The Parkland, Florida high school shooting this past Wednesday was undeniably horrific. It was made even more disturbing because not only did Nicholas Cruz’ own mother know he was a mentally disturbed but the FBI botched more than one opportunity to prevent Cruz from ever living out his fantasy.
Apparently, the mainstream media had a pre-prepared narrative ready and waiting to hit the airwave as quickly as possible. Before the victims were even known, the news media already was politicizing the tragedy.
Journalists stuck to a familiar script – demonize guns and gun owners, skewer gun facts wrong, attack the NRA, and blame President Trump and all Republicans.
CNN tweeted: “In Florida, you don’t need a permit to conceal carry a rifle or shotgun.” Apparently, CNN’s staff didn’t try to put a rifle in a coat pocket because at over 32 inches long, one won’t fit.
Acting like a middle school student posting a meme to Facebook, supposedly “unbiased” and objective professional journalists were quick to repeat a false-statement from the anti-gun group Everytown for Gun Safety. The group, “founded and funded” with millions fronted by New York City progressive liberal Mayor Michael Bloomberg, parroted a disturbing claim that there have been 18 school shootings this year alone.
The Washington Post, to its credit, didn’t waste time in retracting that story by reporting, “No, there haven’t been 18 school shootings in 2018. That number is flat wrong.”
That paper went on to blast fake news: “It is a horrifying statistic. And it is wrong … Everytown has long inflated its total by including incidents of gunfire that are not really school shootings.”
One of the 18 that a number of media outlets had already reported as fact was of a man who committed suicide near a school that had been closed for seven months.
While still far too many, the number of school shootings this year is eight.
Chris Cuomo of CNN declared: “You can’t deal with this issue without dealing with the availability of guns.” Then he pled for gun control to become a Trump agenda item. “How can you not include this issue in part of that agenda?” he asked.
MSNBCs Host Chris Matthews spent almost 40 minutes hyping gun control – more than double the time he devoted to the actual shooting itself.
A plethora of news sources quickly passed around a story presented as fact that the shooter belonged to a white supremacists group. Of course a few of the talking heads were quick to try to connect the dots between President Trump, hate groups, and Nikolas Cruz .
The AP reported later: “A white nationalist appears to have lied to The Associated Press and other news organizations when he claimed that Florida school-shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz was a member of his obscure group.”
The fact that the mainstream media pushed an “It’s Trump’s fault” should not come as a surprise. This has been the pattern since he took the oath of office. Some examples of previous attempts to incite blame against the President include:
When an employee in Hawaii accidentally triggered a message warning the state that it was under imminent threat from an incoming assumedly North Korean ballistic missile, the Washington Post ran a story with the headline, “The false alarm in Hawaii revealed an abdication of leadership by Trump,” read the headline on a Washington Post story.
Another publication used the headline, “Donald Trump finally commented on the false missile alert in Hawaii, and his response is unsettling.”
Forbes’s headline proclaimed, “The Hawaii Missile Alert Should Make Us Reflect About Trump’s Bellicose Stance Against N. Korea.”
Of course Hollywood couldn’t wait to blame Trump. Jamie Lee Curtis told reporters:
This Hawaii missile scare is on YOU Mr. Trump. The real FEAR that mothers & fathers & children felt is on YOU. It is on YOUR ARROGANCE. HUBRIS. NARCISISSIM. RAGE. EGO. IMMATURITY and your UNSTABLE IDIOCY. Shame on your hate-filled self. YOU DID THIS!
Jim Carrey tweeted:
I woke up this morning in Hawaii with ten minutes to live. It was a false alarm, but a real psychic warning. If we allow this one-man Gomorrah and his corrupt Republican Congress to continue alienating the world we are headed for suffering beyond all imagination.”
No, it isn’t surprising how much the left hates Trump. What is surprising is the speed with which all on that side seem to say the same thing.
~ American Liberty Report
