Secret Service trying to keep their service secret: The government agency has only supplied a single text to the January 6 committee, which had requested more than a month's worth of texts in its attempt to find out what the hell happened during the coup attempt last year. California Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a member of the committee, gave MSNBC the understatement of the week: "This obviously, this doesn't look good. Coincidences can happen but we really need to get to the bottom of this and get a lot more information than we have currently."

Mayor Harrell names a new Director of the Office of Police Accountability: Gino Betts, who currently works as a Cook County Assistant State's Attorney, will take over the office on August 1. Betts participated in a forum for the four finalists under consideration last month, which you can watch here. In that interview, he came out against allowing police unions to bargain away accountability and promised to make his opinions known on their contract negotiations even if he didn't get to participate in them. Fingers crossed his blunt speaking style survives his #OneSeattle orientation.

Betts has his work cut out for him: OPA's latest ruling on Monday didn't inspire much confidence about them taking the "Accountability" part of their name seriously.

Struggles holding cops accountable aren't unique to Seattle: The Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, an agency that certainly sounds like it's supposed to regulate cops, says it can't do anything about the state House's report documenting policing failures in Uvalde. They can only enforce "minimum licensure standards," which leads me to wonder how standing outside a classroom for an hour while children die screaming isn't a violation of those standards.

ICYMI, a revealing Freudian slip from our corporate overlords: Seattle's lobbying group for big business, the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, announced on Monday that they would not appeal the latest rejection of their lawsuit to overturn the JumpStart tax. That's great news for anyone in the city who cares about affordable housing, which the tax funds. Their announcement also contained a revealing statement about who they believe matters in our city's politics (emphasis mine):

Our team is using this opportunity to bring new focus to our advocacy work on the city of Seattle budget to hold city leaders accountable for what you and your employees, the voters, want...

So glad to know that my vote only counts if I work for a corporation that pays dues to the Chamber!

Speaking of voting: Your ballot should have arrived by now! If you haven't received it, you can request a replacement through King County Elections here. Once you've voted the SECB slate, you can mail your ballot back with no postage required or drop it in your closest secure dropbox. 

Yet again, the moderates are the problem: Soon-to-be-former Congressman Kurt Schrader of Oregon lost his primary to a genuine progressive, and now he's being exceptionally mature about it.

That's what the money should be for: According to the AP, the Biden administration wants localities to spend more of their unallocated pandemic relief money on community violence intervention groups like Seattle's Community Passageways. Seattle's latest budget contained $1.5 million to fund those programs, while King County says it's kicked in another $1 million. The administration would like to spend another $5 billion over the next decade, but that money languishes in Congress along with the rest of the president's agenda that Uber-President Joe Manchin hasn't blessed.

A culture war I can get behind: 

Some good environmental news: The federal government will make good on its treaty obligations to tribes in the Puget Sound by providing $50 million in funding to the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission. The money will support "restoration, conservation and monitoring of Sequim Bay, the Dungeness River flood plain, Chambers Creek, Lummi Bay and the Nooksack and Skokomish rivers" among other projects, according to the Seattle Times.

Public Service Announcement: Don't let this grant money go unclaimed!

GOP talking point in trouble: Gas prices have started to fall, with one in five stations offering prices below $4 per gallon. If the trend continues, we might just luck into avoiding a takeover of our national legislature by the worst people in politics.

GOP conspiracy theorists in more trouble: The Fulton County District Attorney notified 11 of Trump's fake electors, who he hoped would help him steal Georgia's electoral college votes, that they are now targets of the criminal probe into attempts to subvert the 2020 election. Now if only Merrick Garland would show some of that same energy at the Department of Justice...

Alright, this just made me laugh: Should an attempted "re-brand" of Quidditch make the cut to be included in AM? Probably not. But I just can't stop chuckling at the idea of a "sport" where you run around with a broom between your legs thinking it can distance itself from J.K. Rowling. 

Yes, it looks just as dumb as you imagined: