This is one of those times of the year when I get homesick for Connecticut. That is Mountain Laurel, the state flower of Connecticut you see there growing in back of my Connecticut home. Mountain Laurel grows wild in the Northwest Hill of Connecticut  abundantly protected by all kinds of state laws. You’re not supposed to remove it from where it grows if its on your property without permission and it’s illegal to dig it up in the wild and transplant it elsewhere. Many State Parks have scenic vista overlooking it and viewing it is not unlike fall foliage viewing. Some consider it a nuisance I think its pretty and used to watch for it every year.

It seems some Miracle Grow ‘’”accidentally” got spilled in and around it last fall and my sister was kind enough to send me this photo of the happy results of the accident when I mentioned missing it during our conversation over the weekend.

Moving on, before we get going I have one housekeeping note:

Saturday’s issue will be our annual Independence Day Special Edition. Which means in short you’ll be seeing my semi scowling, over worked , underpaid and(likely) under caffeinated face again of Saturday. Impish therefore will be showing his scaly hide here on Wednesday and in his regular slot the following Saturday. I’ll return to my regular slot with the Wednesday July 13th issue.

Now if you’ll excuse me I have an Independence Day issue to complete and my low coffee level light is blinking in the corner of my eye. See you all on Saturday, unless that is you’re a Patron Reader.  In that case I’ll see you over at our Guest facilities Friday night when you avail yourself of your early check in for our Independence Day Weekend Celebration.

The best part of waking up~

Is I don’t kill you if there’s coffee in my cup!

Trust his advice on this folks- When it comes to being weird he’s not only an expert at it but a professional weird too.

Florida boy asks to pray with police officers after eating breakfast.

A young diner in St. Petersburg, Fla. asked a group of police officers to pray with him after enjoying breakfast with his mother on Monday.

Kelly Garza told Fox 13 that she and her 6-year-old son Joshua stopped into a Bob Evans—her son’s favorite restaurant— to eat breakfast after his morning swim lessons. Her son saw the store’s manager’s shaking hands with a policeman while thanking him for his service.

Garza says her son then wanted to offer an original ‘thank you’ to the law enforcement officials.

“He likes to pray at church, he’s a big prayer warrior,” Garza told Fox 13.

Before leaving the restaurant, Garza says her son approached the officers, who had just gotten their meals, and asked if they could all pray together for their safety.

As they prayed, Garza snapped a photo of Joshua sitting at the table holding hands with the police officers, all bowing their heads in prayer. Garza says her son finished the prayer with, “And please help us all to live a good life. Amen.”

The Facebook group America Going Blue, a network of U.S. policemen and  first responders, shared the photo on Tuesday. 

Garza says her son has had a difficult time since learning about the massacre in Orlando that left 49 dead inside a downtown nightclub. Joshua asked members of his church to pray for the victims’ families.

“He knows what’s going on in the world, and he doesn’t like it,” she said.

But after his prayer with the policemen on Monday, Garza said there wasn’t a dry eye in the restaurant.

ATTABOY JOSH!

You’re doing it right and don’t ever let anybody tell you different!

I’ll bet NATGEO would swamp the ratings game if they reprogramed like this!

Actually we have two of them today, both very important.

Paul B, whom we have apparently hired to be a post publication fact checker here at DL/LL Media Enterprises, has brought to my attention a little error I made a couple issues back.

In issue # 344 during my repeated attempted drownings by Mother Nature I published the  photo below. As you can see it’s very official and quite authentic looking. If you add in the sheer number of places that were legitimately flooding I don’t think it’s really a surprise I took it for gospel.

The problem is because I was in a hurry to get the issue up and out before something flooded or the power took one of its all too frequent vacations on me that I violated my rule of obtaining at least two independent sources of confirmation minimum for anything news-like. Part of the reason I did this is that I was the original source for the picture and had obtained it from a previously trusted a s factual source of material.

HUGE. HONKING. GREVIOUS. ERROR. On my part, as Paul pointed out, by sending me a link to this article:

No, the Noah’s Ark theme park wasn’t destroyed in a flash flood

Ark Encounter, a Noah’s Ark-themed theme park under construction in Kentucky was not destroyed in a flash flood.

A fake news report from satire website The Good Lord Above made its rounds on social media this week. 

Internet rumor and folklore website Snopes.com confirmed the report was false. A tweet from “God” (@thegoodgodabove) on April 18 gave a tease to the fake story, tweeting “I should destroy that Noah’s Ark Theme Park in a Flood.”

The satire piece said the flash flood only affected the theme park, with a quote from a meteorologist saying the flood was an “act of God.

Read the remainder of the article here: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/gone-viral/os-noahs-ark-theme-park-not-destroyed-story.html

Couple of New Books for Women

A Jew and an Arab go into a bakery.

The Arab steals three pastries and puts them in his pocket. He says to the Jew, “See how clever I am? The owner didn’t see anything.”

The Jew says to the Arab, “That’s the typical dishonesty of you Arabs. I am going to show you an honest way to get the same result.”

He goes to the owner of the bakery and says, “Give me a pastry and I will show you a magic trick.”

Intrigued, the owner accepts and gives him a pastry. The Jew swallows it and asks for another one. The owner gives him another one. Then the Jew asks for a third pastry and  eats that,  too.

The owner is starting to wonder where the magic trick is and  asks, “What did you do with the pastries?”

The Jew  replies, “Look in the Arab’s  pocket…..”

This magic trick works with Leprechauns and Dragons too!

I’m going to try and get into Impish’s format again this week while continuing with the subject matter of the Orlando shooting and liberals gun control I started with last week. This despite the fact I took a heavy hit in my stars and many of the usual ‘good issue’ commenters were apparently silent (apparently) due to the return of the Parting Shot commentary. Last week I got Impish’s dragon blood boiling (a pretty hard feat when you consider he breaths fire). I’m better this week will see it turn to live steam and fly out his ears, hopefully making a steam train whistling sound.

Most of what you see presented from the different articles has been truncated in an attempt for brevity while retaining the salient high points by me. In some cases in order for this to make sense and/or to achieve better flow paragraphs with in an article have been posted in a different sequence from the original article. This has done nothing to alter their meaning or to allow them to be taken out of their original intended context. you can view the original articles by clicking the corresponding hyper link at any time. All hype links were working at the time I wrote this, if they are not when you are reading it this is not my fault so don’t complain to me but rather please exercise your fingers with your friend Google and locate the article[s] for yourself.

Does a known or suspected terrorist face ‘a long waiting period’ before buying a gun?

“It’s already the law right now. If someone is known or suspected as a terrorist, they cannot just walk in and buy a firearm. They have a long waiting period that actually kicks in that the system itself will kick them out. The FBI is pinged on that, and they get some options to be able to deal with it. So it is already current law. So there’s a lot of pushback to say all these known terrorists can just walk in and buy a gun at a gun store. That is not correct. They are already held back and already cannot walk in and buy a gun in a gun store right now.”  –Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), interview on CNN’s “Situation Room,” June 16, 2016

The Orlando shooter was on the watch list in 2013 and 2014, but was removed from the list after FBI investigators closed their investigation.

Lankford’s staff said he was referring to existing FBI involvement in gun purchases, through which the FBI is flagged if someone on the Terrorist Watch list is notified. Indeed, the FBI is notified if a person on a watch list tries to buy a gun, if the person’s name is listed on a list called the Known or Appropriately Suspected Terrorist file (a subset of the larger consolidated list, according to the FBI).

With instant background checks, a person with a clean record in theory could walk into a gun store and be approved within minutes. However, if the person is on the suspected terrorist file, the FBI can delay the purchase for up to three days. According to a May 2013 Congressional Research Service report, the FBI has 72 hours to respond to the federally licensed dealer as to whether they can proceed with the sale.

Sen. Diane Feinstein’s (D-Calif.) legislation would give authority to the attorney general to decide whether or not a suspected terrorist could buy a gun. Anyone who was subjected to a federal terrorism investigation within five years of the attempted gun purchase would be flagged in the background check system, and the Justice Department would be able to review those cases. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) proposed similar changes, but required a three-day waiting period for law enforcement to conduct an investigation.

On June 16, the Justice Department released a statement in support of the Feinstein amendment, saying it would give the department “an important additional tool to prevent the sale of guns to suspected terrorists by licensed firearms dealers while ensuring protection of the department’s operational and investigative sensitivities.”

It’s important to note that the Department of Justice proposed similar legislative language in 2007 during the George W. Bush administration. According to the Government Accountability Office, that proposal to Congress would have provided the attorney general with “discretionary authority to deny the transfer of firearms or explosives to known or suspected ‘dangerous terrorists.’” Supporters of this bill called it the “Terror Gap” propos

Terror Gap props as they are called above are all well and good, another example of the preverbal blind dog finding a bone in that something Feinstein has proposed actually make good and common sense. However the bill Ii n any form current proposed is meaningless because its toothless. I’m not talking it lacking a punishment, those are easy to install or see the charges which would result in punishment as a result of the attempted purchase. NO I’m talking about the fact that the Liberals are shredding the records of these terrorist investigations and watch list removals as fast as they happen to avoid being labeled profilers, bigots, racists or Muslim haters. No data/records for at least five years and all the legislation in the world is meaningless window dressing circular logic by the Democrats.

 House Democrats’ Gun-Control Sit-In Turns Into Chaotic Showdown With Republicans

A Democratic protest demanding votes on gun-control legislation led to pandemonium in the House chamber that did not end until early Thursday, when Speaker Paul D. Ryan and his fellow Republicans reclaimed control long enough to force through a major spending bill. They then abruptly adjourned and left the Capitol.

The standoff, which began with a Democratic sit-in on the House floor just before noon on Wednesday, did not end until about 3 a.m. Thursday when Mr. Ryan — barreling over Democrats’ objections — took the rare and provocative step of calling a vote on a major appropriations bill in the wee hours and without any debate. He then adjourned the House, with no legislative votes scheduled until July 5.

Furious Democrats remained on the House floor, where they huddled around their leader, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, who praised their stand as a “discussion heard around the world.”

Ms. Pelosi expressed bewilderment at the Republican position. “What could they be thinking?” she asked. “Whatever it is, they don’t want to tell anybody about it. That’s why they left in the dead of night.”

Mrs. Pelosi with her head ever in a California smog cloud missed the entire Republican message despite it being as clear as the wrinkles on her cadaverous face. Namely that the Republicans refuse to be held hostage by the liberals childish antics and temper tantrums over not getting their way. It’s as simple as that. If Mrs. Pelosi cannot come away with that clear and simple message, then she is either too old, too senile, or too obtuse to continue to serve in Congress as I see it.

Democrats — who do not have enough strength in either the House or Senate to pass legislation on their own — have resorted to spectacle to highlight their anger over Congress not taking action to tighten the nation’s gun-control laws.

Ms. Pelosi arrived on the floor with an air of calm, surveying her rank and file’s protest as it gathered steam. Mr. Ryan, in an interview on CNN, dismissed the sit-in as a publicity stunt.

The Democrats began their latest push, including a 15-hour filibuster last week by Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, after the June 12 massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla.

They have repeatedly accused Republicans of siding with the National Rifle Association rather than with the victims of gun violence.

Again I’d refer you back to my statement last week that if 1 or 2 liberals in that gay bar had been armed the outcome would have been very likely extremely different. I thinks so the Republicans think so and the NRA I’m sure thinks so

Democrats create havoc on House floor over gun control legislation

Democratic lawmakers on Thursday ended a daylong protest in the U.S. House of Representatives to protest the lack of action on gun control and Congress looked unlikely to approve meaningful firearms restrictions in the wake of the Orlando, Florida, massacre.

As the protest ended, the chances of gun legislation immediately after Orlando appeared to be worsening.

In the Senate, Republicans aimed to vote on Thursday on whether to derail bipartisan compromise gun control legislation that has been under negotiation for several days, Republican Senator Bob Corker told reporters.

In other words, Pelosi’s dramatic temper tantrum tactic actually hurt their chances of getting any meaningful legislation passed. Why?  They want obfuscate the fact that they cannot that their true agenda is not preventing terrorists from getting guns but is in fact preventing anyone from getting a gun to aid in this cloud of deception they will blow smoke at the American people and attempt to make it appear that it is in fact the Republicans that are the problem and not their inflexible, unconstitutional pie in the sky dream.

 Democrats end gun control sit-in after 25½ hours, say succeeded despite not voting

House Democrats have ended their 25½-hour sit-in on the chamber’s floor that they’ve been staging to demand votes on gun control.

With just a few interruptions, Democrats commanded the House floor since 11:30 a.m. Wednesday. The protest was broadcast live to the world over social media.

There are no indications that Republicans — who control the House — have met the Democrats’ demands.

Still, Democrats are declaring victory anyway.

One of the protest leaders, civil rights veteran and Georgia lawmaker John Lewis of Georgia, says: “We are going to win this struggle.”

Life on the Pelosi Crazy Train must be nice, when reality clashes with your circular illogical ideology just climb aboard the Fantasyland Express and declare yourself the victory despite only having broken House rules and made your self look like the Democratic Congressional Party is made up of people permanently going through the terrible threes

The Senate voted on 4 popular gun control proposals Monday. Here’s why none of them passed.

Update: A new poll from CNN shows 92 percent of Americans support expanded background checks and 85 percent support preventing those on terror watch lists from buying guns. As we’ll explain in the post below, though, none of the below proposals aimed at these things are likely to pass.

Update No. 2: All four measures, as expected, failed.

One filibuster, two gun control proposals, four party-line votes, zero compromises, lots of finger pointing.

That’s what we can expect Monday evening as the U.S. Senate votes on four different gun control amendments — two offered by Republicans, two by Democrats — a week after the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.

We can confidently predict all four of these votes will go nowhere because the Senate took almost the exact same votes in December after the San Bernardino, Calif., attacks. Those votes largely fell — and failed — along party lines, with Republicans supporting looser versions of gun control proposals and Democrats supporting stricter versions.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on what Monday’s gun control vote.  They’ll be proposed as amendments to a larger spending bill for the Commerce and Justice departments.

All four amendments will need 60 votes to be included in the package, which will also need to gain final approval. But given the partisan makeup of the Senate (54 Republican, 46 Democrat), and how the gun debate tends to fall neatly along partisan lines, we don’t expect any of the proposals to advance.

You can follow the link to see what the specific amendment were and what their impact had they passed would have been.

Some potential areas of compromise

Believe it or not, there are some opportunities — however small — for Congress to move forward on gun control legislation in the wake of Orlando.

There are negotiations going on behind the scenes to try to merge Democrats’ and Republicans’ terrorist watch list proposals. As The Washington Post’s Karoun Demirjian reports, Collins (R-Maine) is working on something that Democrats haven’t dismissed outright.

She wants to prevent people on two of the FBI’s terrorist watch lists (it’s unclear exactly many lists there are for perhaps obvious reasons) from buying guns: the no-fly list and the selectee list.

Both lists deal with a person’s rights at the airport. If you’re on the no-fly list, you can’t board an airplane. If you’re on the selectee list, you get extra security screening when you try to board a plane. Mateen was on the selectee list for a time. And under Collins’s proposal, if you are on these lists and are denied your right to buy a gun, you can challenge it, and if you win, the government has to pay your legal costs.

Again, her proposals are not exactly what Democrats want (they don’t like the idea of working with just these two terrorist watch lists) or what Republicans want (they don’t like the idea of banning a person from buying a gun first, then offering legal recourse later). But that’s the essence of a compromise, and right now it looks like the only one the Senate’s got.

The Republicans fear any additional gun control laws as the edge of the preverbal slippery slope to a complete gun possession ban. Democrats are only will to play ball if its played with their ball, they get to make up the rules and then throw temper tantrums followed b y declaring that they in fact won just prior to taking their ball and going home mad that Republicans won’t drink their Kool-Aid of illogic. Mean while more people are likely to die at the hands of terrorists and other insane shooters while partisan politics, big money and small narrow minds with wide open mouths and full depends prevent any shot at meaningful, practical compromise.

In short everyone wants the sausage everyone is sold on the idea of the sausage but no body can agree on the ingredients for the sausage and both want to be the one who solely make the sausage.