Good morning! Let’s start with the weather. Our little taste of Spring isn’t completely gone. It’s gonna be cloudy but mild today. Highs are still in the low 50s, and the low is only 42. Get outside before winter tries to come back for a month or three.
Oscar Night: Conan O’Brien hosted with the Pretty Okay awkward charm we’ve come to expect, Cynthia Erivo narrowly missed an EGOT, Kieran Culkin publicly cornered his wife into making more babies, Zoe Saldaña apologized to the entire country of Mexico, and Hulu pissed off a few million people when it cut their live stream before Best Lead Actress and Best Picture were announced (oops).
Wins and Snubs: Paul Tazwell, who led the costuming for the Pacific Northwest Ballet’s recent production of The Sleeping Beauty, was the first Black man to win in the costuming category. Seattle had a couple horses in this race, and we got snubbed: Brandi Carlile, who was nominated for best original song for her work on Elton John’s documentary (she lost to a song from Emilia Pérez); and Julian Brave NoiseCat, whose documentary, Sugarcane, lost out to No Other Land, a film made by a coalition of Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers. NoiseCat was the first Indigenous person from North America ever nominated for an Academy Award for a documentary.
Go to the Movies: One of my favorite moments last night came during Sean Baker’s acceptance speech for best director. After a quick thank you, he gave an impassioned speech about saving the institution of the movie theater. “We are all here tonight because we love movies. Where did we fall in love with movies? At the movie theater,” said Baker. He reminded the audience that we lost a thousand screens during the pandemic, and with the focus on streaming over theatrical releases, we could lose more. “In a time in which our world can feel very divided, this is more important than ever: It’s a communal experience you simply don’t get at home.”
Okay let’s do the Trump stuff now.
Cuts to NWS: Did you like that little weather update earlier? Enjoy them while you’ve got them. The Trump administration announced mass terminations in the National Weather Service last week. According to the Washington Post, the terminations included “meteorologists, hydrologists and technicians that help inform daily weather forecasts in places including Boston and Boise, Idaho.” They also fired scientists who build and maintain forecasting models, staff responsible for warning the public about tsunamis, tornadoes and hurricanes — and an entire team dedicated to communicating NOAA’s work and science to the public.
Trump Hates Orcas: One of the cuts from NOAA was Hanna Miller, whose job was to protect whales from oil spills, ships, and fishing gear.
We’re Tired of Saying “Unprecedented” But: During a press conference in the Oval Office, Trump and Vance attacked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, calling him ungrateful, and painting him as a barrier to a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. Biden called it “sickening” and “deeply disturbing.” It’s hard to watch.
If you can’t get through it, here’s SNL’s take on it instead.
I Am the Law: In a whole separate striking exchange, Trump threatened Maine’s governor to her far, saying he would pull federal funding from the state if they continued to support trans student athletes, “I’m complying with state and federal laws,” Governor Janet Mills said. “We are the federal law,” Trump replied.
No Hablo Iñgles: In proper White Nationalist form, Trump made English the United States’ official language this weekend.
Quantifying It: According to a leaked memo obtained by the NYT, the suffering caused by the Trump admin’s decision to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development can be broken down by the numbers. By USAID’s estimates: up to 18 million additional cases of malaria per year, 200,000 children paralyzed with polio annually, one million children per year not treated for severe acute malnutrition, which is often fatal, and more than 28,000 new cases of infectious diseases like Ebola every year.
The Tale of the 100 Lawsuits: As of this weekend, the Trump administration has 100 active lawsuits against it. According to the New York Times, in 21 of those cases, judges have issued temporary restraining orders or preliminary injunctions, effectively halting (or at least slowing) Trump 2.0’s agenda. But in response, the Trump admin is dragging its feet, looking for loopholes, and generally doing its damnedest to ignore judicial authority. “At this point, the argument appears to be shifting toward a debate over whether the judges — not the president — are pushing the limits of their authority,” wrote the NYT.
IRS Standing Strong: The Department of Homeland Security is pushing the IRS to turn over the addresses of some 700,000 undocumented immigrants that they’re trying to deport, according to NYT. Many undocumented immigrants still file tax returns, and because they don’t have a social security number, the IRS gives them a special classification. So far, the IRS has refused to turn over the addresses, which would likely violate tax payer privacy laws. The IRS being part of the resistance wasn’t on my bingo card, and I’m here for it.
A Little Shake: We had a little quake early this morning, about six miles east of Orcas Island. It triggered a Shake Alert around the islands, but no damage has been reported yet. Just a little love tap from one of the faults.
Concrete Mama: Unincarcerated Productions launched Washington’s first podcast out of a state prison today. Called “Concrete Mama,” the podcast’s eight-episode season will explore current life in Washington State Penitentiary, and stories from the prison’s nearly 140-year history. You can listen to the first episode today.
Tumwater Acquiesces: On Friday, the Tumwater School Board voted 3-1 to ban transgender girls from sports, kicking off protests that forced them to shut down the meeting early. The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association currently allows athletes to participate on the team that aligns with their gender. But in April, the WIAA will vote on two cruel and unreasonable proposals: The first would ban transgender girls from participating in girls sports, creating an “open” division instead. The other would create three separate divisions for boys, girls and transgender athletes (they clearly haven’t tried to count how many trans athletes are in Washington state).
Ramadan in Gaza: Ramadan started this weekend, and Palestinians in Gaza celebrated amidst the rubble of their homes. The images are striking. Take a look here.
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“Ramadan started this weekend, and Palestinians in Gaza celebrated amidst the rubble of their homes.”
Ya Hamas, on this Ramadan mubarak, don’t you think it is time to release the hostages? Not all Gazawiyn seek shahadat fisabilillah! 😉
‘Trump threatened
Maine’s governor
to her far… ‘
ouch.
Apparently “Reagan,” the biopic of President Ronald Reagan starring Dennis Quaid, did not receive any Oscar consideration because it did not meet the Academy’s ridiculously strict DEI standards.
What other films didn’t make it? This is a real problem.
@3: Alternate explanation: “Reagan” was bad, and no one watched it, so it didn’t get considered for an award.
Did you hear the applause for Sebastian Stan when a clip of his performance in The Apprentice was shown? Neither did I.
‘Trump made English
the United States’
official language
this weekend.’
‘english’?
wtf? we speak
American here.
fawking Traitors
‘Ramadan in Gaza:
Ramadan started this weekend,
and Palestinians in Gaza celebrated amidst
the rubble of their homes. The images are striking.’
but Entirely
‘just’ according to
our resident AIPACers
who’ve Never seen a Land-
Grab they Ever disagreed with.
@4: Of course, there’s always that plausible deniability, that’s at the root of the insidiousness of DEI.
@4: Wait, do you think The Apprentice was a pro-Trump film? lol
Which part do you find insidious – diversity, equity, or inclusion?
@7: I don’t but it also didn’t get much applause, because fuck Trump.
Conservatives never shut up about how much they hate Hollywood but also never stop whining because the industry refuses to acknowledge they exist.
bro reagan is chilling at a 6.2 on imdb. i know this blows your mind, but not everyone shares your opinion
‘White Men Rule.’
Patriarchy 101
stockholm
syndrome
for Every-
one else
get Used
to it, losers.
Snubbed!
@1 What about the1000’s of hostages held and abused in Israeli prisons without trials or charges, when are they released?
@14: at multiple times during the 2 ceasefires, at a 300:1 ratio, including in exchange for corpses?
I can’t recall ever being more proud of a President than watching Trump tell Zelensky to pound sand. If Ukraine wants security guarantees they can sign the damn mineral agreement. Or go beg Europe.
OK, making English the official language of the United States made me pretty proud too!
Malaria, polio and malnutrition, oh my. I guess those foreign countries should beef up their public health systems. As for the US, we are broke and don’t have any more money to save the world. Sorry!
The IRS has had address information for deportable immigrants and we are just finding this out now? Get on em ICE! Easy pickings!
Good on Tumwater and the WIAA for following the science. Not cruel, but rather good public policy that is supported by the overwhelming majority of the citizens.
@14: Fortunately there are no hostages in Israel, so you needn’t worry on that account! 😂
Convicts in Israel will be released when their criminal sentences end. Pre-trial defendants in Israel will be released when they are acquitted at trial, or when their charges are dropped, or when their criminal sentences end. Security detainees in Israel will be released when a judge determines they no longer intend participate in imminent hostilities.
Now … don’t you think it’s time to release the hostages in Gaza? After all, the hostages in Gaza are not convicts, criminal defendants, or imminent participants in hostilities. 😉 So it’s not right to hold them, wouldn’t you say? 😉
@10:
TBF, “Reagan” HAS won a couple of awards, taking Worst Picture from the Internet Film Critics Society and a Razzie to Jon Voight for Worst Supporting Actor (it was also nominated for Razzies in four other categories: Worst Picture, Worst Lead Actor, Worst Supporting Actor, Worst Screenplay, and Worst Screen Combo.) Also, it lost a boat-load of money, barely scraping up enough to cover only its initial production cost of $25 mm. (As a general rule of thumb a movie has to earn back about 2.5 times its production budget to break even, because of post-production costs such as marketing and distribution.) And just to throw a little more salt onto the wound, it has a whopping 18% Rotten Tomatoes score and a 22% rating on Metacritic.
Furthermore, if one actually peruses the AMPA&S requirements, they’re really not terribly difficult to meet: https://www.oscars.org/awards/representation-and-inclusion-standards
The fact that the producers of “Reagan” couldn’t even meet these relatively minimal standards, says more about them, than it does about the Academy. I mean, if a film like “Conclave” which had only a single noteworthy female role and a couple of POC supporting roles could make the cut, then clearly someone is just terribly, terribly butt-hurt their shitty movie was rightfully ignored from consideration.
So, @4’s pronouncement is essentially correct; it was a terrible film that almost no one has actually watched, and @3 is, per usual, simply parroting Right Wing crybaby caterwauling that has absolutely nothing to do with why it wasn’t nominated.
Addendum to @11:
Bro, IMDB ratings are notoriously weighted towards user reviews, and the only reason “Reagan” has that high of a score is due to a clear case of “ballot stuffing”, as evinced by the proportionally large number of both 10 (32% of total audience ratings) and 1 star (17%) ratings. Personally, I would never use an IMDB score as a basis for whether to see a film, because it’s simply not a reliable or accurate assessment of a movie’s quality.
@15 I am well aware of it but @1 apparently doesn’t
@17 How would you know that Palestinians held arbitrarily and secretly (including children) are “convicts, criminal defendants, or imminent participants in hostilities”? Your little finger told you so?
UN report: Palestinian detainees held arbitrarily and secretly, subjected to torture and mistreatment
31 July 2024
GENEVA – The UN Human Rights Office today published a report on arbitrary, prolonged and incommunicado detention by Israeli authorities, affecting thousands of Palestinians since last October. The report also covers allegations of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, including sexual abuse of women and men.
Since 7 October, thousands of Palestinians – including medical staff, patients and residents fleeing the conflict, as well as captured fighters – have been taken from Gaza to Israel, usually shackled and blindfolded. Thousands more have been detained in the West Bank and Israel. They have generally been held in secret, without being given a reason for their detention, access to a lawyer or effective judicial review, the report states.
At least 53 Palestinian detainees are known to have died in Israeli military facilities and prisons since the horrific attacks by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups against Israeli civilians on 7 October.
The staggering number of men, women, children, doctors, journalists and human rights defenders detained since 7 October, most of them without charge or trial and held in deplorable conditions, along with reports of ill-treatment and torture and violation of due process guarantees, raises serious concerns regarding the arbitrariness and the fundamentally punitive nature of such arrests and detention, said UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk. [..]
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/07/un-report-palestinian-detainees-held-arbitrarily-and-secretly-subjected
We are The King
WereBackBaby
SoonGoneAgain
@19: One of the many risks a civilian runs in loitering on the battlefield is the risk of being swept up by the enemy army. In due time, the non-combatant detainees will get sorted from the combatants and the non-combatants will be released, as has already happened in thousands upon thousands of cases. 😄
Unfortunately for all these innocent non-combatants, Gaza’s own elected government, Hamas, has chosen to establish a battlefield in the very same buildings where people live, work, go to school, and obtain medical care. If you, like me, are unhappy about non-combatants being detained or even killed in the course of the war, then I hope you will join me in calling on Hamas not to fight a war within these precious civilian areas! 😄
Now, I don’t think I quite caught your answer earlier … don’t you think it’s time to release the hostages in Gaza? After all, the hostages in Gaza are not convicts, criminal defendants, or imminent participants in hostilities. 😉 So it’s not right to hold them, wouldn’t you say? 😉
@18: Interesting. I didn’t see it. Too bad it’s inherently bad.
@8: I don’t think that art and checklists pair well.
Donald Trump confronting a nuclear armed power when NOT an asset of said power,
“Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”
Donald Trump confronting a nuclear armed power when AS an asset of said power,
Last Friday.
thekossack @24, meanwhile Pete Hegseth has ordered the Pentagon to suspend all offensive cyber operations against Russia. And punishing new tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada are set to go into effect at midnight Eastern Time. And when I say punishing, I mean punishing on US. The only way to make sense of what Trump is doing is that he is taking his marching orders from Putin.
Trump makes his speech tomorrow before our invalid and incapacitated Congress, which we might as well start calling the Duma.
@16 You’re proud of the rest of the western alliance including the King no less having to visibly rally around Zelenskyy in a major show of western unity chastising the U.S. President? You’re proud of the fracturing of the 80 year old western alliance and U.S. hegemony? You’re proud that we’re ending all cyber operations against Russia (which were stepped up after they hijacked a major oil pipeline) while simultaneously imposing tariffs on CANADA of all f’ing places? You’re proud of Vladimir Putin saying publicly that U.S. foreign policy now mostly aligns with Russia’s goals? Zelenskyy refused multiple evacuation offers knowing the Russian invasion was a government decapitation op with orders to kill him on site, and you’re proud seeing a man like that getting a finger pointed in his face by a chump like JD Vance who can’t even stick up for his own wife and kids?
@26 – yup, proud. America works for Americans now. The rest of the world can solve their own problems.
brilliant
backbaby:
weakening
the USofA &
inviting the rest
of the Planet to come
in & share the Spoils (that’s
WE, the People)’s always Been
the reichwing’s Goal. it’s Nice to know
who our
Friends
are.
@26: do not engage.
@ Isolationism has significantly failed as U.S. foreign policy at least three times, and that was before globalization, there’s no scenario where repeating it doesn’t make Americans less safe, less healthy, and more economically stunted. The only people who are truly proud about any of this are fully lost cultists or those who work for the Internet Research Agency.
Max @29 is right. DFTT.
There are a couple things I like about the way The Seattle Times does their comment threads.
First, they’re really assiduous and aggressive about enforcing their code of conduct, and they’ll sweep away entire subthreads.
But also, they actually have Like buttons (what they call Respect buttons) on their comments. So what you’ll see is that, while the pro-Russia trolls just relentlessly bombard the Times comment threads the way the Russians bombard the civilian population of Kyiv, what you’ll find is that their comments are profoundly unpopular.
Since we don’t have a Like button here, the trolls are amplified that much more when we feed them.
@30 – you forgot about the 77.3 million Americans who joined me in voting for Trump. We can’t all be cultists or work for your shitty little internet outfit.
Also, my views on foreign policy are taken directly from Washington’s farewell address. But hey, maybe you know someone with similar gravitas that shares your opinion. For now I feel like I’m in good company.
Definition, Troll: “What you call a person when you haven’t the moral or intellectual ability to engage in thoughtful argument.”
everyone commenting on slog is a troll.
all of us.
so please stop acting superior.
none of our comments make any difference.
it is all ephemeral.
Why would there be a cap on how many people can be cultists? Millions of Americans have already demonstrated they would follow this guy off a cliff, and millions more were dumb enough to think a serial liar with no loyalty to anyone but himself was going to honor his promises to them. Some people are stupid, others are desperate, many are both.
@34. Don’t be so hard on yourself.
@32 If they re-held the election today, Harris would win by a landslide. I’ll be surprised if Trump survives to the mid-terms the way he is going.
@32: “or work for your shitty little internet outfit”
Uh-oh, your happy warrior mask is slipping! 😉
I know accuracy in journalism isn’t as big a deal anymore as generating outrage but Tumwater did not vote to ban trans athletes. Individual school districts can not just create their own rules and do whatever they want. They are bound by the WIAA. What the board voted for was to endorse the proposed amendments that the WIAA will vote on later this year. However that vote goes, Tumwater will be forced to abide by the decision like every other school district in the state.
Pheebs, did you recently that the egg shortage is only happening because of DEI?
You forgot Deftones and The Mars Volta at Climate Pledge Arena.
@32, Ah, yes, sharing foreign policy views with a man whose been dead for over 225 years, never knew that bacteria or dinosaurs existed, and died with slave and walrus teeth in his mouth, is certainly a well-rounded and comprehensive view to take today in an age when man can split the atom and lives in a globalized economy. I’m sure Washington would have a lot of foreign policy hot takes today after he got used to all the little witches living in the magic talking light box on the wall.
Phoebe is almost right about one thing, Reagan acted really well when denying plausibly and thereby inventing the term ‘plausible deniability’.
Naturally, being senile made it much easier.
@36
How’s your wife? Still being TERRORIZED by the big bad DOGE. Or were your histrionics just trolling? Eh, Tough Guy?
@22 “loitering on the battlefield”
Justifications for genocide of an imprisoned population aren’t funny
@45: Israel set up large humanitarian zones for the civilians of Gaza. The humanitarian zones remained free of combat … at least until Hamas fighters and senior leadership infiltrated the humanitarian zones.
I wish Hamas had imitated Israel in setting up humanitarian zones for its own people. It would have saved tens of thousands of lives. Why do you think they didn’t? 😉
@46 regurgitating Israeli propaganda doesn’t make you look especially credible
@47: I just wish Hamas worked as hard to protect Palestinian civilians as Israel does. 😔