that guy in AZ Wrote:

From a small farm in Alabama, to life-risking service in the civil rights movement, to three decades in Congress, he was always “walking with the wind,” steered by a moral compass that told him when to make good trouble and when to heal troubled waters. Always true to his word, his faith, and his principles, John Lewis became the conscience of the nation.

Obama's words altogether were a perfect tribute. But I think Bill's comment in bold here captures Lewis' character and actions throughout his life perhaps better than any other turn of phrase. That's how I think of Lewis, a person of high character and integrity, with intelligent foresight on how best to act on his convictions.

jaredsxtn Wrote:

The thing is that his mathematical chance of success are so small that it would literally take a miracle for him to win the nomination. And while Hillary stayed in the race until the very end in '08, she never behaved like Sanders has.

Well its also a vastly different kind of election. Obama had unprecedented support, making it easy (easier anyways) for Hilary to (more) gracefully step aside. Although I still think she did that more easily than Sanders is now simply because she had the Sec of State gig to most likely fall back on. It's not POTUS power, but its one of the closest to it. So she settled, which is markedly different than quitting, or conceding defeat.

Also, for Dems it's kind of the opposite of 08. Where the party choice in Hilary for 2008 got clearly beaten by newcomer Obama, and she stepped aside before the wave forced her to do so.. with '16, it's similar in the fact that it's once again party choice Hilary Clinton trying to shake off the up-and-comer 'more of the people' voice in Sanders. Big difference here though is she is just struggling to maintain a convincing enough lead to sure up the win, meaning the party favorite is just barely winning, as opposed to clearly losing in the end by landslides.

3 million for now. But what happens when population dense California turns in their ballot? And all the other remaining states as well? Not to say that will change. But it certainly could change.

Just seemed waayyy more clear in my mind that Obama should be the nominee back in 2008. But for now, maybe my opinion is skewed simply because I much rather prefer Bernie or Hilary any day of the week... but it really doesn't feel like Hilary is the clear and definitive choice for the Dem Party. Best calculated choice? perhaps. Best candidate to represent the party? Arguable. Winner of the popular vote for the ticket? We shall see.

jaredsxtn Wrote:

The 2008 Democratic Primary was a knock down, drag out fight, but as soon as Hillary lost she pivoted to supporting then Senator Obama. This year seems different.

To be fair, she only pivoted after much hesitation on her end. She didn't want to give up either. But Obama and company dangled the Secretary of State job promise, and her team ultimately convinced her. Doubtful Bernie is being given such a 2nd place trophy as that. And also doubtful he would care, or consider it even if that were the case.

Plus, she had zero chance of contesting back in '08. I think as long as Bernie has any mathematical chance of success, however small, he should continue.

Dutch Wrote:

S.B and Schmidt; I think Friedman did not read all my mails; I said several times a total ban on CIVILIAN gun ownership should be the only solution as they do in other "civilized" countries. I also said THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN HERE. I also said the "2nd Amendment" is wrongly interpreted, it only applies to the period in which it was written. As I said also THE DAMAGE IS DONE and can't be reversed. Furthermore no new regulations will work either "guns" can be traded anywhere even within family and friends; I doubt if there is "money" to do strict control anyway. Background checks are a farce; this shooting shows it clearly. The guy was mentally impared, even got thrown out of the Army, but still could buy/obtain 17 guns legally. How many thousands of the same people like him are running around in this country.? How about a lot of soldiers coming home nuts? Who have only "hero" backgrounds? Don't let me laugh about this country. The only change that will happen is that more and more guns hit the market; nothing else. I guarantee another shooting with even more victims is waiting to happen. In Ft. Myers there is least a shooting just about every day.

I appreciate the clarification. And I did go back and read some of your earlier postings. You are correct. But you are still saying that anything short of complete illegality of guns in this country is a joke and won't work. And I just wanted to underscore how unrealistic I think that solution is.

So if the idea everyone else here ultimately seems to be saying (Schmidt and Jared included, which I agree with and appreciated your comments to my posting as well) is that we should have sensible gun laws, reasonable regulations and smarter weaponry, etc.. I don't think anyone here is disagreeing. Not anyone.

A few of you went after Clay for some of his comments because he is a gun owner, in part because he sees the value in gun ownership for self protection. And even Clay said the same thing, we need stricter classes for training, and overall stricter and better gun ownership regulation.

So if that's the answer, it seems that everyone here in this forum completely agrees, but maybe just vary in degree.

I agree it's not an either/or question. Of course. That would be silly. The answer is in the middle, like usual. And I did watch the Oliver video on mental illness. ..While I agree that the GOP uses that as an excuse so that they don't ever have to consider stricter gun laws, I find it hard not to focus on the fact that many shootings happen by shooters with some kind of mental affliction.

Not all, of course. But I wonder... do we have solid evidence of numbers that show the % of 'healthy' shooters vs mentally afflicted? I know Oliver cited some very quick #s in the beginning of his reporting. But I do wonder about that 5%. Anyone know where it came from? And how someone that doubts such a low number like myself can better educate myself on that fact? Because it seems incredibly low to me. Maybe I have bought into the mental illness gun violence narrative a bit much. But I feel it has to be well over 5% of the time. Also seems a hard statistic to outright prove too.

Dutch Wrote: The only thing is to join the civilized world and ban all private held guns. Amen. I'm getting a bit sick of this mentality; but time will tell, keep counting the dead and crippled. Common sense is optional in this country. Why have a gun if you can't use it?

Just reading through all the comments on this thread.. So, for the detractors against gun ownership, is this the ultimate solution? Just ban all guns? Every single gun in this country? Is this anywhere close to being realistic?

So lets just shut down all gun business in the country, make every firearm completely illegal, and then what, confiscate every single firearm any private citizen owns? Send armed people to gun owner's houses (that are registered and on the books of course) and take all their weapons? What if they say no? We do so by force? By threat of imprisonment or fines or, what? And then what of the unregistered firearms floating around (by the thousands to millions)? We crack down even harder, hire even more police officers solely tasked with rooting out and forever chasing down all those weapons for untold years/decades as well?

How do you see this playing out in the real world? Not the world where your opinion is that you find guns distasteful, but in the actual world where guns likely outnumber the 350 million citizens we have in this country.

Then what do we do with all the guns and bullets (I suppose those become illegal as well, punishable by what, again jail time or?) Do we lock them away forever? Give them to our military? Destroy them?

Does this include BB guns and pellet rifles too? How about slingshots or blow/dart guns? They 'shoot' projectiles... Where does that line get drawn?

I have a zillion questions about how in the world that is actually a feasible and realistic goal for our country that has the momentum of gun ownership that it currently does. To me, it's akin to Trump saying we should deport all illegal immigrants and put up a giant wall. Sounds great to a few zealots. Sounds ridiculous and impossible, and wildly unfair and massively expensive for a variety of reasons, to most sane people that think beyond the surface of the issue. The nuanced thinkers.

What about 3d printers? They have already been able to make guns, unregistered. And that tech is only going to get better and more readily available.. Do we ban that technology going forward because of its capability? And it's not like we can just track the material that one can use to 3d print a working gun, because they can use silicon/plastic/metal/etc. Can't ban/track all that material.. What in the world do you realistically propose to do about that capability??

Then we would also have to ban any import from other countries that obviously sell weapons in whole. Which brings up yet another hurdle.. what about people selling random parts that could in theory be assembled into a weapon? How in the world would you be able to stay on top of policing all of that manufacturing and distribution? Talk about billions and billions of man hours and resources, brand new govt departments that would need to 24/7 be on the ball with all that.

This also reminds me of the drug war. Treating citizens as if they are children, completely inept at the possibility of something that could be dangerous. Everyone's answer for drugs for a while has been zero policy. And now look where that idea has got us in this country? The War on Drugs has been a complete and utter disaster, in every single sense of the word. Can you seriously not see the parallels?

I am for sensible gun regulation, tougher training classes, and anything that would make a random, average gun owner most accountable and safe by owning a dangerous weapon. But even if I was for your proposal of just shutting down all gun ownership in this country for everyone, even if I was, I don't for one second think it's a realistic or feasible possibility.

Please explain to me why I am wrong. Please tell me how in the world we could ever seriously pull this off? And then explain to me why responsible citizens that have never harmed a person in their lives, and just like guns because they are fun, explain to me why that person should now have their property taken away from them? Reminds me of the way you treat children in a classroom, one child does something wrong, and the easiest solution for the teacher in charge is to just take that privilege away from everyone. Is that honestly fair?

HuffPost Pollster's aggregate has Donald Trump leading with 33.8%. Ben Carson at 18.8%. Then everyone else with single digits. Basically its Trump, and then everyone else. This worries me.

Carson has zero chance. I agree with you Jared. Just zero. So then it becomes Trump against 9 others all trying desperately to separate themselves from the rest. And the measuring stick in which to do so is out Trumping Trump. But that's not what worries me.

I agree that it's a good thing for the DNC to have all the candidates jumping further into crazyland to push past Trump. And if one of them lands the win over Trump, they will suffer because that strategy.

What actually worries me is that Trump might actually win. I had thought that impossible, until a few days ago when I for the first time gave it serious consideration: what if Trump actually DID win the primary?!? I mean he is still leading in every poll. He is serious about running. And no one really seems to be pushing him to the side just yet.. it actually could happen.

It was a scary thought for the same reason reality TV stardom scares me: people might very well vote Trump into the White House in the general election, just to mix things up, to have a celebrity that isn't "establishment politics".

If Hilary gets the DNC nom, and Trump wins, you will have a huge cross-section of at least 3 different kinds of voters going against her - folks for Trump (relatively small group), then folks against Hilary (much larger group), then finally folks willing to vote for the non-politician to mix things up (could be a big section as well).

That's what scares me. That Hilary wins the DNC nod and Trump wins his. That is a matchup I do not want to see for the general election. Of all the Democratic nominees going right now, I think Trump has the best chance to bet Hilary. And Hilary is the DNC frontrunner...

Please, please tell me I'm crazy to think Trump could realistically win the whole damned election. That would be lunacy.

Ultimately stunts like this don't really change anything. But it was still very cool to see:

As Nikki Haley and the SC lawmakers continue to drag their feet on taking down the confederate flag that is still hanging up at the State Capitol building today (even after the shooting), a few activists decided to take matters into their own hands.

One guy pretended to be a construction worker, while another, a woman, scaled the pole and took down the flag herself. She was promptly meet by security, and arrested in a peaceful manner as soon as her feet re-met the pavement.

I wonder if this will help expedite the process in any way?

These discussions always make me incredibly sad because I feel like they point to institutional failure at the highest levels, and NO ONE will take responsibility for them. They pass the buck to every individual, other than themselves. And it's sad.

"Dick Cheney said I was the worst president of his lifetime, which is interesting because I think Dick Cheney is the worst president of my lifetime."