We celebrated my daughter’s 14th birthday this weekend.  As I was flipping through the TV channels Saturday night while hearing the giggles coming from the gaggle of girls at the sleepover party in the other room, I happened upon CSPAN’s live coverage of the NRA Annual meeting.  I didn’t linger on the channel long enough to hear the lies and misinformation from the speaker at the podium.  But I did, for a moment, think about the 20 little ones, pictured above, who will never see 14, and realized how lucky I am to have a happy, healthy, living child.

Last night, I awoke from sleep to music emanating from the TV in my bedroom.  Two beautiful voices singing aroused me, and I opened my eyes to recognize Francine Wheeler, mother of  Ben – one of the Sandy Hook massacre victims, singing.  Bill Moyers was on, and they were playing a recording of Francine singing with Dar Williams from the Sandy Hook Promise concert in February.  Even as I hovered in a twilight state, I thought of the odd juxtaposition of this program airing as the NRA meeting was concluding.

This morning, after hearing a clip from Wayne LaPierre’s calls for fighting, I realized how much I’d rather have love and music.  Compare for yourself.  This:

Or this:

No contest.

At the top of the show, we met Daylin Leach,  who Howie Klein introduced to me as “the most progressive state senator in Pennsylvania.  Daylin is running for Congress, for the seat being vacated by Allyson Schwartz, a New Dem who is running for governor.  Listen to the interview, and check him out .  He’s the real deal- exactly the kind of person we need in Congress.  He’ll be doing a Blue America chat tomorrow at Crooks and Liars!

And as we do every Monday morning, we hear what we missed on the Sunday shows from Crooks & Liars‘ Nicole Belle in our “Fools on the Hill” segment.  Today, though, we veered off the topic slightly.  I hope you’ll listen to our discussion as it was an important one.  But also check out the clips she brought us this week:

A world in which Newt Gingrich bemoans the one-sidedness of LGBT rights because Catholics suffer from oppression too because they can’t be free to be bigoted against LGBTs in their adoption agencies. How’s that again?

And Jim DeMint is a grateful to live in a country where “people can love who they want and live the way they want”.  Wait, what?

Fortune magazine’s Nina Easton thinks that the Obama administration is in a tough spot with Plan B, because “teen pregnancies should be celebrated.”  Huh????

Perpetual guest John McCain thinks that Benghazi is just like the Iran-Contra cover up.  How? There’s a cover up, my friend.  Funny, I think McCain happened to be in office during that time too.  Was he as adamant about investigations then? Didn’t think so.

Drumming up more outrage over Benghazi was apparently the Republican marching orders this weekend.  Darrell Issa went on Face the Nation to promise new info on the scandal, only to promote the speculative hearsay of a diplomat who wasn’t there and can’t imagine it wasn’t a scandal.  And Rep. Jason Chaffetz insisted that the State Department has been threatening Benghazi witnesses, but can’t name any. Alrighty then.

Another long clip, but certainly one of the most surreal and uncomfortable moments in Sunday news show history is Reliable Sources’ host Howard Kurtz’ attempt to explain how he got fired from the Daily Beast this week.