NATIONAL SOMETHING ON A STICK DAY UPDATES

Corn Dog Lovers Of The World, Unite!

-Yesterday's mass shooting in a Christian school in Nashville, TN, is the 131st such incident in the United States this year so far ("mass shooting" is defined as one where a shooter kills at least five people not counting the shooter). In trying to figure out why, the BBC notes that gun ownership laws have become increasingly laxed in the last 3+ years (including TN just this year) and that gun violence in the U.S. has increased (although it must be noted that 9 of the 10 worst states for gun violence per capita are red states that voted for Ex-President Trump and are run by Republicans). It has grown to the point that during the coverage of yesterday's shootings, a woman who survived the Highland Park, IL mass shooting last 4th of July commandeered a microphone during a Fox News report pleading for further gun controls, and a second local Nashville reporter reflected on surviving a 2010 mass shooting in the middle school she went to.

-But as for any action, do not hold your breath. A TN GOP legislator shrugged that there is "nothing you can do" about such killings, and other GOP leaders got on record within minutes to decry "politicizing" the incident in favor of sensible gun control measures - including banning assault weapons (which ended in 2003 and precisely marks an uptick in mass shootings), waiting periods for gun purchases, and banning of clips that can make any weapon semi-automatic - which are supported by overwhelming majorities of voters across the political spectrum (all information listed is easily verifiable).

-What Republicans are more likely to do is what GOP Leader Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Z-Q-R, GA) was doing prior to the shooting: confronting an ATF agent while the agent was inspecting a GA gun shop, using the staged incident to again continue the UltraMAGA claim that the Biden Administration is "weaponizing" the federal government, as well as playing on reports that yesterday's shooter was a woman who identified as a man, carrying on the UltraMAGA 2024 political strategy of vilifying transsexuals and drag shows (which was something the TN legislature DID do this year claiming such bans "protected children"), and cut-and-pasting their plea for thoughts and prayers such leaders now post by rote during such mass murders rather than passing gun control (NOT GUN BANS) legislation most Americans desperately want passed.

-Following up on his "campaign rally" on the outskirts of Waco, TX (which drone footage shows was far smaller than the 35,000 claimed by the "campaign"), Ex-President Trump allowed Sean Hannity to interview him in a parlor with a portrait of Trump overseeing them to continue his attacks on his likeliest GOP Presidential nominee rival, FL Gov. Ron DeSantis and make other grand claims (bragging that the 'single' of him saying the Pledge of Allegiance under a chorus of January 6, 2021 insurrectionists in prison, thus making Trump "feel like Elvis") (unclear if he meant the end-of-career fat Elvis), perverse claims (that the photo of him holding a bat and the photo being made to look like Trump was about to hit Manhattan A.G. Alvin Bragg with it was actually a "buy American" promotional photo), and flat-out false claims (Trump asserting the Presidential Records Act allowed him to "take stuff" whereas in reality the Presidential Records Act FORBIDS him from taking whatever "stuff" he wants).

-Trump also continued to assert he is the GOP front-runner, using as proof a Twitter poll conducted by an anonymous Twitter follower who goes by the name ... and yes, this is real ... "Catturd" (though to be fair, non-Catturd polls reflect the same thing even though there is no GOP primary for several more months).

-Speaking of Twitter, the once-mighty site continues to stagger and reel under the 'leadership' of its owner, billionaire weirdo Elon Musk. Musk announced that the site, which he purchased last year for $44 billion, was now valued at $20 billion, and that as a result new changes to the sites' algorithms will mean the only Tweets people will see will either be sites 'liked' by users or those who purchase 'blue check' accounts, many of whom have done so and many of whom are far more politcally conservative (like the aforementioned "Catturd," whom Musk has liked).

-All of which could be academic given a Washington Post story that the source code for the program was leaked earlier in the year - a development that makes the platform, already racked by the exit of thousands of technicians and programmers, far more susceptible to hackers and outside manipulation. Twitter users continue to seek out other such sites such as Mastodon, Post dot com, and Spoutible - and this user is available on all three of those sits @jafedorko for those who wish to follow.

-So let's end on a cool if still disconcerting note: Ukrainian citizens and troops who have an app on their phone that will alert them to imminent raids now have a familiar voice telling them to seek shelter - none other than Mark Hamill, Luke Skywalker himself! (At least hopefully people will associate the voice with Luke rather than Hamill's other famous vocal role, The Joker from BATMAN cartoons). If one must find safety ...

-May the Force be with you - and SLAVA UKRAINI!

-On this date in 1930 - cue They Might Be Giants - the Turkish city formerly known as Constantinople was renamed Istanbul. On this date in 1939, the then-still-very-much-alive Generalissimo Francisco Franco captured Madrid and completed his military coup. On this date in 1979, a radioactive core of uranium overheated in a cooling tower at the Three Mile Island, PA nuclear power plant led to a leak of radioactive water - the worst such accident in American history.  And on this date in 1984, moving vans left Baltimore as the NFL Colts franchise moved to Indianapolis (the city would abet a similar theft in 1995 when it welcomed Art Modell and the NFL franchise he owned in Cleveland).

-Happy Birthday to Frederick Pabst, Maxim Gorky, August A. "Gussie" Busch Jr., Marlin Perkins, Irving "Swifty" Lazar, Nelson Algren, Jimmie Dodd, Edmund Muskie, Dirk Bogarde, Joey Maxim, Zbignew Brezinski, Mario Vargas Llosa, Jerry Sloan, Neil Kinnock, Samuel Ramey, Richard Eyre, Ken Howard, Rick Barry, Dianne Wiest, Jeffrey Miller, Reba McEntire, Bart Conner, Oran "Juice" Jones, Bernice King, Jason Garrett, Cheryl "Salt" James, Max Perlich, Vince Vaughn, Luke Walton, Julia Stiles, Lady Gaga, and Jonathan Van Ness.

-Rest in Peace/Rest in Power to Mussorgsky, Virginia Woolf, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Johnny Evers, Jim Thorpe, W.C. Handy, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Emmett Kelly, Marc Chagall, Maria Augusta von Trapp, Peter Ustinov, June Havoc, Earl Scruggs, Gene Saks, and James Noble.

-Feed the Worms: warped former Filipino President and idol to Trump Rodrigo Duterte entered Earth on this date. Ivan the Terrible and Caspar Weinberger left Earth on this date.