The real parasite here is Russia.
The real parasite here is Russia. AMY SUSSMAN / GETTY

Trump whined about Parasite winning Best Picture at the Oscars: A late criticism, but a fiery one. "AND THE WINNER IS A MOVIE FROM SOUTH KOREA? WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT ALL ABOUT?" he wheezed at a rally in Colorado today. "CAN WE GET GONE WITH THE WIND BACK, PLEASE?" Then he called Brad Pitt "a little wise guy."

Another warning of Russian interference in our election: While Daily Beast is reporting that it's "basically impossible" for Russian bots to be on Twitter (a basically impossible claim), the New York Times revealed this afternoon that intelligence officials warned House lawmakers, again, that Russia is interfering in the presidential election. From the Times:

They have made more creative use of Facebook and other social media. Rather than impersonating Americans as they did in 2016, Russian operatives are working to get Americans to repeat disinformation to get around social media companies’ rules that prohibit “inauthentic speech.”

And they are working from servers located in the United States, rather than abroad, knowing that American intelligence agencies are prohibited from operating inside the country. (The F.B.I. and the Department of Homeland Security can, with aid from the intelligence agencies.)

After last night's Bloomberg bash, how will the chips fall in Nevada? “I think the surprise would be if [Sanders] doesn’t win by 10 points or so,” one political science professor in Las Vegas told USA Today. "The question is how the other ones group down below, and does this winnow the field a little bit?" What are your predictions? I think after Warren's huge night, we'll see it between Sanders, Buttigieg, and Warren—probably, in my opinion, in that order.

Bloomberg has spent $464 million on his 10-week-long presidential campaign: He's trying to get to $600 million by Super Tuesday. THAT'S IN LIKE A WEEK AND A HALF. Honestly, just relieve student debt with that money, my dude! Win the kids over! I know your flacks read PM: I will gladly accept $70,000 in student debt relief as an SECB bribery. Our primary endorsement comes out next Wednesday.

More Americans are worried about the flu than the coronavirus, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

BASEBALL NEWS: It's a rare thing on Slog, baseball news, but baseball legend Ichiro Suzuki will throw the opening pitch for the season opener on March 26. Party.

And now for some Washington state legislative updates from The Stranger's Rich Smith: Take it away, Rich!

Lt. Gov. Cyrus Habib endorses Mayor Pete Buttigieg: The only line that makes sense in this endorsement is “having known and worked with Pete for 15 years.” And count Habib among the people who won't support Sanders until Sanders shows the world his dick.

Tenant protections die in Olympia: As rents continue to rise at alarming rates across Washington, two major tenant protection bills died in the statehouse yesterday. One would have limited rent hikes to 5% plus inflation and the other would have required landlords to give good reasons for evicting tenants. Republicans tacked over 40 amendments to the latter bill, and Democrats didn’t want to eat up floor time debating them, so they let it die. That day, however, House Democrats found plenty of floor time to pass a bill that creates a special Seattle NHL hockey license plate, a bill to designate the Pacific razor clam as the state clam, a bill to designate a state microanimal, and a bill to designate the Suciasaurus rex as the official dinosaur of the state of Washington. What the fuck are we even paying these people for.

Let’s see how many lawmakers are willing to expel Rep. Matt Shea: Democratic Reps Gael Tarleton and Tana Senn dropped a letter on every House member’s desk this morning. The letter asks “Speaker Laurie Jinkins and Minority Leader J.T. Wilcox to ’take the necessary institutional steps to bring the expulsion’” of Shea, and it has places for everyone to sign, according to The Spokesman-Review. So far, Republicans have been pulling a Mitch McConnell and arguing that the voters should decide whether or not a guy who has been credibly accused of spying on cops for the Bundys and planning to commit political violence should continue to serve in the House of Representatives. I can’t even believe I’m living in a state where I had to write that last sentence, but here we are. In any event, I guess we’ll see who’s ~brave~ enough to, uh, kick the terrorist out of the halls of power.

Thanks, Rich!

This "random" woman (Charlotte Awbery) is going viral after "unexpectedly" bumping into this influencer and belting out Lady Gaga's "Shallow" better than Lady Gaga. It's clearly staged, IMO, but what do you think?

Roger Stone was sentenced to over three years in prison: To the world's dismay, Trump live-tweeted the sentencing trial. Stone's "sentencing played out amid extraordinary upheaval at the Justice Department set off by Attorney General William P. Barr overruling prosecutors on the case who had asked for a seven- to nine-year sentence," writes the New York Times. "Mr. Barr said that was too harsh."

Are you seeing Frozen at the Paramount? The Stranger's Nathalie Graham went and saw it and left at intermission but she says "well, there's MORE to that story!" and blames it on not having her glasses and being too tipsy. "I don't feel like I missed anything. The set was really interesting, though."

The director for And Then We Danced hosted a Reddit AMA today. I learned that he had to phone a friend last-minute to get the rights to use Robyn's "Honey" for the film's most famous scene, and also that the film will be coming to streaming and DVD soon. Jasmyne, Rich, and I talked about the film yesterday on Blabbermouth. It's maybe my favorite contemporary gay-themed film, up there with 120 Beats Per Minutes and Moonlight. It needs more attention as it screens across the U.S. Here's a trailer:

You've got only one more chance at 9:20 tonight at SIFF Cinema Uptown to see the movie: Go! You must! Go now!

UPDATE: Neon, Parasite's distributor, clapped back with a real zinger.