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Nikolas Cruz pleads guilty to murder charges and apologizes for Parkland high school massacre
Nikolas Cruz, the gunman who carried out the massacre of students and faculty members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February 2018, pleaded guilty in a Florida courtroom Wednesday to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder.
Cruz, 23, faces a minimum of life in prison and maximum of the death penalty, which will be decided by a jury in the upcoming sentencing phase of the trial. The prosecution has said they plan to seek the death penalty.
See also:
Gunman Pleads Guilty in Parkland School Shooting
Nikolas Cruz pleads guilty to all charges in 2018 Parkland massacre
5 things to know before Parkland school shooting change of plea hearing
It is good that the perpetrator of such a crime may be brought to justice.
I remember after the Columbine school shootings when it was promised that this would never be allowed to happen again. Unfortunately, our country strives to make it easy for children to access firearms unsupervised.
Second
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., mocked a Florida school shooting survivor as an "idiot" who "only talks when he is scripted" in a 2019 interview with a Georgia gun group, according to a previously unreported video obtained by NBC News.
"He is very trained. He's like a dog. He's completely trained," Greene said of the survivor, David Hogg, now 20, in an interview with Georgia Gun Owners Inc. in April 2019, less than two years before she was elected to Congress.
Videos of Greene, a freshman Republican, berating Hogg in Washington surfaced last week after she was appointed to the House Education and Labor Committee. House Democrats are pushing to bar her from serving on any committees, citing in part her previous statements suggesting that the shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, were hoaxes.
How do people like this come to power? Where do they find voters who will vote for such people? Does this only happen in the USA? I feel confident that the good people of her voting district in Georgia will continue to re-elect her.
I like her "Trump Won" mask, now that it is abundantly clear he did not win after many lawsuits and audits later.
It is amazing to live in a time when people will believe the most ridiculous outlandish things without any critical thought. People can no longer tell fact from fantasy. Or facts simply do not matter.
Update: A prediction: Trump will win in 2024. Yes, really.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday October 20 2021, @05:24PM (16 children)
People vote for him because they feel there's no choice. Frustration put him into office, just like it did for Carter, Clinton, and Obama which resulted in subsequent republican victories, because of democrat complicity in their refusal to overturn "republican" policy, it's happening right now. People see no reason to vote for a democrat, aside from being "not trump". The Party is happy as long as the vote remains between DNC and GOP. You can't argue with a 95% reelection rate.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 20 2021, @06:21PM (7 children)
If people are frustrated they should vote for someone better, not worse. Voting R because Ds didn't do well enough is just massive ignorance. Odd how your narrative is always anti-dem while being ever so slightly pro-rep.
To head off your reply, yes the Rs are awful and it would really be nice if we could just ignore them as you like to do but that just buries the problem and pins all the blame on Ds. Acknowledging that Rs are terrible when someone calls you out is not enough to counteract your one-sided (ha!) rhetoric.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday October 20 2021, @06:36PM (6 children)
No, what happens when the politician doesn't perform is that the dems stay home, handing the election to the republicans, until the republicans piss them off enough to get out and reelect the same dems, rinse/repeat. We can pin the beginning of this when the dems nominated Humphrey in '68, handing the election to Nixon. If the dems want to win, they have to become an actual opposition party. Their so called "compromise" is really complicity. But as we can see, the illusion works, corralling 98% of the vote. Not too shabby
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 20 2021, @08:33PM (5 children)
1956 - 59.3%
1964 - 61.4%
1968 - 60.7%
1972 - 55.1%
1976 - 53.6%
1980 - 52.8%
1984 - 53.3%
1988 - 50.3%
1992 - 55.2%
1996 - 49.0%
2000 - 50.5%
2004 - 55.7%
2008 - 57.1%
2012 - 53.8%
2016 - 54.8%
Hmm, not seeing this drastic partisan change you're talking about. Might want to clear your talking points with reality first.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday October 20 2021, @09:13PM (4 children)
:-) Thanks for making my point. Keep it as close to 50% as possible, which has worked pretty well from '72 onward, before then it was a solid 60% (Percent of what, by the way?). So yeah, something happened to keep things more evenly divided. Frustration, antipathy, and money are the biggest motivators. The Party works it very well to its advantage.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 5, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 20 2021, @10:43PM (3 children)
"which has worked pretty well from '72 onward, before then it was a solid 60%"
Uh oh you sprung the trap!
1920 - 49.2%
1924 - 48.9%
1928 - 56.9%
1932 - 52.6%
1936 - 58.8%
1940 - 58.8%
1944 - 56.1%
1948 - 51.1%
1952 - 61.6%
Warms my heart to see you out yourself as a total hack. Never do research, just shit out one dimensional hot takes, rinse and repeat.
"Frustration, antipathy, and money are the biggest motivators"
Which is why you constantly work to generate the first two?
"Keep it as close to 50% as possible, which has worked pretty well from '72 onward, before then it was a solid 60% (Percent of what, by the way?)."
Interesting how you make a counter point BEFORE you point out that you don't even know what the numbers mean. % of voting age population btw. Thanks for reacting before thinking, gave me a good chuckle.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday October 20 2021, @11:18PM (1 child)
Eh, much ado about nothing.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 21 2021, @01:56AM
hahaahhaha
you absolute sniveling coward
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 21 2021, @06:23AM
>> Uh oh you sprung the trap!
Fusty is known to trigger traps all the time. But the time old question remains unsolved: Are traps gay?
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Wednesday October 20 2021, @08:51PM (7 children)
People voted for him for various reasons: he had an (R) after his name; to "own" the libruls; or because they agree with their fellow sociopath.
Your constant bleating about "one party conspiracy" is ludicrous. Since when are groups larger than about a dozen able to keep their mouth shut about such things?
The two party system evolved from our First Past The Post voting systems. No grand conspiracy needed. Now in all honesty, since that system benefits both parties there is little incentive to change things. To say that they are cooperating is another thing entirely.
Answer now is don't give in; aim for a new tomorrow.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday October 20 2021, @09:30PM (4 children)
The numbers and sequence of events tell the whole story, some people are just in denial apparently. There is no "conspiracy", that's just the standard strawman distraction by partisans to avoid the issue. I never said anything about a "conspiracy". Both factions of the Party merely have mutual interests to preserve the reelection rates, and maintain financial support from the industry which would dry up if they don't comply. Even you can't deny that 95% is pretty impressive.
Republicans will vote for republicans, democrats for democrats. There is no reason vote for a democrat if the democrats act like republicans and refuse to oppose them, making up all sorts of excuses that make people want to vomit. If you want the dems to win, you know what has to be done. And now it looks like Manchin might leave the dems, handing the senate back, oh well... sayonara... vaya con dios
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Thursday October 21 2021, @03:32PM (3 children)
So you're not actually believing that there is a big conspiracy, that's cool. Stop with the "one party" rhetoric then. They're not working together, they're just not rocking the boat.
RE: Manchin - He might as well switch, as he's been effectively working for the GOP these past months. Ditto with Sinema, whose constituency is not happy about it.
Answer now is don't give in; aim for a new tomorrow.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday October 21 2021, @07:36PM (2 children)
Of course they are. It is perfectly normal to act this way when nobody is watching, they do what they can get away with. Everybody is just in denial, and this is the chronic result. Regardless of any of this, it is still up to the voters to change the Party or remove it. There is no other way for it to happen.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Thursday October 21 2021, @09:12PM (1 child)
Dude, make up your mind about what message you're sending. Are they colluding, or not?
They are not, because there is a big difference between two sides cooperating and two opposing sides not changing the rules of the game.
Answer now is don't give in; aim for a new tomorrow.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday October 21 2021, @09:29PM
They are indeed cooperating to maintain those reelection numbers, which should speak loudly enough to wake the dead. DNC/GOP act as one, almost since Reconstruction. The "Battling Bickersons" routine is for your entertainment. I don't expect murder in the senate. I don't understand why this seems odd. Congress is prison yard politics in Armani
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 21 2021, @04:30AM (1 child)
The lefties have these made up reasons in their heads, and won't listen to anyone who contradicts them. If you want to know why people voted for him, why don't you ask the people who voted for him, instead of the people who didn't vote for him.
The majority of the answers are going to be :
- It is obvious the Democrats have sold out to their corporate overlords. They do nothing for anyone on or below the average wage.
- He wasn't Clinton. He wasn't even part of the Establishment. It was a giant "Fuck You" to everyone screwing them over.
- He promised to make things better. He may not have done it, but he at least promised to try.
- Buttery Males. You can make fun of it all you like, but there are over a million people with security clearances who know they would be spending a decade in jail if they did what Clinton did with classified documents and destruction of evidence. That's one million direct, plus everyone they can convince, who won't vote for her.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 21 2021, @06:27AM
no no no... it was the russian hackers™