Sunday Overnight Open Thread (7/4/21)

In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Georgia

Button Gwinnett

Lyman Hall

George Walton

North Carolina

William Hooper

Joseph Hewes

John Penn

South Carolina

Edward Rutledge

Thomas Heyward, Jr.

Thomas Lynch, Jr.

Arthur Middleton

Massachusetts

John Hancock

Maryland

Samuel Chase

William Paca

Thomas Stone

Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia

George Wythe

Richard Henry Lee

Thomas Jefferson

Benjamin Harrison

Thomas Nelson, Jr.

Francis Lightfoot Lee

Carter Braxton

Pennsylvania

Robert Morris

Benjamin Rush

Benjamin Franklin

John Morton

George Clymer

James Smith

George Taylor

James Wilson

George Ross

Delaware

Caesar Rodney

George Read

Thomas McKean

New York

William Floyd

Philip Livingston

Francis Lewis

Lewis Morris

New Jersey

Richard Stockton

John Witherspoon

Francis Hopkinson

John Hart

Abraham Clark

New Hampshire

Josiah Bartlett

William Whipple

Massachusetts

Samuel Adams

John Adams

Robert Treat Paine

Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island

Stephen Hopkins

William Ellery

Connecticut

Roger Sherman

Samuel Huntington

William Williams

Oliver Wolcott

New Hampshire

Matthew Thornton

Oh no, he doesn't have dementia. Everyone needs cue cards to answer the simplest of questions.

Joe Biden awkwardly fumbled with notes in his suit jacket pocket to answer a reporter's question on something he was briefed on just moments before – as the former White House physician to Donald Trump insists the president take a cognitive test.

'With the most recent hack by the Russians, would you say that this means –' a reporter began asking Biden as he checked out from King Orchards farm store in Central Lake, Michigan on Saturday.

The 78-year-old president, however, cut off the reporter, saying U.S. intelligence is not sure if the hack came from the Kremlin.

Stay away from Last View Hospital.

A colonoscopy might cost you or your insurer a few hundred dollars — or several thousand, depending on which hospital or insurer you use.

Long hidden, such price variations are supposed to be available in stark black and white under a Trump administration price transparency rule that took effect at the start of this year. It requires hospitals to post a range of actual prices — everything from the rates they offer cash-paying customers to costs negotiated with insurers.

Many have complied.

But some hospitals bury the data deep on their websites or have not included all the categories of prices required, according to industry analysts. A sizable minority of hospitals have not disclosed the information at all.

Is it a fluke? Or is it a sign of things to come?The month of June saw more EV Ford Mustangs sold than gas powered Mustangs.

This June, the growing popularity of electric vehicles reached a modest but notable milestone. According to a new report by Erik Shilling at Jalopnik, Ford’s electric Mustangs outsold the gas-powered version for the first time. Data provided by Ford reveals a slight advantage to the Mach-E: 2,465 sold in the United States versus 2,240 of the gas-powered version.

Shilling notes that there are a few caveats to this. One of them is that the shortage of chips worldwide has likely affected these numbers; the other is that gas-powered Mustangs are still outselling the electric versions by a substantial margin for the year to date. For the record, that’s 31,950 gas-powered versions compared with 12,975 electric versions.

I'm not gray, I'm toner challenged.

Gray Hair Can Return to Its Original Color—and Stress Is Involved, of Course
The universal marker of aging is not always a one-way process

Few harbingers of old age are clearer than the sight of gray hair. As we grow older, black, brown, blonde or red strands lose their youthful hue. Although this may seem like a permanent change, new research reveals that the graying process can be undone—at least temporarily.

Hints that gray hairs could spontaneously regain color have existed as isolated case studies within the scientific literature for decades. In one 1972 paper, the late dermatologist Stanley Comaish reported an encounter with a 38-year-old man who had what he described as a “most unusual feature.” Although the vast majority of the individual’s hairs were either all black or all white, three strands were light near the ends but dark near the roots. This signaled a reversal in the normal graying process, which begins at the root.

This would be Must Watch TV.

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said Sunday that former President Trump

DONALD TRUMP could be called to testify before the new House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack "if that's what it takes."

“Oh, if it comes to that, they should go wherever the facts lead. They may be able to get what they want and need without him testifying,” Clyburn said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“I would not want to see a former president testifying in such a situation as this. But if that's what it takes in order to get to the bottom of this, because this is more than any one person. This is this country,” he added.

Of course President Trump could ask this question.

“Who shot Ashli Babbitt? Who shot Ashli Babbitt? Who? Who shot Ashli Babbitt? We all saw the hand, we saw the gun. I spoke to her mother the other day, an incredible woman. She’s just devastated, like it happened yesterday. Devastated,” he said.

“You know, if that were on the other side, the person that did the shooting would be strung up and hung. Now they don’t want to give the name, they don’t want to give, but people know the name, people know where he came from, and it’s a terrible thing.”

What country is better than ours? Then leave and don't let the door hit you on the ass on your way out.

College Students NOT Proud To Be American In Shocking Street Interviews

She failed as a gubernatorial candidate. But, she succeeds in the Grifter department.

Stacey Abrams Buys Homes Worth $1.4 Million While Claiming To Be Drowning In Debt

Here is a little refresher – Abrams is a former gubernatorial candidate in Georgia who famously lost in 2018. She was hoping to not only change the state blue but be the one to lead it into the future. But as mentioned above, it did work out that way as residents voted for Republican Brian Kemp. But it appears it wasn’t all that bad as Abrams purchased two homes worth $1.4 million following her failed campaign.

What is even more interesting is how Abrams was able to afford the homes when she reported staggering amounts of debt in – 2018. During her campaign, Abrams supposedly owed the IRS $54,000 in back taxes. And that is on top of $174,000 in student loans and credit cards. With that much crippling debt, Abrams still found a way to purchase a 3,300 square foot home in Stone Mountain for $370,000.

The ONT Is Always Looking Out For You ^TM Planing on a hike in bear country? Do you have bear spray? You may want to see if it has been recalled.

It's all fun and games until you become a Genius Award Winner.

Woman on Tractor Flees From Officers During 4th of July Parade: Police

The woman was taken into custody and charged with evading arrest, interference with a processional, disorderly conduct and criminal mischief

Tonight's Feel Good Story of The Day.

Strangers stop theft of pink Unicorn Snow Cone food truck

On Wednesday, the theft of a snow cone food truck was caught on camera. But it’s not the theft that makes this a wild story. It's how it was recovered.

Tonight's ONT has been brought to you by Pyrotechnics.

Notice: Posted with permission by the Ace Media Empire, AceCorp, LLC, the Founding Fathers and Hamsters.

posted by Misanthropic Humanitarian at 10:00 PM

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