House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) today vowed to "stop the steal" of liquor as he put it, from hard-working, decent Americans and promised to repeal legislation passed at the end of the Carter Administration. 

"It's little known to Americans that their liquor has been stolen from them for a number of decades now. Since so-called "metrication" by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms in the mid 70's when the Fifth (measurement of volume, not amendment to the constitution) was changed from 757ml. to 750ml. Americans have been robbed of 7ml. of liquor every time they bought a bottle from their local liquor store."

Johnson quoted a piece directly from Wikipedia when he said "In 1975, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, in cooperation with the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, proposed metric-standard bottle sizes to take effect in January 1979, with a one-year changeover period in which both sets of sizes were legal and these standards were incorporated into Title 27 of the Code of Federal Regulations." And then went on to blame the longest living President in US history, Jimmy Carter, for allowing this to happen on this watch. 

It's an interesting about turn from Speaker Johnson who in 2003 passionately fought against the legalisation of alcohol in the town of Minden, about 30 miles from Shreveport in his home state of Louisiana. In response to a question about this Johnson replied "I've seen the light on alcohol and I'm going to use my ultra slim one-vote majority in the House to make sure that we give all Americans back the 7ml. that's been taken from them for decades."

When asked what the non-metric equivalent of 7ml. was, Johnson referred to "a few drops" and moved to the next question.

Glass Nevin, Packaging & Supply Chain Consultant to the Irish Whiskey Industry, speaking on condition of anonymity, said "For feck's sake it's bad enough right now with two bottle sizes - 700ml. for the EU and 750ml. for the rest of them, but this eejit Johnson now wants us to add a 757ml. bottle to the mix too! And for what? So that they continue to work with an antiquated weights and measures system alongside the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, and Liberia."
Filed Under - April Fools Day