08/07/23

Good morning! It’s Monday, August 7th.

Civic holiday! Hey, this is great because you know what? I actually love civics. Very into it. It’s like… it’s sort of my thing.

Hey, have you checked out wearevoters.org yet?

Hey, have you checked out raisingvoters.org? It’s a part of We Are Voters, and it’s still being built so right now all you can do is sign up to find out when it’s ready, but it’ll be ready this month and I’m very excited about it.

Okay! Shameless plug done!

And now, the news.

World Cupdate

-via Google

Let’s just get this part out of the way… in penalty kicks, the United States has been knocked out of the World Cup. We underperformed in the beginning of the tournament and frankly never should have even been playing Sweden because we should have had a better spot in 1st knockout round. But we did, and by the time we faced Sweden, we were playing really well.

I don’t even want to talk about it, but just… I cried. Okay? There, I cried! I never cry! It’s like… it’s my thing. Emotionally unhealthy.

Anyway, I am currently scouting a new team to follow through the rest of the cup. Australia and Japan are in the lead, but I’m open to other suggestions.

Ugh…

I can’t talk about this anymore.

Barbie World

-via AP News

Let’s talk about something to make me feel better. To make me feel… something. Something akin to joy. (I’m actually okay, just very tired. The game was at 2am!)

Barbie director Greta Gerwig has broken broken Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins’ record for global ticket sales.

Because even though the alt, I mean, far right is having a meltdown at the idea that women exist as real life human beings and don’t think anyone should watch Barbie… the movie is set to pass $1 billion in ticket sales in just three weeks.

Three movies co-directed by women are still ahead of Barbie: Frozen at $1.3 billion, Frozen 2 at $1.45 billion, both of which were co-directed by Jennifer Lee, Anna Boden’s co-directed Captain Marvel with $1.1 billion.

A very nerdy piece of nuance is that Captain Marvel is live action, and because Barbie passed that, Gerwig has the North American record for live-action movies directed by women.

I look forward to a bunch of long-form think pieces about how amazing these numbers are, while we continue to wait for female directors to be hired at the same rate that unqualified men are.

Rankin County, Mississippi

-via CNN

Multiple police officers have been fired after two Black men filed a federal civil rights lawsuit that alleges six white deputies entered their private residence illegally and tortured them for nearly two hours.

And let me tell you… there’s a link in show notes but I want you to hear the word torture, think about what that means, and know that is a gentle description of what happened when six officers use force to enter their home without a warrant or “reasonable suspicion or probable cause.”

The officers turned their body cameras off, handcuffed and tortured the men, while hurling racial slurs at them and accusing them of dating white women.

I am not going to list the absolutely horrific things these officers did, because I don’t want to retraumatize anyone, but again – there’s a link in show notes and it’s just… terrible.

Disgustingly, these six officers called themselves the Goon Squad, a name they chose, per a federal charging document, to show their “willingness to use excessive force and not to report it.”

Absolutely disgusting.

Conservative Groups Suing to Block Student Debt Relief

-via AP News

And in “dude, read the room. People want this. People want you to help people. This would help people. Go focus on other things and leave this thing alone” news…

Two conservative groups are suing the Biden administration to block the president’s plan to cancel $39 billion in student debt for more than 800,000 borrowers.

Ugh. These people are the worst!

Pakistan Trail Derailment

-via NY Times

A train in Pakistan, carrying at least 950 passengers, derailed on Sunday, killing at least 30 people and injuring at least 60 others.

The cause of the derailment could not immediately be determined, but derailments are happening with increased frequency in Pakistan, as they deal with crumbling tracks and deteriorating cars (they call them carriages, which I like more actually).

Trump Crime Update Time

-via NPR

Oh hey, real quick, before I forget…

Trump Crime Update Time

Hey, remember last week when I said, during Trump’s arraignment, that the judge warned him that he couldn’t do more crimes during this pre-trial time or else he’d be in big trouble mister? And I said he does crimes like I talk about Kelly Clarkson’s new album… often?

And we were all like – what a fun way for Kim to incorporate Kelly Clarkson’s new album into the show again!

Well, it turns out… he does, in fact, do crimes like I talk about Kelly Clarkson’s new album!

Because on Friday, literally after the judge said threatening people did count as crimes and he nodded yes… Trump did that exact crime! He Truthed (lol… what a ridiculous social media network name)… in all caps – “If you come after me, I’m coming after you.”

Which is a threat. You dinkus.

The Department of Justice then asked, on Friday, for a protective order, which the Trump team responded with “would be cool if you didn’t.” Actually they just asked for more time to respond.

A protective order, in the case, means that even though prosecutors are supposed to turn over evidence, or discovery, to the defense team, the protective order would only let Trump and his team talk about things like witness interviews, to a select group of people approved by the court.

The Trump team’s request for more time was denied, and he now has until today at 5p to respond so… we’ll be talking about that tomorrow!

And that’s it. That’s the news.

I’m proud of… Team USA. They played great on Sunday and I’m very proud of them. All of them. No one player over the other, but I do want to call out Sophia Smith (lol what if she listened? She doesn’t. But what if…) because she was great and worked hard and ran so so fast like, the whole time, and her crying really killed me at the end. Ya did great kid!

Also civics. Voting just in general.

But more than… um… more than a lot of things! (What do you want me to say? More than voting or the future of the women’s national team who cried like ten hours before I wrote this??)… more than almost anything else though, because you are also incredible… I’m proud of you.