Congressman Keith Ellison gave the keynote.

Reading of the Day:

"It seems to me a strange doctrine that the most serious and responsible of all human acts imposes no obligation on those who do it, of showing that they have a real grievance; that those who rebel for the power of oppressing others, exercise as sacred a right as those who do the same thing to resist oppression practised upon themselves." John Stuart Mill, 'The Contest in America' (1862)

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Excellent piece by Andrew Cohen over at The Atlantic of putting the Zimmerman case into perspective:

What the verdict says, to the astonishment of tens of millions of us, is that you can go looking for trouble in Florida, with a gun and a great deal of racial bias, and you can find that trouble, and you can act upon that trouble in a way that leaves a young man dead, and none of it guarantees that you will be convicted of a crime. But this curious result says as much about Florida's judicial and legislative sensibilities as it does about Zimmerman's conduct that night. This verdict would not have occurred in every state.... Don't like it? Lobby to change Florida's laws.

The crime here is 'Concealed Carry' and 'Stand Your Ground'. With laws like those, none of us are safe -- we are all Travyon Martin.

Sorry if this place is getting to sound like WalMart-City but Lord knows they're in the news a lot and they are, after all, "America's Largest Employer"!

Walmart Shooting - Featuring such unforgettable posts as:

• Concealed handgun falls out of man's holster and discharges in Indiana Walmart
• Double-amputee shoots Alaska Walmart manager when asked to leash service dog
• Conceal carry permit holder threatens Florida Walmart employees with gun over a denied coupon

Hats off to Stuart Leavenworth, editorial page editor, The Sacramento Bee, who responds to complaints from Texan Gov. Perry about a cartoon that ran in his paper with the following reply:

Jack Ohman's cartoon of April 25 made a strong statement about Gov. Rick Perry's disregard for worker safety, and his attempts to market Texas as a place where industries can thrive with few regulations. It is unfortunate that Gov. Perry, and some on the blogosphere, have attempted to interpret the cartoon as being disrespectful of the victims of this tragedy. As Ohman has made clear on his blog, he has complete empathy for the victims and people living by the plant. What he finds offensive is a governor who would gamble with the lives of families by not pushing for the strongest safety regulations. Perry's letter is an attempt to distract people from that message.

Says it all...

Ezra Klein has an extremely methodical take-down of what conservative columnist, Ben Domenech, bills as the "GOP's eight-point plan to replace Obamacare".