Tag Archives: Sandy Hook shooting

media news

Jury makes example of hater

A Texas jury has done the right thing by assessing a hefty punitive damage award against one of the nation’s most noted and infamous purveyors of hate and outright falsehoods.

Alex Jones will have to pay the families of children slaughtered in the December 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre $44.5 million. The jury awarded that amount in assessing the punitive damages that Jones must shell out.

Of course, Jones claims to be impoverished.

Jones already was found guilty of defamation by declaring that the massacre of those kids in Newtown, Conn., was fake, that it never happened, that it was a staged event designed to gin up opposition to the gun owners’ rights lobby.

This individual is a disgrace to the human race. The jury decided, moreover, to make him pay for the damage he did to the loved ones of those precious children and the educators who sought to protect them against the madman.

What might be the fallout from this award? It is my sincere hope that this jury’s decision to hammer a known hate monger might deter someone else out there who is inclined to spew the kind of filth that comes from the mouth of Alex Jones.

I know all about the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech. Gasbags such as Jones use the U.S. Constitution as their first and last line of defense against who seek to muzzle them. The truth, though, is that I don’t want them necessarily silenced simply because they espouse views I find reprehensible. I believe it is important to keep such idiots in plain sight where we all can keep our eyes on them.

However, the jury ruled that Alex Jones took several giant steps too far by defaming the families of innocent victims.

Now he has been ordered to pay for the garbage he has blathered and the damage he has inflicted.

Good!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news

If only we could silence this liar

My version of a perfect world suggests that a stiff prison sentence, a hefty fine and a label of “serial slanderer” could silence the likes of Alex Jones.

However, we never will reach that level of perfection. Why? Because Jones, who is on trial for defaming the loved ones of the precious children slain in the December 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, has this “free speech” guarantee that will allow him to continue spewing trash.

Judge scolds Alex Jones at Sandy Hook defamation trial: ‘This is not your show’ (msn.com)

Jones, one of the nation’s more notorious conspiracy fruitcakes, has been sued for saying that the Sandy Hook massacre was made up, that the slain victims were actors, that it was all a ploy to gin up support for legislation to ban guns.

Jones, who lives in the Dallas area, has been defending himself in the trial. He tried to apologize to the parents of some of the slain children, but the judge presiding over the trial shut him down.

To be clear, Jones already has been found liable for defamation by one of the parents he defamed. He is trying at this moment to avoid paying a lot of money that he could be ordered to pay.

Don’t misunderstand me on this point: Even though I am a staunch defender of the free-speech clause in the First Amendment, there are times and instances when I wish the courts could order nimrods like Alex Jones to just shut the hell up!

But … they cannot.

Therefore, no matter how this matter ends up, Alex Jones will continue to have his platform, his proverbial bullhorn — and an audience that is too willing, too stupid and too gullible to ignore his idiotic rhetoric.

I tend to ignore everything that flies out of this loudmouth’s pie hole. But I’m just one guy. The nimrods who listen to this guy need to find some religion.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

We have presidents … and we have Trump

I have been listening to comparisons between Donald Trump and his three immediate predecessors, namely their reaction to extreme acts of violence.

The preceding presidents knew how to rally a nation, to speak to our better angels, to show strength and resolve in the face of tragedy.

President Clinton dealt with the Oklahoma City bombing in April 1995. He urged us to ignore the angry voices that prompted Timothy McVeigh to blow up the Murrah Federal Building, killing 167 people, including many children.

President Bush stood on the rubble at Ground Zero immediately after 9/11. He took a bullhorn, threw his arm around a New York City firefighter and told the nation that the terrorists “who knocked down these buildings will hear all of us soon.”

President Obama wiped away tears as he spoke of the slaughter of 20 first- and second-graders and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

Now we have Donald Trump. Someone or some group is sending pipe bombs to Democratic politicians, a donor, a former AG, a cable news outlet and an legendary film actor/political activist. Does the president demonstrate any sense of fear or compassion for the recipients of these packages?

Oh, no! He blames Democrats for fomenting the anger, along with the “mainstream media,” which he says is guilty of sending out “fake news.”

Then he pokes fun at calls to be more “civil” in leading the public political discourse.

The current president simply doesn’t measure up to the three men who preceded him in performing this fundamental duty of his high office: unifying and healing a nation in distress.

national news

Remember when Obama was going to disarm us?

All this hubbub over gun control, gun violence and whether Donald Trump would inject the power of the presidency into this debate sparked a memory.

It involves former President Barack H. Obama. You see, Obama faced crises similar to what we’re facing now. Shooters opened fire in public schools, in movie theaters and shopping malls. The president would speak to the nation about the need to curb gun violence.

After the Sandy Hook school massacre in Newtown, Conn., that killed 20 children and six educators, Obama was moved to tears. He spoke of the innocent children who died along the teacher heroes who fought to spare them from the carnage. He demanded legislation that would curb gun violence.

Then the gun lobby kicked into high gear. It asserted that the president intended to disarm Americans. Obama didn’t respect the Second Amendment, they said.

Despite all the rhetoric we heard from Obama and those of his allies, the Second Amendment remains untouched from the day it was written by the Founding Fathers.

Then just today we hear that the president of the United States, Donald Trump, wants the Justice Department to propose regulations banning bump stocks, the devices used to turn semi-automatic weapons into machine guns. A bump stock isn’t the issue with regard to the Parkland, Fla., school massacre, but it does speak to the issue of gun regulation.

I am waiting now for the gun lobby to rise up against Donald Trump. Will the gun lobby, led by the National Rifle Association, accuse the president of seeking to disarm the “law-abiding” public that cherishes firearm ownership?

I doubt we’ll hear it this time. I mean, this president says he favors gun ownership and he favors the Second Amendment.

However, I also believe President Obama sought to assure Americans he also supported the Second Amendment. Yes, I know he said something about following the Australia model, which called for confiscation of firearms after a massacre there in 1996.

The result, though, is that nothing happened. We are as armed today as we ever have been.

I’ll continue to assert that there are ways to tighten regulations without subverting the Second Amendment. I have no solutions. I do have hope — although it is diminishing rapidly — that we can find one.