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Matt Gaetz: “Can someone sign this pardon for me? Anybody? Anybody?“ Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images

GOOD AFTERNOON, PORTLAND! It’s gonna be a beautiful weekend… to eat SANDWICHES. And lucky you, there’s still a few days left (until Sunday) to enjoy the Mercury‘s delicious SANDWICH WEEK! $8 creative, one-of-a-kind sammies from 30 of Portland’s finest sandy makers. DO NOT MISS. And don’t miss this NEWS, either!

IN LOCAL NEWS:

• Get ready for your head to explode (again): Portland’s city attorneys are asking a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit against the cops, due to the fact that a person who was shot with a munition by one of many identically dressed riot cops couldn’t identify the particular officer who shot him! WORSE STILL: The attorneys are also saying it’s “pure speculation” that it was even a PPB officer who shot the man in the first place. Ummm… who did they think it was? The Belmont Goats?? Ugh. Alex Zielinski has the infuriating details.

The city of Portland is poised to officially rejoin the Rose Quarter Interstate 5 project after walking away in 2020. https://t.co/hwYKPC68IH

— Portland Mercury 🗞 (@portlandmercury) June 23, 2022

• Today in SAAAAAD TROMMMBONE: The anti-homeless political action group People for Portland have apparently given up on their legally dubious ballot measure that would’ve taken money away from voter approved, successful methods of getting houseless people into permanent housing, and put it into temporary shelters. The group has returned the donations intended for the ballot measure to the donators. (Don’t worry, you can bet we’ll see these buttholes again!)

• Certain low-income workers can expect to get a one-time $600 stimulus check thanks to Oregon lawmakers. Roughly 236,000 qualifying households who claimed the Earned Income Tax Credit in 2020 will get that dough as soon as this week.

• Hope you enjoyed this relatively cool day, because starting tomorrow temps crank up to 84 before topping out at 97 degrees on Sunday. Check in on those people who may need some help, okay?

Now that summer is officially upon us, festival season is back in full force. Get out there and fest with the best at events from Oregon Brewers Festival to Pickathon. https://t.co/44ydXLUBZs

— EverOut Portland (@EverOutPortland) June 23, 2022

• It’s another super fun POP QUIZ PDX! This week: more sassy-ass trivia Qs about scandalous cops, the ill-named “monkeypox,” and… Oregon’s sword-fighting skeleton pirates?? EEEK! ☠️ (Plus enter to win free pizza!) 😍

IN NATIONAL/WORLD NEWS:

• And the hits just keep on comin’ (for Trump) following another jaw-dropping January 6 congressional hearing. Today we learned about the incredible pressure Trump put on the Department of Justice to help him overturn the election—including trying to install one of his own co-conspirators as the new head of the DOJ. It was also revealed that “multiple” Republican members of Congress sought pardons from Trump for shenanigans committed before January 6… because that’s what innocent people do, right?

Oh WOW the wording of the Matt Gaetz pardon request. “Any and all things I’ve done from the beginning of time to now.” Whaaaaaat?!?

— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) June 23, 2022

• ALSO:

Federal agents on Wednesday reportedly searched the home of Jeffrey Clark, a former Trump Justice Department official who notably pushed the president’s false election fraud claims. https://t.co/eFyNSFSLCe

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) June 23, 2022

• As the nation grieves for those children and adults who have died from near daily mass shootings, what does Trump’s Supreme Court do? They’ve handed down a ruling that will allow the carrying of handguns in public. (And let’s not forget their decision which could overturn Roe v Wade is due any day now… could be a very riotous July 4 weekend, indeed.)

• A lot of teens I know won’t like this: The FDA has ordered e-cigarette maker Juul to pull their products, as well as the accompanying pods, off the US market citing “insufficient and conflicting data” about the products’ toxicity and possibly dangerous chemicals leaking from the pods.

• Some asshole wrote me today to say the Mercury shouldn’t be promoting COVID vaccines because “they kill people.” According to this headline, a lot of actually smart people might disagree: “COVID vaccines saved 20M lives in 1st year, scientists say.”

• And finally… here ya go! Because YOU NEED THIS.

If the only thing missing from your day is 55 seconds of a bat, eating watermelon, then here’s 55 seconds of a bat, eating watermelon. pic.twitter.com/TdFVKaE3fs

— Paul Bronks (@SlenderSherbet) June 22, 2022

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