Well get to the severed arms at the bottom of this post.
We’ll get to the severed arms at the bottom of this post. Bun_Visit/Getty Images

I know there are four bylines on here: It’s because I had a glut of meetings today and forced Lester and Jasmyne and Rich to help with PM. I’m also taking a day off tomorrow, but only because I’ve been working for eleven days straight due to last weekend’s Capitol Hill Block Party. WoooOOooooOoo! Rich will be doing Slog PM tomorrow. Slog, as you know, is a family cult affair. Okay, these first blurbs are from me, Chase. xoxoxoxoxxx

Seattle businesses keep booming: Expedia raked in $3.15 billion in their second quarter, beating expectations and increasing revenues by 9 percent, reports GeekWire. Their new waterfront campus opens in Seattle in October.

More richies who couldn’t pay a head tax: Starbucks “served an extra frothy third quarter,” reports the Seattle Times. The company, which notoriously joined Amazon and Vulcan to fight the mythical head tax earlier this year, beat Wall Street expectations and reported revenue of $6.8 billion. That’s up 8% from the previous year’s April-June period. But yes, that head tax would’ve been just terrible for these employers……..

Amazon is also up 20% compared to last year’s second quarter: But Seattle Times tweeted how they “fall short of expectations,” but I think the expectations are the problem. GeekWire notes that “Amazon posted $63.4 billion in revenue, up 20 percent from the year-ago quarter. Analysts expected $62.5 billion.” In terms of profit: “Amazon reported earnings per share of $5.22, missing expectations of $5.57, but up from $5.07 last year.”

Anyhow, let’s transition to Sesame Street: It’s coming to Seattle this week. That’s the blurb.

A Senate Intelligence Report confirms “extensive” Russian election interference: The bipartisan report, issued a day after Mueller warned the Russians are currently working to interfere with our 2020 election, found that our nation’s election infrastructure is unprepared to deal with the “extensive activity” by Russia.

Despite warnings, Republican-controlled Senate blocks a series of election security bills today: Two of them. McConnell justified the blocks by saying Democrats are trying to give themselves a “political benefit.” Election security is, apparently, partisan.

More Democrats are coming out in favor of an impeachment inquiry: Five Democrats have come out in favor of impeachment proceedings after yesterday’s wonky Mueller testimony. The number of pro-impeachment Democrats continues to grow, although Nancy shows no sign of budging.

Trump gave a speech in front of a hoax presidential seal: The seal featured an eagle holding golf clubs. Trump didn’t notice.

Okay, these next blurbs are from Jasmyne Keimig: Did you know she used to throw shot put in high school?

Tbh, “infected heads” sounds like a pretty gnarly punk band name: Gizmodo reports that in 2013, the FBI launched an investigation into shady “body brokers” that sold donated bodies for research purposes. One of which was Arizona’s for-profit Biological Resource Center, which was shut down in 2014 after an FBI raid, but eyewitness testimony is being made public for the first time. Here’s a handy list of things found at the facility. Think twice before donating grandma’s body!

  • “infected heads,”
  • “a bucket of heads, arms, and legs,”
  • “a cooler ‘filled’ with male genitals,”
  • “a macabre wall hanging of a woman’s head sewn onto a man’s torso ‘in a Frankenstein manner,’”
  • “1,755 human body parts, filling 142 body bags weighing 10 tons.”

    • A shuttle-bus crash near Sea-Tac Airport kills one, leaves seven injured: This afternoon, a car traveling on International Boulevard went across the meridian and crashed into a Marriott shuttle bus heading in the opposite direction, causing the shuttle to flip and land on its side. The incident killed one person and injured seven, six of whom were taken to the hospital. No further information about the deceased person has been released.

    I don’t believe in the prison system, but A$AP Rocky is corny: New York rapper A$AP Rocky has been in Swedish custody since July 3, after being arrested for his involvement in a violent confrontation in Stockholm on June 30. The rapper—born Rakim Mayers—has maintained his innocence, saying that he was defending himself after being assaulted. Today, Swedish authorities have charged him assault, keeping Mayers in custody until his trial begins next Tuesday.

    The President of the United States has taken to Twitter to come to the rapper defense tweeting:

    Today in Black History…: Today would have been Emmett Till’s 78th birthday. In 1955, the 14-year-old Till was murdered by two white men after being accused of whistling at a white woman, Carolyn Donham, who worked at a grocery store. The men—Bryant’s husband Roy and his half-brother J.W. Milam—abducted Till, brutally beat him, shot him, and dumped his body in a river. Till’s mother, Mamie Till Bradley, was devastated by her son’s murder, holding an open casket funeral for the world to see Till’s mutilated, bloated body which was retrieved from the river. The move was an indictment of white supremacy and the system that let Till’s murderers go free. His death is largely seen as the catalyst of the Civil Rights Movement. It should be noted that his accuser, Carolyn Donham, was alive as of last year.

    These next few are from Rich: Did you know Rich secretly loves turn-based RPGs? Well, he does. It’s exciting to out a straight man!

    The Nates debate: The Upshot’s Nate Cohn and 538’s Nate Silver started a debate about a new poll on Trump’s approval rating in Ohio that turned into a larger argument about the validity of Cohn’s terrifying 2020 analysis, which shows the electoral college working in Trump’s favor. The debate starts here:


    Dave Wasserman, another elections analyst, weighs in here with the diplomatic answer:

    And here’s the link to Cohn’s original piece: HERE.

    A very important final blurb from Lester Black: Lester really does smoke as much pot as you think he does. SEE YOU MONDAY, ~ Chase (Actually, I’ll have a post out tomorrow afternoon, but I’m technically on a “day off.”)

    Tim Eyman can’t go back to Office Depot: Anti-tax asshat Tim Eyman has escaped criminal theft charges by agreeing to not return to a Lacey Office Depot for nine months. Eyman was charged with theft in February after a video showed him rolling the chair out of the store (after sitting down and spinning in it three times) without paying for it. A store employee told police that Eyman, who filed for bankruptcy this year, was acting sketchy the entire time. Eyman’s theft charge will be dismissed if Eyman doesn’t commit any crimes and stays away from the store for nine months, according to a court filing Thursday.

    Rich Smith is The Stranger's former News Editor. He writes about politics, books, and performance. You can read his poems at www.richsmithpoetry.com

    Jas Keimig is a former staff writer at The Stranger, where they covered visual art, film, stickers, and culture.

    Lester Black is a former staff writer for The Stranger, where he wrote about Seattle news, cannabis, and beer. He is sometimes sober.

    Chase Burns is The Stranger's former editor. He's covered everything from gay luchadores to chemical weapons to Isabella Rossellini's favorite pets.