MOTHER'S DAY SCARRED BY CHILDREN GUN DEATHS

Happy Mother's Day

We can thank the National Rifle Assn. for bloodying an otherwise joyous Mother's Day for some who have either lost or had their kids maimed by guns. Yes, the NRA refuses to allow simple methods to stop this violence like background checks and the banning of assault weapons that have been used in many of the massacres on children. Another primary reason is irresponsible parents who don't secure their guns so the children can't play with them and kill themselves. The problem of unsecured guns is significant and was highlighted recently when a child found a loaded gun in House Speaker John Boehner's office. Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America announced "there have been at least 80 unintentional shootings involving children, resulting in 57 injuries and 24 deaths since January 1, 2015. In many cases the parents are not charged and they very well should be. It's useless to say there are too many guns out there in the wrong hands because the American public continues to allow the NRA and Congress to proliferate more on the streets. Until you realize what you are doing, there will just be more bloody Mother's Days.

ANOTHER OBAMA HATER...THIS TIME FROM IOWA

U. S. Representative Steve King from Iowa has just blamed the Baltimore riots on President Obama. Another Bible thumper, his reasoning is that if we had had a different President, one that would have come out with fire and brimstone, telling the public that God would want them to be nice to each other and go home to their beds, they would have done just that. Iowa has enough problems with its other lunatic, Joni Ernst, now they have a new one. Here's what King said about Obama's middle name and a connection to Islam in 2008:

"I don't want to disparage anyone because of their race, their ethnicity, their name—whatever their religion their father might have been, I'll just say this: When you think about the optics of a Barack Obama potentially getting elected President of the United States – I mean, what does this look like to the rest of the world? What does it look like to the world of Islam? I will tell you that, if he is elected president, then the radical Islamists, the al-qaida, the radical Islamists and their supporters, will be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on September 11."

Well, none of what he predicted happened. But what kind of conservative religious right would condone comments like this? And I will say it again, President Barack Obama has lived through some of the most racist times of this country since the 1960s and has always stayed far above radicals like Steve King.

POLICE ON THE STREETS WITH ALMOST NO TRAINING

The only training Nancy Cummings received in the Alexander, Arkansas police dept. to become a cop was whether or not she could hit a target 25 yards away 80% of the time. Hell, in the rural areas of that state most anyone can do that. And it's all legal, state law, as a convenience for small police departments that desperately need officers. In Nancy Cummings case her lack of training resulted in her shooting a black man in the back, killing him, during an arrest for which she was later charged with manslaughter. But Arkansas isn't the only state; in Indiana the cop can be on the job a year before requiring any training, except for firearms. This is not only a case of stupid law but is also a slap in the face to well-trained police officers across the country. At a time when cops are under such close scrutiny in alleged racial situations, the good ones don't need this crap.

DOES BERNIE SANDERS NEED TO TAKE A STRONG STAND ON GUN CONTROL?

We need to know now, today, where Bernie sanders stands on basic gun control. He has taken positions for background checks and banning assault rifles but Slate reports that he, "supported the most odious NRA–backed law in recent memory—one that may block Sandy Hook families from winning a lawsuit against the manufacturer of the gun used to massacre their children." Further, it says that he is skeptical of gun control and "invested" in the interests of both gun owners and gun manufacturers. THIS IS NOT GOOD! Sen. Sanders needs to qualify this because Slate is calling him a gun nut, to which he replied on CNN that this wasn't possible since his rating with the National Rifle Assn. is a big "F." He added that he supports hunting and target shooting and that Vermont, his home state, is relatively free of gun violence, exclaiming though, that there is a big difference between Vermont and Baltimore and Los Angeles. But as an example, where does he stand on closing the gun show loophole and would he vote to require training before someone can buy a gun? In any Progressive administration, gun control must be a priority. PERIOD!

I'M NOT READY TO DIE YET

I haven't even learned how to fully use my smartphone yet, so although I am 82-years old, I can't pass away until I have at least mastered this modern technology. And there's much more in the making so I don't know when I'll be ready to go. Just today I found there is a semi-truck that drives itself; self-driving cars have already been around for a while. Although I don't have diabetes, I might try Google's contact lens that monitor your blood sugar level, just in case. And skateboards came along way after I quit being a kid but I'm willing to take my chances on the new hoverboards that never touch the ground. I've played around with artificial intelligence already in a computer modeling program with outcomes that were downright scary. I want to see at least one drone come to my house from Amazon.com delivering my order before I check out. Genome editing has been done in China and I'm hoping to see that performed here on radical conservatives turning them into progressives. There's more and this just shows what a great age we live in today, something apparently even the U.S. Congress can't fuck up.

GUNS ARE BLASÉ EVEN IN THE U.S.CAPITOL

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Along with being the clown of the U.S. House, it would seem that John Boehner now has egg on his face. When leaving his suite in the U. S. Capitol recently, Boehner left a loaded Glock pistol, no safety, unattended. A 7-year-old visiting the building found it. No word from the National Rifle Assn. if the Speaker is a member. If he is, he must not have taken the training course. "In January, a member of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's security detail left a Glock in a Capitol Visitor Center bathroom, with the magazine removed but stuffed inside a toilet seat cover holder," said the Daily News. Apparently the gun was in plain sight in one of the stalls. Gun control groups exclaim that these are just more examples of a careless adult public being irresponsible with firearms. "At least 100 children aged 14 and under were killed in unintentional shootings in the United States during the 12 months that followed the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut," according to a report published Wednesday by the gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety, from MINNREPOST. Are we just stupid or will someone do something about this?

BERNIE SANDERS WILL RESTORE THE MIDDLE CLASS

Bernie Sanders stands for the middle class and this is nothing new, it has been his mantra for the 25 years he has spent in Congress. If you're looking for consistency, Bernie is it. As the middle class has declined, the wealthy have just gotten wealthier, at the sake of the middle class and the poor. When we have corporate CEOs in this country making upwards of $300 million annually and over 600 thousand in the U.S. homeless, not to mention the 16% of the population below the poverty level, there is something very wrong. The middle class demise was accelerated by the Wall Street crash of 2008, with Sen. Sanders exclaiming that no bank should be allowed to get too big to fail.

To quote the candidate: "Today, we have more wealth and income inequality than any major country on earth. We have one of the highest childhood poverty rates and we are the only country in the industrialized world which does not guarantee health care for all. We once led the world in terms of the percentage of our people who graduated college, but we are now in 12th place. Our infrastructure, once the envy of the world, is collapsing." Wages and total income for the working public are decreasing while the rich get richer. As President, Bernie sanders would demand that Congress address these issues and you can depend on him keep driving until the job is done.