The Great Smoky Mountain Journal

Staff Reports

Posted: Sunday, January 21, 2018 06:31 PM

OUR VIEW:

Our nation mourns today after a horrific display of violence in Las Vegas Sunday night where  crazed gunman Stephen Paddock shot into a crowd of 22K at a country music venue killing 59 and injuring 519.

The human tragedy in this cannot get lost despite the ugliness of the Democratic Party, Hollywood, and many  in the main stream media who rushed as always to politicize this horrific event. The Las Vegas massacre Sunday was the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history.

President Trump was tremendously consoling during his address to the nation Monday calling what Paddock did "an act of pure evil," as well as offering prayers for the victims and their families.

I don't know exactly how many times the President mentioned God while asking Him for Mercy upon our Nation, but there were enough that it caught my attention quickly. I felt really proud of our President during and after the speech. He truly consoled a hurting nation for those willing to listen for five minutes instead of spewing their continual hate.

In eight years of President Obama, I can't remember him ever mentioning God during moments like we had Monday. In June 2016, Omar Saddiqui Mateen killed at least 49 people and wounded more than 50 inside Pulse, a gay nightclub, near Orlando, in contrast to Obama, who lectured the nation on gun control.  He did the same thing after  the Sandy Hook Elementary tragedy in 2014.

Obama always had this view that if we as a nation pushed Congress to pass stricter gun control laws, none of these things would occur. He never mentioned his hometown of Chicago where within his city they have the strictest gun laws in the nation.  Yet  we see so many homicides there weekly that President Trump had to threaten to send in the National Guard earlier this year to deal with the violence.

The truth is, if we took every gun off away from our citizens who owned them, the criminals and our enemies would still find a way to get them and even more lives would be lost.

To coin a phrase from one of my favorite movies "A Few Good Men," 'it'd be wise we not listen to the galactically stupid' among us who always use these tragedies to scream "grab the guns." Idiots.

Amazing isn't it the difference between the current and former President during times of national tragedies, and the former one. President Trump in his speech Monday never mentioned gun control. He talked about the real problem with this violence - EVIL! And he asked the God above to help this nation confront it in a way that ALL Presidents in the future would be wise to adhere to!

This was President Trump's first such tragedy involving a mass shooting in addition to the fact he has dealt with not one, but three catastrophic hurricanes that have hit the nation and Puerto Rico. In my book he has more than passed each test. He's passed them all with flying colors.

I want to interject something here before I move on. One of the main criticisms I hear about President Trump is he's arrogant and never takes any one's advice but his own. Yet President Trump has on numerous occasions invited anywhere from 40-60 leaders of faith across the nation  to come into the Oval Office to pray for him, his family and the nation. This has been done monthly since he took office.

A true sign of humility in any man, especially any leader, is when they recognize the calling of their office or responsibility is bigger than themselves and they need God's help to lead. By allowing these faith leaders to pray for him, President Trump is showing the greatest humility of ANY President we've probably ever had other than Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, and Abraham Lincoln.

I can't believe I'm mentioning Jimmy Carter actually but despite my eternal differences with him regarding his stance on Israel, I do believe he like Reagan, Lincoln and President Trump had a humility to at least try and do what was best for the nation.

The problem with all of this is that faith and liberals just don't mix. Most liberals think it's wrong to have faith leaders pray for our President but it is ok to exploit and use national tragedies to push their ignorant and demonic agendas.

Each time we have had such a tragedy as the one we did Sunday night in Vegas, Democrats and their friends in the media always politicize these events in the most despicable way imaginable. Such was the case again hours after the Sunday night events in Las Vegas.

The 59 people gunman Stephen Paddock killed were not even buried and the hundreds he injured still fighting for their lives, when irresponsible politicians and members of the press sought to score cheap political points and push a gun-control agenda.

"Our grief isn't enough,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. “We can and must put politics aside and stand up to the NRA and work together to try and stop all of this from happening again."

Don't you love Nancy "putting politics" aside and going after the NRA in the same breath. How do these morons get in leadership? I mean really!

Likewise, Hillary Clinton weighed in less than nine hours after the shooting and went deep into the gutter of politics. She mused that the massacre would have been worse if Paddock had a “silencer,” showing she knows as much about firearms as she does running a campaign. She also took shots at the NRA seconds after the tragedy. God forbid this had been her speaking Monday as President following these senseless killings.

Do these people have any decency? Do they have any shame or conscience? Or are they just this stupid!!!!!!!

The human element in this always outweighs the politics. It doesn't however, in the world of the most dishonest mainstream media and political party in the history of the American Republic. These people are truly disgusting and despicable.

We don't know Paddock’s motive at the present time. Some reports are out there he converted to Islam two months ago. ISIS claimed he was one of their own but the FBI has refuted those claims as late as early Tuesday. During our pod cast yesterday I said that at this point I don't even care about his motive was or the gun issue. Make no mistake. There will be time to discuss that when the time comes.

We have families who are mourning and are still in deep shock. A West Tennessee nurse, Sonny Melton, died while shielding his wife from the bullets. Others probably died doing the same. The real people in this world have raised nearly $2.2M in funds to help the victims through a Vegas Go Fund Me account. We here in the real world understand the human element because we are humans.

These degenerates in Washington and the main stream media are not. And each time we have a tragedy they show us they are not by what they say and what they do.

 Imagine if President Trump had taken this speech to defend the Second Amendment and tell the world how Paddock had a right to own the guns and we should be proud we're a free society?

How would the news media in this country have reacted? You and I both know how they would have acted. Here are a few examples of the media's corruption and twisted thinking:

Liberal CNN “reporter” Jeff Zeleny suggests that the only reason President Trump is going to Las Vegas Wednesday is because the victims in the audience may have been his supporters.

“Of course Las Vegas is a town that he is connected to and knows well, his name is emblazoned on top of a hotel there as well, he campaigned there a lot,” Zeleny said. “So, this is something that I'm not surprised at all to see him go there visiting early. Something else I think to keep in mind, a lot of these country music supporters were likely Trump supporters.”

CNN’s Jake Tapper decided “race or ethnicity might be playing a factor” in what he erroneously believes was Trump’s delayed reaction to Puerto Rico basically insinuating the President hates Latinos and Hispanics. So one liberal CNN reporter said Trump will go to Vegas because they support him, another says he hasn't gone to Puerto Rico because they hate him. Yet he arrived in Puerto Rico Tuesday to thousands who were appreciative of him and the first lady visiting.

Liberal logic at its best.

Then there was the top lawyer for CBS who was fired Monday after writing something similarly despicable on Facebook that ought to make every one of us mad and angry:

"If they wouldn't do anything when children were murdered, I have no hope that Republicans will ever do the right thing,” wrote Hayley Geftman-Gold, CBS’s now former vice president and senior counsel. “I'm actually not even sympathetic [because] country music fans are often Republican gun toters."

Hayley they have counseling for the mental disorder you have. You need help. Get it. Quick. Without delay. See if your Obama Care premiums will cover it. Again, another SICK LIBERAL MORON among us.

Exploiting this shooting and even the recovery efforts in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria is beyond despicable and pathetic.

The island was pounded with two hurricanes. Its infrastructure, airports, roads, electrical grid, water supply and cellular service were all knocked out. Gerald0 Rivera, who is sometimes the President's worst critic, even admitted that local corruption by San Juan's Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz, a Democrat left leaning loon by the way, and the nation's crumbling infrastructure were more to blame for the problems not the federal response. Let me add me two cents.

Puerto Rico is not Texas and Florida. You can't drive vans down from Oklahoma or Georgia to get to the needy. This was a different crisis altogether because of Puerto Rico's location.

Cruz slammed Trump over the weekend saying "We are dying, and you are killing us with the inefficiency," she added. During a Friday press conference she went on to say that a “genocide” is looming if the crisis is not handled.

Rivera during an interview with the left loon Mayor told her to her face he had walked the entire island and was being told by doctors people were not dying as she asserted. Her response? "You're not looking in the right place."

Guess who the media believed in this war of words? You got it. Instead of focusing on the Trump administration's valiant efforts to help those people in need, the media again tried to politicize a natural disaster to hurt the president.

ABC newsman and former aide to President Clinton George Stephanopoulos said, “You've also heard a lot of commentary saying that yesterday might have been President Trump's Katrina moment," Go home George, you're drunk. Hurricane Maria was no Katrina.

Others in the media slammed President Trump for saying just that. What President Trump's was comparing the situation to and Katrina was that Hurricane Maria killed thousands of people along the Gulf Coast. Hurricane Maria killed 34. Both numbers are sad but in the scope of the power of Hurricanes Maria and Irma, Puerto Rico is lucky to be above water! The death toll could have been worst.

Then there was a guest on NBC's "Meet the Press" who said, “Let's go back to, you know, this comparison with Katrina, whether or not, this is Trump's Katrina, this could actually be worse. Because Katrina was about indifference and incompetence, this is about mean spiritedness.” To use a term I've used a lot in this editorial already  - DISGUSTING MORONS.

Rivera interviewed President Trump Tuesday expressing his thanks he and the first lady came to Puerto Rico first instead of Las Vegas despite the national tragedy here on the mainland. I too was proud watching our President and First Lady reach out and show their love and concern for the people of the devastated island. The media has no shame though and all that has been printed about this entire ordeal are lies and more lies slamming Trump and his administration.

New York Times dingbat Paul Klugman even wrote that Trump was responsible for a cholera outbreak that was killing scores on the island only to have to retract it because it was simply not true. Even if it had been true it wouldn't have been President Trump's fault. It was Hurricane Maria's fault! I guess when the next hurricane hits Trump will get blamed for that one too. Pathetic don't even begin to describe this disgusting display of dishonesty in the American press.

The truth is that President Trump and his administration are working nonstop to help people in need. After unrelenting attacks from the media, the White House press secretary Sarah Sanders set the record straight with something these liberals hate - facts.

“The federal government is doing everything within our powers and capabilities to first focus on the life-sustaining and life-saving measures as well as on the rebuilding process,” she said. “We’ve got over 12,000 federal staff on the ground, 64 hospitals out of 67 are partially or fully operational. Fourteen are now back on the electrical grid. Forty five percent of customers in Puerto Rico have access to drinking water. Eight commercial airports are operational, 65 percent of gas stations are open, all of these things are things that we are continuing to push, continuing to move forward and will be part of that effort.”

Does that sound like Katrina? Does it sound like racism? No it does not.

In closing let me state again. The human element of both the Las Vegas shootings and Hurricane Maria outweigh the politics of both situations. When lives are lost in any tragedy, we must truly look above and first be thankful to God that the tragedy was not worse. Both could have been.

Secondly, we must ask God for His mercy upon our nation to protect us from further tragedies taking place. When a nation forgets God, the seal of His protection is removed from that nation because of its rejection of His grace. America is in such a place at this very moment. God loves this nation but its arrogant rejection of Him grieves the Lord at the deepest levels.

Thirdly, we must acknowledge that the problem behind the Las Vegas shootings and all other shootings are not guns, it's truly "acts of evil." No matter what laws are passed, they will never stop the darkness of men's hearts that seek to kill, maim and destroy. Only the forces of good through the power of the Lord's help, can stop such evil from taking place.

Our prayers today go out in earnest and sincerity to the victims and their families. We pray for the 527 who are injured and hanging on for life following this evil. We pray for the city of Las Vegas as it picks up the pieces and moves forward from this. We pray answers come soon as to the "why" so that closure may come in due season. Only God can truly provide that.

May God bless this nation and those affected by this tragic shooting. May He  shine His tender mercies upon each one at this time. Life is precious and short at the same time.

May God bless our nation and make it realize that before it is too late!

Christopher McDonald, Publisher, Editor in Charge

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