Programming note: I’m filling in for your usual Slog PM correspondent Chase Burns, who is currently occupied with Candidate Survivor, a political pageant and talent show tonight at Neumos, MC'd by a drag queen. Based on the "talents" the city council candidates have told us they will be performing, you do not want to miss it. Doors open at 6 p.m., and it will likely reach capacity, so if you want to make sure you get to see [REDACTED] throw [REDACTED] at [REDACTED], show up early. Now, the news....
Jay Inslee isn’t dead. Yet. Hot grandpa and presidential hopeful Jay Inslee released his latest plan to save the world on Wednesday. Called "Growing Rural Prosperity" (catchy), this plan would, among other things, triple the budget for the Conservation Stewardship Program, a federal program that essentially pays farmers to be better stewards of the earth. It's a good idea—agriculture is very, very bad for the planet—and I look forward to it being implemented when President Elizabeth Warren names Inslee as head of the EPA.
The trans woman who allegedly hacked Capital One is being housed in a men's prison. Public defenders for Paige Thomson—the Beacon Hill hacker (and former Amazon employee) who is accused of stealing the personal information of more than 100 million Capital One customers—are asking a judge to release their client from the Federal Detention Center in SeaTac, claiming that housing Thompson with men is, according to the Associated Press, a "serious threat to her mental health." They have requested that Thompson be moved to a halfway house to await trial. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for Friday.
A Bremerton man was sentenced to 2.5 years for a hate crime. The Kitsap Sun reports that Robert Patrick Maykis, a 49-year-old resident of Bremerton, was convicted of second-degree assault and malicious harassment for a 2018 incident in which he threw rocks at a black man and called him racial slurs as the man was peeing outside Maykis's apartment. This is the second hate-crime charge in Kitsap County this year: In March, a different Bremerton man was charged with malicious harassment after yelling slurs at a black couple. Uhh, what is up with Bremerton?
Murder, that's what's up with Bremerton. Lee Miller, a 57-year-old Idaho man who recently pled guilty to the 1992 murder of Bremerton resident Marilyn Hickey, is to be sentenced on Wednesday. Miller, who pleaded guilty to a murder in Boise, managed to elude authorities for 27 years until detectives in Washington and Idaho worked together to connect the two cases. Police were able to peg Miller—who went on to raise a family and, according to KOMO, is about to become a grandfather—to the crimes by extracting DNA from a cigarette. Smoking! It'll get ya.
Speaking of smoking, the earth's lungs are on fire. Huge tracts of the Amazon are burning thanks to Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, who upon taking office immediately appointed a climate change denier to head the Ministry of the Environment. Bolsonaro, a proponent of ranching and logging, has endorsed deforesting the world's greatest rainforest (and then blamed the current fires on mystery NGOs). There have been almost 75,000 fires in the Amazon since January, an 84 percent increase from the year before. This isn't just bad for poison dart frogs who call the Amazon home—or the people choking on smoke thousands of miles away—it's bad for everyone else on this planet.
Trump did something dumb. Again. I was really hoping to get through this thing without mentioning President Donald Trump, but clearly that's not possible. Today, Trump humiliated himself and the nation when explaining why he abruptly canceled a planned meeting in Denmark after Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen declined to sell Greenland to him. The PM reportedly called the idea "absurd," which it is. Trump responded by calling her "nasty." He told reporters, “I thought it was a very not nice way of saying something. All they had to do is say, no, we’d rather not do that or we’d rather not talk about it.” Poor President Trumpflake can dish it out, but he sure as shit cannot take it.
He also accused American Jews of being disloyal. Again. Apparently Trump's plan to win the Jewish vote is to repeatedly insult them.
In more Jewish news, Lena Dunham's mom owns a Matisse. This is one of many semi-interesting details in Dunham's new essay for Domino, a magazine that is more glossy and less saucy than it sounds. For instance, did you know Dunham lived at home until she was 26? Or that she bought an apartment after her breakup with the guy from that band, never moved in, and then sold it at a loss? I mean, who hasn't? But still. Fascinating. Dunham's piece has lots of very tasteful photos and even a video of Lena at home, which I suppose makes it somewhat like Cribs: Overachieving Millennial Edition.
That's it for... what day is it again? Wednesday. I'll be back tomorrow. Until then, see you tonight at Candidate Survivor.
