Today, Facebook reminded me.....

Every so often the Facebook 'memories' app reminds me of things I'd just as soon forget. This was one of them. On June 12, 2016 a madman with his own agenda opened fire in a nightclub in Orlando. By the time he was brought down by police, 49 people were dead and 53 were wounded in the worse mass shooting in modern America. The record didn't stand very long. On October 1, 2017, another gunman fired on a crowded concert venue in Las Vegas, killing 58 and injuring over 500.

Now it's four years later and we have people dying from a pandemic the president once publically declared to be deep state hoax perpetrated by the Democrats to make him look bad. The same president who marched across Layfette Square for a photo op at a church he doesn't attend while holding a  book he's never read with a battalion's worth of Secret Service and American soldiers at his back after these same troops had dispersed a crowd of people demanding justice for a black man killed when a white police officer choked the man to death on camera. 

This Orange Buffoon has to be stopped before he burns this country to the ground.  

VOTE! It's the only way to end this! Vote in numbers too big to ignore! This is not the time for third party candidates. A vote for anyone other than the Democratic nominee is a vote for Trump. Biden was never my first choice, but right now, he is the only choice. On Tuesday, November 3, 2020 we have the opportunity to save this country from a madman. For the love of everything holy, VOTE...

From June 12, 2016

I was hoping that today I would feel better than I did yesterday. Took the little doggie for his morning walk, listened to the birds, watched a few clouds. Then I went home and fired up my 'puter. Today's headlines read: “50 Dead In Worst Mass Shooting In US History”.

That was bad enough. The shooting was in Orlando, Florida. At a nightclub. A gay nightclub carried out by a young man of twenty-nine by the name of Omar Mateen, an American citizen who's parents are Afghani immigrants. The rumors are already flying. He had ties to ISIS, he was a 'lone wolf' terrorist, he was offended by the sight of two men kissing in Miami.

It's already become political, with both Trump and Clinton's people weighing in on the discussion.

At this point the only thing we know for sure is that a young man of middle eastern descent walked into a club frequented by gay men, armed to the teeth with weapons and possible explosives, and opens fire, killing at least 50 and injuring at least that many more. A brainwashed minion from a group known for hate and violence has once again shaken America to its core.

I cannot even begin contemplating the thought process that goes into this much hatred.

Now comes the debate over gun control. The shooter was a terrorist who set out to kill as many people as he could before he was taken out by law enforcement. Accessibility to firearms is a moot point. The man set out to be a killer and no power on this earth could have stopped him. The only thing more gun control legislation is going to do is make it harder for law abiding citizens to acquire firearms. CRIMINALS DO NOT CARE! By their very nature, they do not care. If they want weapons, they will get them by any means necessary, up to and including home invasion robberies. All you folks out there with those NRA stickers in your front window only make finding the firearms easier. Quit it.

In the aftermath of this new tragedy, there are going to be cries for more gun control, more immigration reform, increasingly more intrusive surveillance systems, more armed guards, metal detectors, da yadda, da yadda, on and on, ad nauseum.

And not one damned bit of it is going to do any good because as long as there is someone preaching hate, there's going to be someone who is going to listen to them and get inspired, especially when you throw in the promise of as many celestial wives as you can handle to spend the rest of your life happily fornicating in your very own celestial kingdom.

Oh, sorry, my mistake, that's the Mormons. The Islamic's have their very own Paradise with 72 virgins awaiting. Sometimes you really need a script to keep the players straight.

That is neither here nor there. It all comes down to one very simple fact. If the 'religion' you espouse dictates who you can and cannot love, it's time to re-evaluate your belief system.

According to Mateen's father, Mateen was upset over the sight of two men kissing outside a club in Miami, making me question what he was doing outside a gay club in Miami watching two men kissing. If Mateen's father knew his son was planning an act of violence, he should have called someone. He didn't. From what I've been reading this morning, and I am taking this with the usual large helping of salt since this is the internet and the investigation is only in it's infancy, Mateen's wife left him after only a few brief months of marriage because of his violent temper. It sounds like the man was a ticking time bomb, looking for a place to explode.

He found the place at a club in Orlando where people went to have a few drinks, listen to some music, dance, and have fun. People who had lives and families and people who cared about them. People with jobs and homes and responsibilities. People whose only 'crime' (in quotes because that's what people like Mateen and his ilk think) was that they loved someone of the same gender.

He probably didn't even think of his victims as people, just vermin to be eliminated to ensure his place in the Paradise. He had to have known that when he opened fire in that club that he wasn't going to walk away from the scene. He tried to destroy his computer and cell phone, knowing full well the police, the FBI, and Homeland Security were going to be extremely interested in the content of their hard drives. I'll even go so far as to speculate that in the proceeding days he probably had a nice bonfire to destroy any written records or notes he may have had. He was planning on going out in a blaze of glory as a martyr to his faith and to ISIS. He didn't give the police a choice. There is only one way to stop this kind of a fanatic, and that's with a bullet.

Kind of makes you wonder what God, the God that I believe in, the God who says “Love thy neighbor” had to say when Mateen made his appearance at the Pearly Gates looking for his Virgins.