By John Flynn and Raheem F. Hosseini
Oscar mike
If you didn’t make it all the way through Sunday’s Oscars telecast, you missed an ending as surprising as 1967's Bonnie and Clyde. That film’s iconic stars, Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, royally goofed in presenting the final award for best picture to La La Land—rather than Moonlight, the actual winner. The whole thing was sorted out quickly—and graciously—when La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz announced the mistake onstage, calling up his “friends from Moonlight.” Beatty, meanwhile, looked like he wanted to trade places with the bullet-riddled bandit he portrayed 50 years ago.
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Cowards in Congress
With congressional Republicans in hiding over their misguided plot to blow up the Affordable Care Act, the California Alliance for Retired Americans staged two demonstrations outside the offices of Reps. Tom McClintock and Jeff Denham on February 22 and 24, respectively, to protest their proposed gutting of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. McClintock had already been posterized while fleeing angry constituents at a Roseville town hall. Republicans are apparently shocked—shocked!—that people don’t want to die.
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Late night drive-thru
Craig Joseph Dumas, 54, of Sacramento was arrested February 24 for allegedly plowing his vehicle through a garage door at the county jail a little after 3:30 a.m. that Friday. According to police logs, once inside the sally port—a typically secure area where cops unload suspects prior to booking—the suspect exited his vehicle and started stripping. As you can imagine, he was arrested. Police also consider him a suspect in making a bomb threat earlier that evening.
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Bathroom B.S.
On February 22, President Donald Trump overturned Title IX protections that allowed transgender students to use the bathroom of their choosing. In a statement, Richard A. Hernandez, president of the Sacramento Rainbow Chamber of Commerce, a regional coalition of LGBT business owners, denounced the targeting of a community that’s “particularly vulnerable to bullying, discrimination, depression and suicide.” Despite rhetoric from the religious right, it’s hard to find evidence that a transgender person has ever assaulted anyone in a bathroom. Meanwhile, four contestants claim the president entered the dressing room of the 1997 Miss Teen USA pageant while they were changing. Which means an order targeting nonexistent threats was signed by an actual monster.
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Bad romance
Sacramento police say there have been at least 10 instances where male victims were catfished into ambush robberies by the prospect of a date with a woman they met online. In each case, the victims showed up at a predetermined location and were confronted by several suspects, often armed with guns. Police say the fake dates were arranged through a variety of social platforms, but declined to specify which ones. “If it appears too good to be true, it probably is!” police warned in a media release. Does this mean Scorekeeper should stop emailing the supermodel who wants to have dinner in an abandoned warehouse?
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