest to have anyone feel misled. But it's hard because we satisfy one person and one set of questions, and tomorrow, we're on to the next. The feeling is like it's never enough."

For example, how well is she able to communicate with them?

"We do a lot of inferring with her because her communication skills have been impacted the most," Carusone said. "If you think of it as someone who is able to communicate with you clearly, it is easy to test them. You can ask them a series of questions, and you can get clear answers back. Whereas with Gabby, what we've been able to infer and what we believe is that her comprehension is very good. I don't know about percentage-wise or not, but it's close to normal, if not normal."

Does her struggle to communicate mean that she's not using complete sentences?

"Exactly," Carusone said. "She is borrowing upon other ways of communicating. Her words are back more and more now, but she's still using facial expressions as a way to express. Pointing. Gesturing. Add it all together, and she's able to express the basics of what she wants or needs. But, when it comes to a bigger and more complex thought that requires words, that's where she's had the trouble."

Is that frustrating for her?

"Absolutely," Carusone said. "When she is trying to come up with a word or a sentence and she's clearly struggling, putting everything she's got into it, and sometimes she's not successful. When she is, there's a relief that comes across her face that she has found the word. But when she can't come up with that, it is absolute frustration."

This is only a small portion of the article and I encourage everybody to read it if they want to learn more about this truly heroic woman.

While it does not appear that Rep. Giffords will return to Washington anytime soon, nobody is prepared to dismiss that possibility.  This is truly a remarkable women who suffered a horrific injury that in most cases would have turned the victim into a vegetable.  Just the fact that she has managed to come so far in such a short amount of time is amazing. However hoping for her to return to her job in Washington might be nothing more than a pipe dream.

But then again, this IS Gabby Giffords we are talking about!

Jared Loughner deemed mentally unfit to stand trial.

From the LA Times:

A federal judge ruled Jared Lee Loughner mentally incompetent to stand trial in the Jan. 8 shooting spree that gravely wounded an Arizona congresswoman after two medical experts agreed he suffered from schizophrenia and for several years has been troubled by delusions and hallucinations.

Judge Larry A. Burns sent Loughner back to the federal medical center for prisoners in Springfield, Mo., for treatment and further evaluation, stopping for now any attempt to take him to trial for the shooting that killed six people and injured 12 others at Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' neighborhood meeting.

Without any change in his condition, Loughner could spend the rest of his life in federal mental health facilities. But if he shows some signs of improvement, his case could go forward.

The ruling came after U.S. marshals removed Loughner from the courtroom Wednesday when he suddenly started screaming. His father, Randy Loughner, sat in the second row next to Loughner's mother and cried almost the entire time.

Court staff variously reported him saying "thank you for the free kill" or "free shot," and then, "she died in front of me," and "you're treasonous." A government source said Loughner is convinced he killed Giffords, and that "she died in front of me" apparently refers to that belief.

When asked later whether he could behave in court, Loughner told Burns that he would prefer to watch the proceedings on a closed-circuit television screen in a courtroom anteroom, where he remained for the rest of the hearing.

Too mentally unstable to sit in a court room, but NOT too mentally unstable to buy a Glock with an extended clip in Arizona. 

How can ANYBODY read that and NOT believe that we need much, much, much stricter gun control laws in this country?