'The Sixth' leads nominees for Outstanding Politics and Government Documentary at the News & Doc Emmy Awards

As I promised twice, it's time for the next installment in my coverage of the News & Doc Emmy Awards by examining The Sixth and the rest of the nominees for Outstanding Politics and Government Documentary. The Sixth on the sixth!*

Since it is the only nominee in this category with another nomination and that is for Best Documentary, I begin with THE SIXTH | Trailer from Change Content.

THE SIXTH (www.thesixthmovie.com) is a feature documentary produced in collaboration with A24. From Academy Award® winning filmmakers Andrea Nix Fine & Sean Fine, THE SIXTH takes you inside the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol through six personal accounts, including Rep. Jamie Raskin and MPD Chief Robert Contee. This harrowing yet hopeful film, is a powerful reminder that the fate of democracy is in all our hands.

This isn't the first time the News & Doc Emmy Awards recognized coverage of January 6th; for starters, CNN's 'Live from the Capitol: January 6th, One Year Later' won two News & Doc Emmy Awards in 2023. It is the first time I've covered a nominated documentary about the event, although it probably won't be the last. In the meantime, this is still my favorite to win this category, although it is facing worthy competition and isn't a guaranteed winner. After all, Good Night Oppy had six nominations and was my pick to win Outstanding Science and Technology Documentary two years ago, but lost to How to Survive a Pandemic. Something similar could happen here.

Follow over the jump to watch the trailers or the equivalent for the rest of the nominees in this category and another look at Best Documentary.

Company Man asks 'The Decline of Weight Watchers...What Happened?' A tale of the Retail Apocalypse (and Ozempic)

Change of plans — I'm revisiting WeightWatchers files for bankruptcy, a tale of the Retail Apocalypse (and Ozempic) today with Company Man asking The Decline of Weight Watchers...What Happened?

One of the oldest names in weight loss has lost most of its value and filed for bankruptcy. This video explores the brand's history while identifying some of the biggest reasons behind its decline.

As I usually do, I'm sharing Company Man Mike's list.


Rebranding strikes me as a milder version of Hooters' identity crisis with a side helping of external factors including the pandemic — bad timing, indeed! Speaking of external factors, Weight Watchers had been able to weather its competition until weight loss drugs like Ozempic came along. It didn't take them long to drive Weight Watchers into bankruptcy. As I wrote last month, "WeightWatchers decided that if they couldn't beat Ozempic and other weight loss drugs, they'd join them. Too bad things moved so quickly that they were [too] late to that party."

Oprah Winfrey leaving the company followed by its bankruptcy demonstrates that it was the loss of celebrity influence that may have been the last straw. The company had been depending on celebrity endorsers for decades and without its last one, it declined rapidly.

While I've often seen private equity as a cause of debt leading to failure, I've come across stock buybacks by themselves just three times, and only seen both once in the case of Ruby Tuesday. Now I can say I've run across the combination twice.

I close by quoting a comment and my response on last month's post.

fry1laurie: So Weight Watchers is trying to shed 751,471,011.70 pounds (of debt).

Me: Welcome to Crazy Eddie's Motie News! HAHAHA! I'm glad the United Kingdom didn't abandon the pound for the Euro just so you could make this joke!

Stay tuned for the promised next installment in my coverage of the News & Doc Emmy Awards tomorrow, when I plan on examining The Sixth and the rest of the nominees for Outstanding Politics and Government Documentary. I decided blogging about The Sixth on the sixth would be more appropriate than today.

Elon Musk calls budget bill 'a disgusting abomination' — MSNBC reports

Sorry, no results of the primary elections in New Jersey and Virginia today. Those will happen in two weeks. Instead, I'm revisiting Elon Musk leaving with MSNBC reporting Lawrence: And on day 134, Musk turned against Trump.

Democrats can now call the Donald Trump-Republican budget bill a "disgusting abomination" and they’d be quoting Elon Musk every time they do it, says MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell. Now that the budget bill is in the Senate, Lawrence explains that Republican senators are now able to stop the bill or risk Musk funding an opponent in their reelection campaign to the Senate next year.

When I read or heard speculation on when, not if, Donald "Hoover Cleveland" Trump and Elon Musk would have a falling out, the assumption would be that Hoover Cleveland would initiate it. Nope. I guess Musk is the bigger prima donna. Surprise! What's not a surprise is that Musk is doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. What Musk wants will probably make the final result crueler, not kinder.

The drama continued on MSNBC's Morning Joe, which uploaded Musk ‘wrecked the White House’s afternoon’ savaging Trump’s signature agenda this morning.

Elon Musk issued a blistering criticism of the massive Republican bill for President Donald Trump’s agenda Tuesday, posting on X that it is a "disgusting abomination." "I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore," Musk wrote. "This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. The Morning Joe panel discusses.

MSNBC quoted Axios's reporting, which listed four reasons for Musk opposing the budget bill, none of which involve increasing the deficit, and all of which harm him, or at least make him look and feel bad.


With Hoover Cleveland withdrawing Jared Issacman, I might get my wish that he'd appoint Newt Gingrich as NASA Administrator. As I wrote seven years ago, "I could live with that."

Hoover Cleveland hasn't responded directly to Musk's criticism of the bill as I'm writing this, but he did something related, as MSNBC reported White House sends Congress request for $9.4B in DOGE cuts.

The White House sent congressional leaders a request Tuesday to claw back $9.4 billion in approved spending, most of it for foreign aid.

This would codify much of "Elon Musk's...Chainsaw Massacre of our federal workforce" and is a sign that what Musk wants would indeed make the budget bill crueler. Ugh.

That's a wrap for today's topical post. Stay tuned for the next installment in my coverage of the News & Doc Emmy Awards tomorrow, when I plan on examining The Sixth and the rest of the nominees for Outstanding Politics and Government Documentary.

Stewart, Colbert, Meyers, and Kimmel take closer looks at Musk leaving, Joni Ernst, and 'robot Biden'

Happy TACO Tuesday! The late-night talk-show hosts all returned last night and I'm not up for a long awards nomination post, so topical comedy it is, beginning with Jon Stewart on Elon Musk's Black-Eyed Exit & Trump's Insane New Biden Conspiracy | The Daily Show.

Jon Stewart tracks Elon Musk's White House crash, from the high of being Trump's "first buddy" to the low of his black-eyed DOGE send-off. Now that the 100-day honeymoon is over, Jon also checks in on Trump's other struggling cabinet members, like the FBI's burned-out deputy director, Dan Bongino.

As I wrote last week, "I'm glad 'Elon Musk's...Chainsaw Massacre of our federal workforce' is finally over." Relieved is more like it, although the rest of Project 2025 is still coming. I'm not looking forward to it.

I'm also not looking forward to Palantir, the company named after the all-seeing crystal balls in The Lord of the Rings, establishing a surveillance state. I've been paying attention to Palantir founder Peter Thiel mostly through his pet bad philosopher Curtis Yarvin and his protégé JD Vance. Now I'll have to start paying attention to Palantir CEO Alex Karp, too.

Moving from real sources of suspicion to conspiracy theory, Stephen Colbert covered Donald "Hoover Cleveland" Trump's latest as well in Joni Ernst: We’re All Going To Die | Elon’s Cocktail: Ecstasy, Ketamine, Shrooms | Biden Robot Cl[one].

Sen. Joni Ernst horrified constituents with a heartless comment about people who will lose Medicaid coverage under the GOP’s budget bill, Elon Musk denied reports that he is a heavy user of ketamine and psychedelics, and President Trump reposted a wild conspiracy theory about his predecessor.

I've never mentioned Joni Ernst on this blog before, but I've known she had a mean streak that she portrayed as toughness since she first ran for U.S. Senate in 2014. It looks like what I wrote in I ask The Archdruid and his readers 'Can you show us on the doll exactly where the educated professionals hurt you?' A Festivus airing of grievances came true for her.

Greer's premise/conceit is that Trump is like The King in Yellow and drives mad all who oppose him. I'd say he drives just about everyone mad by giving them permission to be their worst selves.

I'd say Senator Ernst succumbed to the curse. May the rest of us not follow suit.

I'm moving past Elon Musk's alleged drug use to Hoover Cleveland's re-"truthed" kooky claim that Joe Biden was replaced by a "robot clone" in 2020. As Stephen points out, robots are not clones, and the imagined replacement would have been worse than the original, both of which remind me of one of the lines in The Way of the (Political) K00K, "Never allow logic or reason get in the way of a good k00k." It also shows Hoover Cleveland's vulnerability to conspiracy theories. I wrote that in 2017 and repeated it immediately before the election. The old dog, and by that I mean Trump and not Biden, is still performing his old tricks.

It wouldn't be a closer look post without Seth Meyers, so here is his Musk Turns on Trump After Leaving DOGE in Disgrace; Trump's Insane Biden Clone Theory: A Closer Look.

Seth takes a closer look at President Trump reposting a far-right conspiracy theory that former President Biden was executed five years ago and is a robotically engineered clone, The New York Times reporting that Elon Musk was engaged in increasingly intense drug use during the Trump campaign and more.

Here's a term Seth could have found in his thesaurus to characterize the week's news, dystopian. That would have covered it.

Jimmy Kimmel got solo billing last week because he was the only late-night host putting out new material. Today, he gets the last monologue slot, although not the last word, with Trump Pushes Crazy Conspiracy Biden is a Robot Clone, Weighs in on Diddy Pardon & Elon Says Goodbye.

Elon Musk is out of the White House and Trump held a farewell press conference for him, Elon had a mysterious black eye, the New York Times published a crazy story about him claiming that he has been taking a wide variety of drugs, Trump blew the lid off a bombshell cover-up by reposting a theory claiming that Biden was cloned and replaced by a robot, he took time over the weekend to weigh in on whether or not he would pardon Diddy, reality TV stars Todd & Julie Chrisley are already back to shooting their show after Trump pardoned them, Iowa Senator Joni Ernst had a town hall in Butler over the weekend where she told her constituents we’re all going to die, Stephen Miller was on Lara Trump’s show over the weekend where he took a rare break from deporting children to talk about his own, and while many Americans are now buying food on credit, some companies are trying to capitalize on that desperation.

The Truth Social user Hoover Cleveland re-"truthed" is even more confused than I thought. While there is a football player named Michael Robinson, he went to Penn State, played for the 49ers and Seahawks in the NFL, and is now an analyst for the NFL Network. That's not who I think the original poster meant. Instead, I think he meant Michelle Obama's brother, Craig Robinson, who was the men's basketball coach at Oregon State from 2008 to 2014, when Michelle was First Lady. Wow, they were in two places with two identities at the same time! Explain that, conspiracy theorist, while maintaining they're the same person. They're not.

I'm letting The Late Show with Stephen Colbert have the last word with last night's cold open, Joe Biden Proves He’s Not A Clone.

The former president pushed back against Trump’s claim that he is a robot clone of himself.

*Snork*

On a more serious note, there is a method behind the madness of Hoover Cleveland spreading this. It's an even more bonkers version of Biden using an autopen to sign pardons for Hunter Biden and others. "That wasn't really Biden" would be even more effective than "Biden didn't actually sign the pardons" — if it were true. It's not, not that it being BS will stop Hoover Cleveland.

Stay tuned to see what I write tomorrow. Maybe it will be the results of the primary elections in New Jersey and Virginia, which could be good news. I hope so.

Atlantic Hurricane Season forecast to be above normal while FEMA weakened

The 2025 Atlantic Hurricane Season began yesterday, and CNN reported National Hurricane Center warns this is the chance of an above-normal season.

Hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean starts June 1 with NOAA forecasting six to ten storms that will earn names on the list of hurricanes this year. CNN meteorologist Allison Chinchar reports, and CNN’s Victor Blackwell speaks with former FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell about the state of hurricane preparedness.

First, the charts, beginning with the list of storm names.


The new storm name is Dexter, replacing Dorian. I expect to see Dexter memes when it develops, especially if becomes a threat to the mainland U.S. Serial killer vibes!

Now for the numbers.


Most of the forecast range is above average, which the next chart shows as a 60% chance of an above average season.


The good news? If this season's forecast is correct, then it won't be as bad as last year. The bad news? FEMA will have fewer resources, thanks to Trump's "shock and awful" and especially "Elon Musk's...Chainsaw Massacre of our federal workforce." As I wrote in Trump implementing Project 2025 for a Flashback Good Friday, "Russell Vought wouldn't have moved this fast." Yeah, but he'd have got here eventually.

Stay tuned to see if I resume my coverage of the News & Doc Emmy Awards, or if I post tonight's monologues instead. It depends on whether the comedians return tonight and if I feel up to a long awards nominations post.

'Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal' and 'The Truth vs. Alex Jones' lead nominees for Outstanding Crime and Justice Documentary

Happy June and happy Sunday! As I promised yesterday, I'm kicking off the month by examining the nominees for Outstanding Crime and Justice Documentary as the Sunday entertainment feature because Alex Jones is as much an entertainment story as he is a legal one.

The American Experience episode "Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal" earned three nominations at the News & Doc Emmy Awards and technically leads The Truth vs. Alex Jones with two nominations, but the situation mirrors the field for Outstanding Arts and Culture Documentary because The Truth vs. Alex Jones's other nomination is for Best Documentary, which balances out "Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal" earning nominations for Outstanding Writing – Documentary and Outstanding Direction – Documentary in my handicapping, so both are tied in my book. The other nominees in this category, Cult Massacre: One Day In Jonestown, Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter, and Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer, have only this one nomination.

I'm going through the nominee's trailers in the order above, beginning with POISONED GROUND: THE TRAGEDY AT LOVE CANAL | Trailer | American Experience | PBS.

In the late 1970s, residents of Love Canal, a working-class neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, discovered that their homes, schools and playgrounds were built on top of a former chemical waste dump, which was now leaking toxic substances and wreaking havoc on their health. Through interviews with many of the extraordinary housewives turned activists, the film shows how they effectively challenged those in power, forced America to reckon with the human cost of unregulated industry, and created a grassroots movement that galvanized the landmark Superfund Bill.

POISONED GROUND: THE TRAGEDY AT LOVE CANAL tells the dramatic and inspiring story of the ordinary women who fought against overwhelming odds for the health and safety of their families.

When I first started teaching environmental science, one of the lab exercises was to watch a video about Love Canal and fill out a worksheet. That assignment disappeared the next time I taught the class, but the memory stuck with me. I'm too close to the end of my career and the actual episode is a touch too long to show in class, but I will definitely recommend this to my students for extra credit. Welcome to blogging as professional development.

Next, The Truth vs. Alex Jones | Official Trailer | HBO.

#TheTruthVsAlexJones chronicles the landmark defamation trials brought by Sandy Hook parents against Alex Jones.

Watching that makes me dislike Jones even more than when I gave him an honorary Kenny McCormick Memorial Medal for losing at least five accounts because of abuse. If this documentary wins an Emmy or two, it would make for a bookend to Sandy Hook Promise winning two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Commercial. I'd enjoy that.

I continue with the nominees that have just this one nomination with Cult Massacre: One Day in Jonestown | Official Trailer | Hulu.

Survivors and eyewitnesses tell the immersive story of Jim Jones' idealistic organization's final hours that spiraled into a mass casualty event. Watch Cult Massacre: One Day in Jonestown on Hulu!

Connecting this documentary to 9/11: One Day in America indicates both its pedigree and how this could easily have been a nominee for Outstanding Historical Documentary (same with "Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal"). Doing so would have put it in direct competition with Tsunami: Race Against Time, also by the same team, and I don't think they, Hulu, and National Geographic would have appreciated that. It's better off here, although I'd be surprised if that allows it to win this category.

It seems that no documentary category would be complete without a Netflix nominee, and Into The Fire: The Lost Daughter | Official Trailer | Netflix confirms my feeling.

A mother discovers the daughter she gave up for adoption many years ago has disappeared—and she will stop at nothing to find her. INTO THE FIRE: THE LOST DAUGHTER, directed by Ryan White and produced by Charlize Theron, comes to Netflix September 12.

"[P]roduced by Charlize Theron" — Theron is no stranger to true crime, having won an Oscar for portraying serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster.

The final trailer today is Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer | Official Trailer | Hulu.

To stop serial killers you need to think like one. Follow FBI specialist Dr. Ann Burgess as she explores the minds of notorious murderers in the new series Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer, premiering on July 11.

From award-winning executive producers Dakota and Elle Fanning and critically acclaimed collaborators comes “Mastermind: To Think Like A Killer,” a fascinating new perspective on the woman whose crime hunting innovations changed history. To stop serial killers, psychiatric nurse and professor Dr. Ann Burgess must first learn to think like one. With unprecedented access to the mastermind behind the development of modern serial-killer profiling, the series tells Burgess’ tenacious story and her compassion for victims which puts her at the center of America’s most infamous true-crime cases. From the widely known Ed Kemper and Ted Bundy to lesser-known cases like the Ski Mask Rapist, Burgess investigates and studies the damaged psyches of victims and their attackers, putting two halves of the same story together to catch a killer. Largely an unsung heroine until now, Dr.Burgess impacted not only the FBI, she also radically championed the plight of women in America.

As a fan of the prematurely canceled Mindhunter and run extended on streaming Criminal Minds, I'm glad to see the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Units receiving the documentary treatment they deserve. Also, Dakota Fanning is familiar with historical crime, having played one of the detectives in The Alienist, while her sister Elle, better known for playing Catherine the Great in The Great, also portrayed a defendant in a movie about true crime, The Girl from Plainville. Together, that puts them on the same level as Charlize Theron. Those credentials might have impressed the Television Academy if their documentaries had been nominated at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards, but I'm not so sure they will be enough to convince the documentarians and journalists here. As I usually write when I cover awards shows, electorates matter.

Time to recycle what I last wrote in 'The Grab' leads both Outstanding Investigative Documentary and Best Documentary at the News & Doc Emmy Awards.

Now to re-examine the nominees for Best Documentary, which I first covered in 'King Coal' vs. 'Hollywood Black' and 'Madu' for Outstanding Arts and Culture Documentary at the News & Doc Emmy Awards.

For the first time in this series, I'm examining the nominees for Best Documentary. I've been holding off because the category has nine nominees this year. The Grab leads with four nominations, followed by American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders and Mammals with three each, Hollywood Black, The Sixth, and The Truth vs. Alex Jones, all with two, and The Commandant's Shadow, Queendom, and The Sing Sing Chronicles with just this one. The Grab and American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders are facing off for Outstanding Investigative Documentary, The Sixth leads the nominees for Outstanding Politics and Government Documentary, The Truth vs. Alex Jones is contending with Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal for Outstanding Crime and Justice Documentary, and Mammals leads the rest of the field without a subject area nomination. That's four more opportunities to examine the nominees, after which I'll make my call.

Right now, I have The Grab in first, but I'm not making a final call until I write about the rest of the nominees.

I still think The Grab is first, but I'll change or solidify my choice after I write about Mammals.

Follow over the jump for the craft categories in which Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal earned nominations.