Pierce County Sheriff takes the stand: Sheriff Ed Troyer took the stand yesterday in the ongoing criminal case against him for allegedly lying about whether the Black newspaper carrier he accosted on the job threatened him during their early morning confrontation. Somehow, he expects the jury to believe that he was scared enough by the newspaper carrier's alleged threats to call in a backup request that drew 40 cops to the scene, while also telling the cop who took his statement that he "wasn't worried about it" when asked about the threats. Good luck with that, bro.

Bye, Felicia: Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D - Goldman Sachs) announced today that she's now registered as an independent rather than a Democrat. She's not going to caucus with the GOP, which means Dems will still control the Senate majority—but this move does shield her from having to face a Democratic primary challenger in 2024. Honestly, we shouldn't be surprised that a grown woman who opted to spend the summer of 2020 as an intern at a California winery doesn't want to be associated with the party of working people. 

Let's not follow Eric Adams's lead: Esmy Jimenez reports in the Seattle Times that Washington's politicians aren't keen on adopting the recent policy from New York City's mayor, Eric Adams, which would let cops take people experiencing mental health crises to a state psychiatric facility for involuntary treatment. And that's a good thing, too, because we don't have anywhere close to the capacity of residential treatment beds or staff necessary to handle the influx of patients that such a policy would create. 

ICYMI: I wrote about the threats to a brewery hosting a monthly drag queen story hour, because we live in a society where the two defining trends of our time are increasingly dangerous political rhetoric and an unacceptable proliferation of guns.

They're playing my song! KUOW reports that lawyers representing tenants who believe landlords are using an algorithm to illegally jack up rents have filed three separate lawsuits about the issue. This story has everything: an 1890 antitrust law that was written so well it can apply to a 21st-century method of collusion, an accessible explanation of how class action litigation works, and, of course, the incomparable Heidi Groover's real estate reporting. Go listen to the whole thing.

Cops still in the dark on power station attacks: Law enforcement hasn't yet figured out who was behind a string of attacks on critical power plant infrastructure in the northwest, reports KUOW. While the FBI won't confirm whether they're investigating the incidents, officials from the region's utilities say they're beefing up security around their facilities in anticipation of more attempts to sabotage our power supply. Fun times we live in!

Haven't we seen this movie before? Just totally normal stuff coming out of Italy following their election of a far-right government. Not like this brings up any concerning historical parallels or anything.

Rep. Adam Smith, meet me in the next blurb: 

This is not why we endorsed you, Adam: Listen, we took a lot of shit for backing your latest reelection effort. The main reason we did, aside from your lefty challenger not raising anywhere close to enough money to mount a serious challenge, was that you were supposed to be able to flex your "relationships" and get good shit into the NDAA every year. So, um, what the fuck? How did we end up with no vaccine mandate and no SAFE Banking Act or help for pregnant workers in the bill?

In case you haven't noticed, the failure of the Democratic Party to codify Roe v. Wade in the *checks notes* sixteen years you've been in office means there are about to be quite a few more pregnant people in red states who need all the fucking help the feds can give them. If neither of those provisions make it into other must-pass bills before the GOP hobgoblins take control of the House in January, you're gonna have some 'splainin to do, Congressman.

The kids are REALLY not alright: The Washington Post reports that mental health crises have been sharply increasing among the country's high school students. Read this summary of the Center for Disease Control's latest data, then go hug your most closely related teen:

In other research, the CDC found nearly 45 percent of high school students were so persistently sad or hopeless in 2021 they were unable to engage in regular activities. Almost 1 in 5 seriously considered suicide, and 9 percent of the teenagers surveyed by the CDC tried to take their lives during the previous 12 months. A substantially larger percentage of gay, lesbian, bisexual, other and questioning students reported a suicide attempt.

Don't get distracted: As always, the performative incompetence from supervillain billionaire Elon Musk conceals a much more normal shitty rich guy behavior. Labor leaders who read the Slog: get in my DMs about how the government should be responding to this disgusting union busting.

Now do election denial: Not sure the method of voting in the elections your base wrongfully believes are rigged is really the problem here, Republicans.

After Jas reminded me in PM yesterday that Death Cab for Cutie is touring here next year, I haven't been able to get this song out of my head. Thanks, Jas!