A Small Fascist Rally on a Kirkland Overpass: A couple dozen Patriot Front white supremacists waved their idiot signs on a 405 overpass on Saturday in another brilliant victory for the white race. You might remember these particular clowns from their Coeur d’Alene circus in 2022 when 31 of them were arrested for conspiracy to riot outside a local Pride event as soon as they exited the back of a rented U-Haul. The group also marched around the America250 celebration in DC over the Fourth of July, which was really on brand for the event.
It’s Low Tide Again: According to my chart, this morning is the lowest Seattle tides will be during daylight hours for the rest of the year. Puget Sound should bottom out around 11:20 a.m., so depending on when you’re reading this—there’s still time. Considering how toasty it’s going to be today, calling out sick and walking a kilometer out onto the seafloor off Discovery Park is warranted.
ICE Kills Again in Maine: ICE agents shot 26-year-old Joan Sebastian Guerrero to death in Portland, Maine yesterday morning as he attempted to drive away from officers while they were looking for someone else. It’s a developing story, and you can follow developments closely via reporting by the Portland Press Herald.
Indian Gangsters Arrested in Plot to Assassinate Sikh Separatist Leaders: Police in the US and Canada rounded up dozens of members of the Bhagwanpuria syndicate connected to the assassination of a prominent Sikh independence leader in Canada. The gang is tied to Indian intelligence, which under the leadership of the country’s ruling Hindu supremacist BJP party has for years targeted Sikh independence campaigners in the Western diaspora, particularly in California’s Central Valley.
States Sue to Block Merger of Trump-aligned CBS with CNN: We’re specifically talking about their parent companies, Paramount Skydance, owned by the son of tech oligarch and Trump ally Larry Ellison, and Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns media properties from HBO to Turner Broadcasting. The lawsuit, filed by a whole bunch of states (including us) filling the gap where federal antitrust enforcement should be, argues classic consumer advocate anti-monopoly stuff: the merger would decrease competition in the sector, and make the companies’ TV products fewer, worse, and more expensive for consumers.
The Iran War is Back on, and Expanding into Yemen Again: Trying to keep track of when the US is officially at war with Yemen rather than simply “blockading” the country can be tough. The first big blockade starved hundreds of thousands of people across the Obama and first Trump administrations, but the Saudi ground invasion failed and they sued for peace after the Yemenis targeted Aramco oil facilities with drone attacks (a vision of the world to come). When the Yemenis started firing missiles into Israel in opposition to the Gaza genocide, the Israelis assassinated the country’s ruling government, which did not stop Yemeni missile forces from driving off a US Navy assault. The Yemen front was quiet for the first round of fighting over the Strait of Hormuz, but now it’s heating up. Why does this matter? Yemen’s position on the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait means they can effectively block the Suez Canal if they put their minds to it, as the Egyptians did between 1967 and 1975 in response to Israeli aggression.
Trump Purchased Millions in Stock of Seattle’s Surveillance Camera Provider: This news from CNBC is stale by a couple weeks, but worth revisiting due to recent developments. Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson reneged on her campaign trail pledge not to expand Seattle’s police surveillance camera network when she temporarily activated cameras in SODO for the World Cup in response to alleged threats she never bothered to explain. With the World Cup over in Seattle, Wilson has since turned them off, but is keeping them in place, meaning they can be turned on again. Wilson says what the city does next will be determined by a study researching whether the feds can access the footage, which worries immigrants rights groups in particular. The cameras are made by weapons manufacturer Axon, and the president buying into the company should raise serious concerns about how secure from snooping Seattle’s surveillance cameras are.
Congressman Kidnapped by Israel Settler Militia Says No to Arms Embargo: US Rep Ro Khanna was kidnapped by an Israeli settler militia in the occupied West Bank last week during a fact-finding mission. Then he was detained by the Israeli military and released. Despite this, Khanna said in a recent interview that placing an arms embargo on Israel and sanctioning the country (a growing movement in Congress) would go “too far.”
Trump DOJ investigating UAW President Shawn Fain: The United Auto Workers leader said in a statement he’s been falsely targeted with a grand jury investigation into alleged abuse of authority after a challenger in the upcoming union leadership lied to the federal government. Fain says the federally-appointed monitor of the UAW holds a political grudge against him “because the UAW took an anti-war stance against what was happening in Gaza.” Details at Detroit Free Press.
XBOX CEO Who Just Laid off Thousands Tapped to Lead Federal Reserve Task Force on Jobs: The headline says everything here but the specifics are at PC Gamer if you want to watch the knife twist. Why did XBOX collapse anyways? According to Bloomberg, they burned cash buying game development studios in the hope they’d made console exclusives that would fuel demand for Xbox’s subscription streaming service. Instead, subscriptions fell, and now thousands of people are out of work.
What if Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey Was Cheaper, Hornier, Sovieter, and Made by Hallmark: The costumers are enough to put me off of Christopher Nolan’s new adaptation, which is a shame because his production design is usually pretty good. Apparently his Polyphemus is a big puppet, which is good. The film version of The Odyssey that I am for some reason familiar with is the adaptation by Andrei Konchalovsky, a big Soviet director overshadowed by Andrei Tarkovsky who had some rough years in the ’90s when the USSR collapsed. His Polyphemus was a mask made by Jim Henson’s people strapped to a sumo wrestler. No one is exactly fighting over the rights to this one, so you can watch the entire thing for free.
