Well it has been a quiet day. I decided my cold was not sufficiently gone to risk going to see my mother. I have been hacking all day. I did get 2 bags of clothes I no longer wear ready for pick up tomorrow by the Diabetes Assc. Hurray! More room in my closet! This week will be my final pastoral care class and then comes the criminal records check for working in hospitals and hospice venues.
Short Takes
MSNBC — A petition for the open carry of firearms at the Republican National Convention has amassed over 32,000 signatures as of Sunday morning.
The convention is scheduled to take place in Cleveland from July 18 to 21 at the Quicken Loans Arena, which bans all weapons on property. While Ohio allows open-carry, the venue’s ban is permitted by state law.
People listen to speakers at the 1 Million Moms Against Gun Control rally outside the NRA's Annual Convention in Indianapolis, Indiana, April 26, 2014. Photo by Mark Peterson/Redux for MSNBC
… finds fault with the policy, calling it “a direct affront to the Second Amendment.” Pointing to an article that ranks Cleveland among the United States’ most dangerous cities and mentioning “the possibility of an ISIS terrorist attack,” the author said the Republican National Committee and the Quicken Loans Arena are putting people at risk.
In my view, the 2nd amendment is stretched to the max with its current iterations. Guns at a highly charged political convention where one candidate routinely and continually incites violence? Drumpf has already said there will be violence if he does not win the nomination. An ISIS attack? Just a little paranoid!
Politico — This is not a joke. Senator Al Franken should be the Democratic Party’s choice for vice president.
If I had said that 10 years ago, or even six months ago, the notion would have been preposterous: a former Saturday Night Live writer, perhaps best known as the mock self-help guru Stuart Smalley, Franken became synonymous with left-wing bombast thanks to his best-selling book Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot. He took the presidency itself as a joke, writing a satirical campaign memoir, Why Not Me, in which Franken wins the White House on a platform of eliminating ATM fees, only to be quickly chased out by the “Joint Congressional Committee on the President's Mood Swings.”
But for a 2016 presidential race that’s already stranger than fiction, his party truly needs someone like Franken if it’s going to win the presidency.
The primaries and caucuses aren't even over; the party nominees not yet decided. But talk is surfacing in some quarters about potential VP running mates. I find it rather presumptive that Clinton is the nominee, but whatever. This isn't about her but about a possible running mate.
Alternet — Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is defending Bernie Sanders’ decision to keep campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination and calling out Donald Trump for being the worst kind of predatory capitalist.
Warren spoke to reporters after visiting a community health center in suburban Boston and made the following six points about Sanders and Trump, which were quickly picked up by Associated Press.
1. Sanders is good for Democrats and the country. “He’s out there. He fights from the heart. This is who Bernie is,” Warren said. “He has put the right issues on the table both for the Democratic Party and for the country in general, so I’m still cheering Bernie on.”
click through for the other five ways Elizabeth Warren trashed Drumpf and stood by Bernie. Lizzie is spot on in my view.
YouTube — This is a little humour for you from John Oliver.
My Universe — from Care2 — Meet Nutz, a pet squirrel . . . a rather hyperactive pet squirrel.
Life outside of the United States Congress has done nothing to dim Michele Bachmann’s biblical and political passions. In her new career as an End Times prophet, she speculated this week that maybe God ordered the Brussels terrorist attack. Why would God do something like that? To humiliate Obama, she supposes.
I covered this one, because Oregon leads the way!
Therefore, I would have eaten Birdie!! 