Weather: Commenters have noticed I like whining about the rain. I’m sorry, but I can’t change for you people. I am who I am. So I’m a little bummed about the showers and thunderstorms rolling in around 5 p.m. on the summer solstice. Expect rain on and off through the weekend.
Seattle Police Negotiating With Barricaded Suspect: Police say when they responded to the call of domestic violence at a home in Washington Park this morning, they found a woman shot in the front yard. When they tried to take her from the scene to a hospital, a man fired from inside the house. Officers shot back, say police, who have closed off Madison Street between 32nd and 33rd Avenue. This is a developing story.
My Favorite Cocktail: Mary Ann Bliesner, 83, of Sunnyside was sentenced to three years probation and she and her former company, Vally Processing, ordered to pay a judgement of more than $742,000 for selling some seriously rank grape juice. In 2018, a Food and Drug Administration investigation of her facilities found visible mold, animal pee, animal poop, and rotting animal corpses in juice products. One inspector photographed a juice tank with a moldy crust so thick a rat was walking on top. The company admitted to blending the old juice and concentrate it stored outside for years with fresh stuff and selling that tainted product. It went to school lunch programs and elsewhere around the world for almost five years.
Don’t Try This: Investigators believe a 42-year-old man in Oak Harbor was killed by his own homemade fireworks on Tuesday. According to The Seattle Times, Mark Fakkema had been dismantling commercial fireworks in his kitchen to make his own in a workshop next to his parent’s. Fakkema didn’t have a license to do this. The explosion that killed him and reduced his shop to smoking ruins only took 1.5 to 2 pounds of pyrotechnics. He had 25 more pounds of “illegal explosives” at his house.
ICE’s New Rules For Congresspeople: Immigration and Customs Enforcement wants 72 hours notice before they visit ICE facilities. Under federal law, members of Congress can drop in for a site visit whenever they want to. Nevertheless ICE persisted. It’s already turned away Democrats from field offices in California, Illinois, and New York. Sen. Chuck Schumer accused Trump of a “fear of accountability” and says that Dems will keep showing up “whatever Secretary Noem and her lackeys scribble on a piece of paper.” Strong language. For sure. Works every time.
Dodgin’ ‘Em: Federal immigration agents wanted access to the parking lot outside Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles Thursday. The Dodgers said no. The team said the agents were with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but ICE denied being there. Sources familiar with the matter told NBC News the federal agents arrived with detainees in their vehicles, who they processed just outside the parking lot. Homeland Security said the agents were riding in Customs and Border Protection vehicles, but that the “incident” had “nothing to do with the Dodgers.”
Appeals Court Rules that Trump Still Controls the National Guard in LA: The decision halts a lower court ruling that found Trump broke the law when he activated the guard against the wishes of California Governor Gavin Newsom. According to the AP, this could have unspecified “wider implications” for the President’s power to deploy soldiers within the US. Not good.
He’s Trying to Find the Guy Who Wanted This: President Donald Trump seethed about Juneteenth on Truth Social yesterday. “Too many non-working holidays in America. It is costing our [sic] Country $BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to keep all these businesses closed. The workers don’t want it either!” Totally, man. Cool cool cool. So in 2020, Trump promised to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. He also honored the holiday all four years of his first term and bragged about that. In addition to being an authoritarian threat to our democracy, Trump is such a fucking dick who is really showing off his commitment to racism here.
Seattle Celebrated: People gathered in Seward Park, at the Northwest African American Museum’s annual “Juneteenth Skate to Freedom Party” in Judkins Park, and the Africatown Community Land Trust’s annual Summer of Soul celebration at Jimi Hendrix Park, and elsewhere. Our own Marcus Harrison Green talked to KUOW about the celebrations and the cultural significance of the holiday. Juneteenth celebrates the end of chattel slavery in the US and marks the day in 1865 that enslaved people in Galveston, Texas learned they were free, more than two years after Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
The Big Think: President Donald Trump says he’s going to mull over this whole war with Iran thing for a minute, but we can expect him to decide whether we will fight with Israel sometime in the next two weeks.
