‘Every Politician That’s Taken Money from the NRA: Shame on You!’
—Emma González, 18, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Parkland, Fla.
Focused anger. Students of the Florida school where 17 people died last week said Sunday they will organize nationwide marches for gun control next month and try to create a “badge of shame” for politicians who take money from the National Rifle Association and other gun-rights groups.
“We are losing our lives while the adults are playing around,” Cameron Kasky said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” Kasky, a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., has been part of an outpouring of anger from students who survived the shooting, many of whom have publicly blamed Trump and NRA-supported politicians for creating the conditions that led to the shooting.
“This is about us begging for our lives; this isn’t about the GOP, this isn’t about the Democrats, this is about us creating a badge of shame for any politicians accepting money from the NRA and using us as collateral,” said Kasky.
The mass shooting has sparked calls for walkouts, sit-ins and other actions on school campuses across the United States aimed at pushing lawmakers to pass tougher gun laws. Organizers behind the Women’s March, an anti-Trump and female empowerment protest, called for a 17-minute walkout on March 14 to “protest Congress’ inaction to do more than tweet thoughts and prayers in response to the gun violence plaguing our schools and neighborhoods.”
The Network for Public Education, an advocacy organization for public schools, meanwhile, announced a “national day of action” on April 20, the anniversary of the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado, in which two students opened fire on their classmates, killing 12 students and one teacher.
Unhinged. Trump questioned the intensifying special counsel investigation of his 2016 campaign and his administration while attacking his own national security adviser, the FBI, Democrat Hillary Clinton, former president Barack Obama, Democrats in Congress, CNN and others in a remarkable nine-hour span of tweets that included profanity and misspellings. Posting on Twitter from his Mar-a-Lago estate, he railed against the latest findings of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and his team, which on Friday filed 13 indictments against Russians and alleged that an interference effort in the 2016 campaign run from St. Petersburg, Russia, was intended to push voters toward Trump and away from rival Clinton.
Israel vs. Iran. “Israel will not allow Iran’s regime to put the noose of terror around our neck,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday. “We will act without hesitation to defend ourselves. And we will act, if necessary, not only against Iranian proxies that are attacking us but against Iran itself.” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif labeled the remarks “a cartoonish circus which does not even deserve a response.” He accused Israel of practicing “aggression as a policy against its neighbors,” saying Netanyahu is angry because “the so-called invincibility [of Israel] has crumbled.”