Conservative Filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza is under fire after posting controversial tweets about the survivors of the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida.
Conservative filmmaker and best-selling author Dinesh D’Souza is under fire after allegedly mocking survivors of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on February 14, according to The Wrap.
Florida state lawmakers voted down a ban on assault weapons less than a week after 17 people were killed during a rampage at a Stoneman Douglas in Parkland, Florida. When the ban didn’t pass, D’Souza shared a photo of the survivors’ horrified reactions with the caption “Worst news since their parents told them to get summer jobs,” The Wrap reports.
D’Souza was met with swift criticism from both Twitter users and other conservatives, and has been denounced by the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), an annual event that D’Souza has spoken at several times, according to The Wrap.
Here’s what you need to know:
D’Souza is accused of taunting survivors of the Stoneman Douglas massacre after he posted multiple tweets responding to Florida lawmakers voting down a ban on assault rifles, according to the Wrap.
His tweet read “Worst news since their parents told them to get summer jobs,” accompanied by a picture of students reacting to the news of the ban.
Worst news since their parents told them to get summer jobs https://t.co/Vg3mXYvb4c
— Dinesh D’Souza (@DineshDSouza) February 20,2018
An hour earlier, he tweeted “Adults 1, kids 0” as the news was breaking of the ban being denied. D’Souza was met with immediate disapproval from those objecting to the mockery of survivors of a mass shooting.
Adults 1, kids 0 https://t.co/24iqKtnTxy
— Dinesh D’Souza (@DineshDSouza) February 20,2018
The attack on Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that claimed 17 victims was allegedly carried out by 19-year-old former student Nikolas Cruz, who was taken into custody. He had reportedly been banned from the school for threatening his peers, student survivors told officials, the International Business Times (IBT) reports.
Survivors from the mass shooting have since started advocating for gun control, with 100 students scheduled to meet lawmakers in Tallahassee on Wednesday, and a “March for Our Lives” protest expected to take place in Washington D. C. next month, according to IBT.
In 2014, D’Souza pleaded guilty to using a “straw donor,” to make an illegal campaign contribution to a 2012 United States senate campaign, according to Politico. A straw donor is somebody who illegally uses another person’s money to make a political contribution in their own name.
D’Souza entered a guilty plea in federal court after he was charged with making $20,000 worth of illegal contributions to the New York Senate campaign of Wendy Long, as well as causing false statements to be made to the Federal Election Commission, Politico reports.
The felony count that D’Souza admitted guilt on carries a maximum prison sentence of two years. However, D’Souza’s lawyers reached a plea agreement with the government, calling for a sentence of 10 to 16 months, reports Politico. He was sentenced to five years of probation with the first eight months to be served in a community confinement center, according to the U. S. Attorney’s Office statement on fbi.gov .
In addition to the probationary term and confinement sentence, D’Souza was also sentenced to a mandatory eight-hour day of community service every week of his five-year term of probation, weekly counseling sessions and a $30,000 fine, according to the statement.
D’Souza is an Indian American conservative political commentator and a well-known author of several New York Times best-selling books, according to his website. He is an outspoken Obama critic and wrote the book The Roots of Obama’s Rage, which eventually led to D’Souza’s first film, 2016: Obama’s America. The film became the second highest grossing political documentary of all time, surpassing Michael Moore’s Sicko and Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, his website says.
His website states that he has written and released a variety of other books and movies, including his documentary film and book Hillary’s America. D’Souza is also a staunch defender of Christianity and has published numerous books on the Christian faith, it’s relevance to Western Civilization, and his critique of Atheism.
D’Souza is a former policy analyst in the Reagan’s White House, and served as a John M. Olin Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He was also the Robert and Karen Rishwain Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and he worked as the president of The King’s College in New York City from 2010 to 2012, his website states.
D’Souza was born in Bombay and came to the United States as an exchange student. He graduated from Dartmouth College and became a naturalized citizen in 1991, according to his website.
Hey @ACUConservative might want to cancel @SebGorka at CPAC right about now.
Will you draw a line at one of your speakers openly embracing actual Nazi ideology? https://t.co/Z8ynmwpzny #CPAC2018
— Rafael Shimunov (@rafaelshimunov) February 21,2018
The Conservative Political Action Conference, otherwise known as CPAC, responded to a Tweet urging CPAC to remove D’Souza from the event.
CPAC responded to the Tweet, claiming it was “fake news” and that D’Souza wasn’t scheduled as a speaker for the 2018 conference. CPAC claimed that the picture on their site was an archived speaker profile, and that they were removing it immediately.
“His comments are indefensible,” the Tweet reads.
Hey Rafael, this is #FakeNews . @DineshDSouza is not a speaker at #CPAC2018. You are seeing an archived speaker profile and we are taking down his archived picture. His comments are indefensible. https://t.co/k5mhN639JI
— CPAC 2018 (@CPAC) February 21,2018
His comments infuriated many social media users, who quickly lashed out at D’Souza, calling him depraved, evil and an “expert troll.”
“Let it never be said that Dinesh does not actively root for the death of children,” wrote journalist Jonathan M. Katz, according to IBT.
dinesh d’souza has no humanity.
How evil do you have to be to tweet this about kids who got shot at in school less than a week ago. pic.twitter.com/MkwkJNYs1i
— Imani Gandy (@AngryBlackLady) February 20,2018
Conservatives also denounced his comments, including Mother Jones editor-in-chief Clara Jeffrey, the Wrap reports.
“Imagine thinking the upside of trolling liberals surpassed rock-bottom human decency toward kids who’ve seen their friends killed,” said Jeffrey.
Imagine thinking the upside of trolling liberals surpassed rock-bottom human decency toward kids who’ve seen their friends killed. https://t.
