President Donald Trump has praised the NRA and its leaders as "Great People and Great American Patriots," but one student who survived the Parkland, Fla., school shooting wants you to know that the group's lobbyists are not patriots.
“Would American patriots try to buy democracy from the American people?” David Hogg, a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, asked in a Cheddar interview Friday.
“Will they lobby to implore them to make their voices more heard than others? Would they lobby American citizens to make sure that these children are murdered as a result of their inaction, because of [their] backing political figures?
“That’s not what I see as an American patriot. That's what I see as a coward and child murderer.”
The 17-year-old senior, a self-proclaimed Second Amendment supporter, is one of several Parkland students who’ve taken up the fight for gun control in the wake of last week’s attack, in which 17 people were killed.
And even though the #NeverAgain movement has drawn a lot of attention and support, Hogg doesn’t yet count it as a success.
“We’ve seen some reaction, but we haven’t seen literally any bills passed,” he said. “We’ve gotten people to pay attention. We need action though.”
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/parkland-survivor-and-gun-activist-david-hogg-talks-neveragain-movement).
Cheddar's Chloe Aiello has our cannabis year-in-review, breaking down how several states legalized adult recreational use and greenlit medicinal use in 2021. She noted that while a cannabis legalization and decriminalization bill was introduced in Congress this year, potential FDA involvement in the industry, as well as a 25 percent excise tax, killed any chance the bill had of moving forward. Aiello also speculated that some form of cannabis reform could be rolled out in 2022, as the midterm elections draw closer.
Jim Worden, Chief Investment Officer at Wealth Consulting Group, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he says the period between Christmas and New Year's is difficult to predict due to a lack of institutional volume, with the Omicron variant adding even more uncertainty on Wall Street.
Prices at the pump this year reached a seven-year high, and a new forecast from GasBuddy shared with CNN predicts that gas prices will only continue to rise in 2022 and that the national average could even reach $4.00 a gallon; however, analysts at GasBuddy say anything could happen when it comes to gas prices in the future, as the pandemic has made it difficult to make any predictions about the economy. Consumer Energy Alliance federal policy advisor Michael Zehr joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
David Stryzewski, CEO of Sound Planning Group, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he says that some of the major stock positions are getting the most lift to the upside as the major indexes climb higher to begin the week.
