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Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, June 23, 2022
Note: A quick heads-up that, in our quest to be utterly horrible, there will be no C&J on Monday. We’ll return on Tuesday demanding that you take back what you said about us being utterly horrible or else we’ll take another day off. It’s up to you, people. It’s all up to you. —Mgt. Team & $500/hr. Motivational Consultants
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Independence Day: 11
Days 'til the annual Cheese Curd Festival in Ellsworth, WI: 2
Number of consecutive months home sales have been down: 4
Chronological rank of Bears Ears becoming a national monument to be jointly managed by the U.S. government and Native American tribes, as announced Monday: #1
Number of federal wildland firefighters being given "a hefty raise" by President Biden: 16,000
Percent of this year's wildfires that were caused by human activity: 96%
Percent caused by errant laser fire from an Orpglorpian cruiser in a dogfight with a Hfffhrrrrian destroyer in the Andromeda Galaxy: 1%
Stanley Cup Final Update
Colorado leads Tampa Bay 3 games to 1
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
I know we all like to figure out whom to blame when something awful happens, but it is not a particularly useful exercise. What we are trying to figure out is how to keep this from happening again.
Whether the teen killers in Colorado were driven berserk by being taught evolutionary theory or were just Bad Seed, I submit to you, as a simple and self-evident proposition, that they could not have injured and killed so many people if they had not had guns. If they had come into Columbine High School, pointed their index fingers at the kids they didn't like and said, "Bang, bang, you're dead!" not much would have happened as a consequence.
To address a tedious point, it is quite true that no law can assure that guns will not get into the hands of criminals and lunatics. But laws can make it much less likely that they will. The Brady law alone has kept tens of thousands of people with criminal or mental records from buying guns in just a few years.
—June 1999
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Welcome home...
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CHEERS and JEERS to locking and loading. The Senate Judiciary Committee released the text of their gun-control bill, which they hope to fast-track even if the Trump cult throws a fit over it. How fast? This fast…
The vote to advance the bill was 64-35. Fourteen Republicans joined Democrats in support of the measure, and senators now expect its final passage later this week.
The bill includes funding to bolster mental health, enhanced background checks for people under 21, incentives for states to adopt “red flag” laws, and school security measures.
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It would close the “boyfriend loophole,” a last-minute hang-up in the negotiations, by prohibiting romantic partners convicted of domestic violence who are not married to their victim from getting firearms. And it includes the first comprehensive federal criminal statute banning gun trafficking and straw purchasing.
This is historic. This is big. This leaves me slack-jawed, amazed, and astonished. The Senate actually let a bill go to the floor to be talked about and voted on? Looks like I picked the wrong day to sell my fainting couch on eBay.
CHEERS to Day 5. The House Jan. 6 Subcommittee hearings continue today, although a bit later than usual. The gavel will drop at 3pm ET, with today's action focusing on how Donald Trump personally tried to pressure the Justice Department to help steal the 2020 election. And since the hearings are proving to be both more damning and more watched than anyone expected, there might be a sequel or two on the horizon:
Rep. Bennie Thompson, chair of the Jan. 6 select committee, said Wednesday that significant new streams of evidence have necessitated a change to the panel’s hearing schedule, including the potential for additional hearings. […]
Thompson(D-Miss.) cited newly received footage from documentarian Alex Holder, who had access to Trump and his family before and after Jan. 6; new documents from the National Archives; and a flood of new tips received during the committee’s first four public hearings.
Although panel leaders have only teased the possibility of two public hearings beyond Thursday’s, Thompson said they may add one or more hearings, depending on the evidence it collects in the coming weeks.
Like I've been saying all along: we're gonna need a bigger tub of popcorn.
CHEERS to 1-900-CLARENCETHOMAS. Who's up for some SCOTUS hilarity? On this date in 1989, the Supreme Court refused to shut down the dial-a-porn industry, saying that indecent speech isn’t the same thing as obscenity, and is therefore protected. Interestingly, all the justices in the majority had one cauliflower ear. Coincidence, I'm sure.
P.S. Clarence Thomas turns 74 today. I hope he enjoyed the little, um, "present" we left on his Coke can this morning. We all chipped in, sir.
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BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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END BRIEF SANITY BREAK
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CHEERS to Things That Go Clackety-Clack for $200, Alex. On June 23, 1868, Christopher Latham Sholes received a patent for his "Type-writer," the first to have the famous QWERTY sequence on its upper keys. Today bloggers who can't think of anything for their subject line typically go south for the edgier and more mysterious "asdf." And the day someone decides to drop down to "zxcv"? Well, don’t tell anybody, but I believe that's the day the nukes leave the silos.
CHEERS to today's edition of Oh, So That's What Impeachment and Conviction Looks Like. Let's see…a sitting U.S. president trying to blackmail a foreign country to help him steal his re-election isn’t enough to get a conviction. The same sitting U.S. president orchestrating a deadly coup attempt to steal his re-election isn’t enough to get a conviction. Golly, Beav', what is worth impeachment and removal from office? Apparently something far, far less worse…
South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg has been convicted in impeachment charges and removed from office over the aftermath following a fatal car crash in 2020 he was involved in. Ravnsborg,46, faced the state's first impeachment trial for his conduct surrounding the traffic accident, in which he struck and killed a pedestrian with his 2011 Ford Taurus.
Ravnsborg initially thought he hit a deer but discovered Boever's body when he returned to the scene the next day, he told authorities.
This has been today's edition of Oh, So That's What Impeachment and Conviction Looks Like.
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Ten years ago in C&J: June 23, 2012
JEERS to muzzling progress. And now, here to say a few words about the improving Florida economy is Governor Rick Scott:
"Mmmph!! Mmmmmph Mmmhhrgllmph!!!"
Gee, does he always make statements while tied up in a broom closet with a Romney campaign bumper sticker taped over his mouth??? I dunno, but…kinky!
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And just one more…
CHEERS and JEERS to the weather. Here's…the weather:
And that’s…the weather.
Have a nice Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial
Bill in Portland Maine Is Bloggerdom’s Least-Appreciated Superstar
—FiveThirtyEight
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