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Florida Professor Who Cast Doubt On Sandy Hook Shootings Is Fired

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D

Dalek

Member
Florida Professor Who Cast Doubt On Mass Shootings Is Fired


07florida-master180.jpg


MIAMI — A Florida Atlantic University professor who suggested in blog postings and radio interviews that the 2012 massacre of children at Sandy Hook Elementary and other mass shootings were a hoax designed by the Obama administration to boost support for gun control was fired Tuesday.

James F. Tracy, 50, a tenured associate professor of communications at the Boca Raton university, has repeatedly called into question the authenticity of recent mass shootings, including the slaying of churchgoers in Charleston, S.C., and office workers in San Bernardino, Calif. In his blog postings and radio interviews, Mr. Tracy has said the Newtown massacre may have been carried out by “crisis actors” employed by the Obama administration.

Mr. Tracy’s ideas fall into part of a larger movement of Internet conspiracy theorists who believe the spate of mass murders have simply been staged by the government. A few of the theorists do not think the shootings took place at all.
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Florida Atlantic University, which first reprimanded Mr. Tracy in 2013, dismissed him less than a month after the parents of 6-year-old Noah Pozner, the youngest victim of the shooting at Sandy Hook in Newtown, Conn., publicly accused the professor of harassment in a Sun Sentinel opinion piece. Lenny and Veronique Pozner, angered by Mr. Tracy’s conspiracy theories, had asked Mr. Tracy to remove a photograph of Noah from his blog, Memory Hole. In return, Mr. Tracy sent them a certified letter demanding proof that Noah ever lived and that the Pozners were his parents.
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Mr. Tracy continued his clash with the Pozners on Facebook, where he called the Newtown shootings a “drill,” a reference to a theory that the massacre was an exercise in which no one died staged by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“The Pozners, alas, are as phony as the drill itself, and profiting handsomely from the fake death of their son,” Mr. Tracy wrote in a letter that is attributed to him on the Sandy Hook Hoax Facebook page. Mr. Tracy declined to comment on his termination. His lawyer, Thomas Johnson, also declined to comment on whether Mr. Tracy would seek legal action or file a grievance against the university over his dismissal.
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Mr. Tracy, who has taught at the university since 2002, has also spread his views in the classroom, saying in interviews that it is his job as an academic to spark debate among students.

Florida Atlantic University ultimately dismissed him on grounds that have nothing to do with his theories or his feud with the Pozners. They said Mr. Tracy, who because of his tenure could not be easily fired, had failed to submit paperwork for three years in a row that listed any other jobs or similar activities that he performed outside the university. In a letter to Mr. Tracy, the university said it repeatedly asked him to file the form — which should have listed his blog and his work on a weekly radio show — but Mr. Tracy declined to do so.
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L

Lord Fagan

Junior Member
Good. There's a difference between genuine intellectual disagreement and straight assholery. This was clearly the latter.
 
M

MIMIC

Banned
"Internet conspiracy theorists who believe the spate of mass murders have simply been staged by the government"

So do they just thing that bad things don't happen? Do they have to get robbed at gunpoint or something?
 
T

Two Words

Member
This firing never happened. I doubt Mr. Tracy even ever worked at this university. It's all just a ploy by interest groups that want to make citizens feel that both the government and private businesses are observing our private lives too much.
 
W

water_wendi

Water is not wet!
Two Words said:
This firing never happened. I doubt Mr. Tracy even ever worked at this university. It's all just a ploy by interest groups that want to make citizens feel that both the government and private businesses are observing our private lives too much.
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You've convinced me and i am a Tracy Truther now..
 
T

Tripon

Member
I wonder what pushes a person to go far enough to go "Yeah, I'll risk my job on this shit." Of course, I'm sure there is a lawsuit or two waiting to happen.
 
D

danm999

Member
Mr. Tracy, who has taught at the university since 2002, has also spread his views in the classroom, saying in interviews that it is his job as an academic to spark debate among students.
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And I'm sure it did just that.

"Is this guy joking or fucking crazy".

"How did this guy become a professor?"

"Did I make a huge mistake taking this course?"
 
D

demon

I don't mean to alarm you but you have dogs on your face
This kind of thing always just fucking baffles me. How can you be smart enough to become a professor at a university while simultaneously having such shit for brains that you believe the president of the united states successfully conspired with god knows how many people to stage a mass shooting at a school?
 
T

Tripon

Member
demon said:
This kind of thing always just fucking baffles me. How can you be smart enough to become a professor at a university while simultaneously having such shit for brains that you believe the president of the united states successfully conspired with god knows how many people to stage a mass shooting at a school?
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Multiple times even.
 
N

Nerdkiller

Membeur
demon said:
This kind of thing always just fucking baffles me. How can you be smart enough to become a professor at a university while simultaneously having such shit for brains that you believe the president of the united states successfully conspired with god knows how many people to stage a mass shooting at a school?
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It's not as if this is the only example.

CXG3R_yWQAAXS6m.png
 
M

Mario

Sidhe / PikPok
demon said:
This kind of thing always just fucking baffles me. How can you be smart enough to become a professor at a university while simultaneously having such shit for brains that you believe the president of the united states successfully conspired with god knows how many people to stage a mass shooting at a school?
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Well, not only that, but the fact the government is manipulating and successful enough to pull off a series of such hoaxes while at the same time being unable to successfully pass any new gun laws or confiscate any guns at all. Indeed, these "false flags" only resulted in an uptick in the rate at which guns are entering the market.

* recent executive order notwithstanding
 
C

Chariot

Member
demon said:
This kind of thing always just fucking baffles me. How can you be smart enough to become a professor at a university while simultaneously having such shit for brains that you believe the president of the united states successfully conspired with god knows how many people to stage a mass shooting at a school?
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Why? There isn't just a universal intelligent-stat. He might very well be very good at what he is teaching, but can be a dumbass otherwise. Just think of the past lots of people who were racist, mysogenist and xenophob, but still lots od inventions and nifty plans. You can be good at thingss, without being a decent human being.
 
A

AxeMan

Member
Was he good at his job? I would have thought that's the most important thing.
Who cares what he believes in his personal life

I don't understand why everyone is after the employer of people whose opinion we don't like or agree with
 
M

Mrs. Manky

Banned
Mario said:
Well, not only that, but the fact the government is manipulating and successful enough to pull off a series of such hoaxes while at the same time being unable to successfully pass any new gun laws or confiscate any guns at all. Indeed, these "false flags" only resulted in an uptick in the rate at which guns are entering the market.

* recent executive order notwithstanding
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Yup. If you follow the money, the only people benefitting from a "False Flag Operation" and "Crisis Actors" is...the NRA.
 
T

teruterubozu

Member
AxeMan said:
Was he good at his job? I would have thought that's the most important thing.
Who cares what he believes in his personal life

I don't understand why everyone is after the employer of people whose opinion we don't like or agree with
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He's a communications professor who sucks at communicating.
 
A

andycapps

Member
They didn't even fire him for what everyone here is mad about. They fired him because he declined to say he had part-time jobs outside of his work at the university. Though I'm assuming his views made him a target there, but because he was tenured, this was an easier route to terminate his employment.
 
A

AlexBasch

Member
I'm kinda curious, why conspiracy theorists (as in truthers, deniers of Sandy Hook and the like) believe that FEMA will kill them all? Aren't they on charge of natural disasters, like hurricanes and floodings? Why not the FBI or the Army?

I recall watching the Boondocks "A Nigga Moment" scene and thought the "FEMA" joke was about their lack of action during Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, but maybe that flew over my head, when they cite them as "the biggest killer of young black males".
 
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