Good morning! These freezing cold nights might finally pay off with a snow day this weekend. The National Weather Service told the Seattle Times that the forecast is looking “increasingly interesting” starting on Friday, but it’s still a tossup. “Between 4 am Saturday and 4 am Sunday, there’s a 27 percent chance Seattle could see at least 1 inch of snow, and a 15 percent chance the city could see 2 inches of snow,” the Times reported. For today, we’re looking at a lot of the same: lows just below freezing, highs in the 40s. Enjoy the sun while we’ve got it!
Trump Keeps His Word: Trump signed a new batch of executive orders yesterday, including one that could ban openly trans people from serving in the military. The orders were similar to last week’s, which eliminated diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in the federal government, but this newest order authorized the Defense Department to bar transgender soldiers, arguing that identifying as a gender other than the one assigned at birth could undermine “the physical and mental well-being necessary for military service,” NYT reported.
The language of the order pulls directly from the playbook of the religious right: “Expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service. Beyond the hormonal and surgical medical interventions involved, adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life,” it reads. “A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.” As of this morning, though, there’s already a legal challenge to the order brewing.
Funding Chaos: Starting today, Trump is freezing all federal grants and loans. What does that mean? So far, no one has been able to capture the extent of the damage it could do, but it “could affect trillions of dollars and cause widespread disruption in health care research, education programs and other initiatives,” according to the Seattle Times. Congress has already approved this spending, and for that reason, several Dems in Congress are already saying that the order “blatantly disobeys the law.” The White House scheduled a press conference for later today, and we’ll watch this madness unfold!
City Council Does It Again: Yesterday, city council voted 5-3 to appoint Mark Solomon to the District 2 seat that Tammy Morales left earlier this year. Which means for the second time in a year, they appointed someone who lost to Morales (badly). It’s clear that council is hoping to bring some fresh blood into the seat in November: Solomon said he will view the appointment as a “caretaker” role and not seek election when the seat’s term is up in 10 months. In the meantime, though, we have a “law and order” council member currently on staff with the SPD. Read more about it here.
Handing it off to Marcus for a moment, who was at the Mayor’s press conference about Trump’s immigration orders yesterday:
A Squeak When We Need a Roar: If you were holding your breath for local leaders to form together some civil-disobedient Voltron and stand tall against ICE raids and their camera-ready agents, well, don’t pass out just yet, keep holding. On Monday, at an event hosted by One America at El Centro de la Raza, Gov. Bob Ferguson unveiled his big move: an Executive Order to create a Family Separation Rapid Response Team within the Department of Children, Youth, and Families. Their mission? To come up with recommendations (yes, recommendations) for dealing with family separation and its trauma on kids. It’s something, sure, like a band-aid on a bullet wound. Let’s be real: this is an indignant squeak when we need a righteous roar for our immigrant neighbors, friends, and coworkers living in terror while a Trumpian wrecking ball swings their way, hellbent on making scapegoats of them before shoving them out of the country.
New Chief Stepping In: Looks like we’ll have a new police chief by the end of this week. Shon Barnes, then the Madison, Wisconsin, police chief, drew national attention in December after a shooting at the Abundant Life Christian School killed three people. In his former role, Barnes was investigated at least twice: Once after he was sued over allegations of a false arrest; and once when he was accused of making comments about a female officer’s love life during an exit interview. In both cases, he was cleared of wrongdoing. He will replace ex-Chief Adrian Diaz, who was found to have had an inappropriate relationship within the department, and is now suing the city for wrongful termination. Good luck Chief Barnes! We’re watching you.
Seattlites Run Amok: Okay this story keeps getting weirder. Last week, a 21-year-old Seattleite was accused of starting a shootout at the Vermont/Canada border that killed a border patrol agent. Less than a year ago, the Seattle Times reported, her parents told police that “they were fearful she was in a controlling relationship and was being forced to cut off contact with her friends and family.” Then on Friday, a Seattle-area man was arrested in Northern California and charged with murder. Turns out, the two were high school classmates and Lakeside School, the shmanciest of Seattle high schools, and they’d applied for a marriage license in King County in November.
It’s Special Election Season: Remember those pesky ballot initiatives that city council didn’t want to deal with in the high-turnout November election? It’s time to vote on them! Most of you should have gotten your ballots in the mail already, and we know how you should fill it out. Read our endorsements, drop that ballot in the mail, and pat yourself on the back for doing your civic duty.
Eat Your Heart Out: Wanna spend a little time in a world that’s even more fucked up than ours? Yellowjackets Season 3 is coming back in just a little more than two weeks. Stranger contributor Megan Burbank is coming soon with a recap of everything you wish you could forget about Seasons 1 and 2, but in the meantime, sink into this trailer.
Happy Birthday, Dick’s! It’s Dick’s Drive-in’s 71st birthday, and that means today, you can get a burger for what it cost in 1954: 19 cents. So get digging in your couch cushions, and get yourself a tiny, tasty burger. But it’s 2025: we’re all eating our feelings, and we’re all broke. So expect to wait in line.
Microsoft to buy TikTok? According to known liar Donald Trump (not my president), Microsoft “is in talks to acquire TikTok” and Trump “would like to see a bidding war over the app,” Reuters reports. If Microsoft buys TT, will it become a local company? Can we tax them? How many of their employees take home more than $1m a year, do ya think? TikTok is back online after going dark for a brief period prior to the inauguration, and while the app is still accessible to its users, both Apple and Google have removed it from their app stores and new “US Smartphone users cannot download it,” writes the Guardian. That includes this writer, who just got a new phone and got TikTok-blocked by the app store.
In case you need a little nonsense in your day: I had a friend once who, every month, included a line item in their personal budget for pranks. Just sayin’.
“Read our endorsements,”
Who did the campaigns have to sleep with at The Stranger to get those endorsements.
@1
you
considering
a Run for Goobernator
mr Magoo?
And injustice deliciously squared,
Be prepared
@2, It depends on who I would have to sleep with at The Stranger to get their endorsement.
@4: Not that I am hoping to encourage any more NotMyopic posts, but that was a bon mot. 😄
Trump is going to cause another great depression.
Congrats to all who stayed home, you just led the ship of state into Willy Wonka’s Chocolate River Tunnel Boat Ride of Purest Hell
Don’t overlook Trump putting the kibosh on distribution of PEPFAR anti-HIV meds in Africa, the one George Bush initiative I could get behind as it has saved millions of lives. A State Dept. spokesperson said the halt was a “moral imperative.”
But let’s hear more about the Lakeside Death Cult.
@6 — I’m Already depressed
djt’s
gonna
Dismember
the ‘Administrative
State’ & sell it off piecemeal
to the Rich who’ve Purchased
America, bought it both Fair AND Square
welcome to
Republicantopia
land of the open-
air prison camps &
the Home of the Free
Marketeering Profiteeers:
let the May-
hem pro-
ceed a-
sund-
er.
@7: Yeah but they stopped the genocide! 😂🤣😂🤣
I agree. Trump is a fucking dumb shit. If you can get to Heather Cox Richardson’s “Letters From an American 1/27/2025” you can read the real deal about all of the horse shit Trump started with Colombia the past few days. Talk about a dumb ass saying he is working to better America but instead is DIRECTLY ruining our global economic stake. The sad part is the news doesn’t cover the reality of what Trump did, how much he lied about the results and lied about the actual events of the Colombia incident. He is again only throwing bull shit at a wall and telling his followers this is the big picture, of course they run to that wall and smear their noses into that shit. Because MAGA don’t know shit when they smell it any longer because it’s all shit in the MAGA world.
@10. Sadly, they didn’t. The genocide is sponsored by our weapons companies, every bomb an exploding cash cow.
The French people had a tidy solution for the problem of Billionaires & demagogues in 1789. Guillotine!! Guillotine!! Sometimes, the old ways are the best ways.
Can someone please tell me if the burgers at Dicks are worth trying? I stopped by Dick’s when I first moved here about 10 years ago. But before I bought, I peeked in the window & watched what people were eating on the street. The burgers look tiny, lame, & cheap. Still I keep meaning to try them.
Governments that eviscerate domestic liberty soon turn on their neighbors.
@12: What! But…but that would mean progressives were good for nothing at all! 😜
@13: The burgers at Dick’s are not worth trying. The best burgers come from wherever you moved here from ten years ago. You should go back to that place. 😉
Pete Hegseth is a dishonorable fuck who has no place in the DoD, he’s a shitbag, a tin medal spray painted in fool’s gold perched on the shoulder’s of giants.
@14. It’s one thing to have principles and another to enact them with the full resistance of all other factions of government including your own.
@14. Who gives a fuck about progressives not being able to enact their policies in a centrist government? I think we have bigger fish to fry with the unbridled fascism that is taking root as we speak, media be damned.
It is truly amazing to witness the speed and efficiency in which Trump is recreating the US Government in his own image. It’s no wonder his approval rating has improved (and is so much better than Biden’s approval.)
For example, who knew Trump could Make Our Military Great Again by ensuring our service men and woman are mentally and physically able to fulfill the mission requirements?
There might be some people who say Trump is not their President, but as I remember from the Biden years, Trump very much is your President. And you should probably revel in that acknowledgement! It’s a big, wonderful thing.
@13
haven’t had a Dick’s
in Ages but they
were Good the
fries too and
even the
shake
but for under two bucks!
it’s Worth it even if
you end up feed-
ing it to the
Gulls in-
stead.
@13 Dick’s burgers are fine, though I’d usually go for a Deluxe rather than the standard hamburger or cheeseburger. Back before going to the vegetarian dark side, of course.
I think they’re really more of a nostalgia thing though.
if there is one thing we can agree on, it’s that the guy who inherited a fortune then somehow managed to declare bankruptcy six times is doing a great job making over the government in his image
Kshama Sawant must be so proud that Kamala has been rightfully punished (unfortunately a lot of good folks will now suffer). I’m just happy Trump kept foreign aid flowing to Israel including resumption of all military hardware / bombshell deliveries (guessing this will help with the clearing out of Gaza) /s.
The textbook definition of cutting off your nose to spite your face. Welcome to MAGA America (and a hearty fuck you to anyone who supported this shit show). At least Rich got laid on his way out (Sawant must have cut him off).
On a positive note, thanks Hannah for omitting all zombie twitter links (that’s one small piece of progress) – hopefully it sticks.
@6 Swiftress, @7, @13, @16, @17, and @18 CDizzle, and @9 kristofarian: I share your concerns.
Both my parents, born during the first Great Depression in the 1930s, must be shaking their heads Up There now. Additionally, my Mom, Dad, and many others must all be rolling in their graves about the 51% of dumb shits who have absolutely no idea how to vote wisely. Instead, the common good of We, the People was bought out as cued through misinformative mass media by Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Vladimir Putin, and their marionette sock puppet, Donald Trump.
Tragically, I think xina nailed it in a previous SLOG post: this Mein Trumpfian fascist nightmare is most likely to downward spiral out of control into global thermonuclear World War III—-all for wont of the last Trumpfist dollar.
Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong-un must be shitting their pants, giggling hysterically, trembling with schadenfreude at the pending fall of our country.
I keep thinking: Mom and Dad—-where do those of us with sound minds go from here?
Are citizens of the Divided States next on the global displacement list, behind Afghanistanis, Ukrainians, Palestinians, Gazans, Venezuelans, Ugandans, et al.?
Happy 71st birthday, Dick’s! Interesting that the iconic Seattle drive-in and burger joint started its franchise the same year my oldest sister was born at Fort Lawton, when Dad was still in the Navy.
@7: Blaming the electorate only goes so far – save some for the DNC and Biden who didn’t have the foresight that it would take a charismatic alpha-type populist to defeat Donald Trump. After all, Joe initially said he’d only be a one-term president.
Open your hearts to your MAGA brethren, because we’re all in this together – even they didn’t expect this.
Anyone the least bit surprised by Trump’s actions has been willfully ignorant. Anyone who said/says there was no difference is a fool.
My friend, who works at a federal agency in Seattle, is grappling with the RTO order. The speed in which this is being implemented is especially amazing given we are talking government…full compliance by March.
Due to a lack of office space, the agency will have to rent additional office space, and apparently that is underway. So much for saving taxpayer money!
There are employees who live far from the campus and simply do not have the time to sell/buy property even if they wanted to comply. This elacrity is by design.
Many in her department (including her) do not have the “G” ratings for government ranked employees. They are working class people earning comparable wages to private sector counter parts. These jobs often can be done at home, over the phone and computer. There are receptionists, for example, who will now be driving into the office….to answer the phone.
One would think that a “populist” political movement, always looking to cut a break for the little guy, would promote perks that are routine for, let’s say, high income IT professionals, coding away from home. But not this kind of faux populism. MAGA imagines all govement employees as spoiled high earning beauracrats. May this RTO order be the first among many cold slaps to the face to anyone who believes Trump is looking out for the blue colllars.
@19 Trump will never be my president because I will never recognize a dictator as Trump has chosen to be. As long as he is attacking the rights and dignity of my fellow human beings, I will not recognize any agency of the government he leads as legitimate. I will actively work to undermine any attempts by the government to harm my neighbors. I will call on the next Democratic administration to give a Green Card to every alien Trump deports who does not have a felony on their record.
@20, too true. And 19 cent burgers are the closest anyone will get to lower food prices in this administration. Even Dipshit Don admitted that he can’t do anything about food prices (“Sorry, suckers!”).
@28 Best comment on this whole thread… well said.
@27 The MAGA bretheren don’t care as long as the people they hate are punished.
@28
Onehellova lotta Overlap
on GazaPalestine~the
‘d’nc wouldn’t Allow
a Palestinian ON
THEIR STAGE
the Dealbreaker
for too many
who just Sat
that one out
jBiden
couldda
tossed ’em a
Bone, but no, his
Loyalty appeared to be
Elsewhere — in nutyahoo’s pocket
and bibi Played him like
a fucking
fiddle
the
Electorate
is a Fickle Customer
the ‘d’nc don’t
Seem to
care.
and
hereeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee’s
Thedonolde. he’s Baaack and he’s
Now EFFICIENT AS FUCK.
buckle the fuck UP
buttterfuckingcups.
Trump has cut off most ‘welfare’ type federal programs today…..medicaid, SNAP, school lunches, you name it.
I’ve got $500 that says TRUMP IS A MURDERER!!!! My $500 says that somewhere in America this week, some people will die because they don’t get a school lunch, don’t get an urgently needed surgery, don’t get reproductive care, can’t buy grocery, whatever. Their death will be on Trump’s hands. If that happens to even 1 person, I say Donald Trump, Vance, & all of MAGA are murderers.
Anybody want to take my bet?
@34: I’ll take your bet. Even assuming it’s true that Medicaid, SNAP, and school lunches have each been “cut off” (the actual funding picture is more nuanced), and even further assuming that anyone dies as a result of the purported cut-off, and even granting that abruptly pausing welfare programs is bad regardless of whether anyone dies, it still would not be “murder.” If you’re going to engage in unconvincing hyperbole, why not go all the way and just go straight to genocide. Trump is genociding us! 😂
@31 — bingo
the Deluxe @dick’s
the Onliest way to go.
Feature
not Bug
@MCClytn
til the
magats
get a taste
even their
self-hatred’s
got its Limits.
& @32 too.
@27 this is obviously the fault of the DNC, Biden, and to a lesser extent Kamala, but punching down is so much easier than self-reflection so Blue Team and their devotees will never stop blaming the voters
“Trump is genociding us! 😂”
okay.
There ya
Go, wormmy!
now its smileys
actually Do mean
it’s Just Kidding! that’ll
go a LONG Ways in “legitimizing”
your comment that your a i’s smileys
make it mean just the Opposite. we’re all
now
Convinced:
you’re Still an asshole.
Fuck Dick’s. The Spady family are Trumpers.
@39: So a hungry poor person should not take advantage of a cheap meal because of that?
https://youtu.be/33-qrn9N1Bo?feature=shared
@35 Lots of words but no reason given why it is not murder.
@42: It’s worse than murder, it’s genocide!!! 😂🤣😂🤣
@43 You could have just said that you didn’t really have a valid reason why you said that cutting Medicaid isn’t ‘murder’
@44: It’s GENOCIDE! That’s like murder times a MILLION! 🤣🤣🤣
@27. I AM blaming the electorate. Specifically, those who did not vote who showed up last time with every possible knowledge of what they were negligently permitting. They should have known better.
I am not blaming the voters, but those who did not vote at all.
In fact, I am blaming everyone who voted for Trump, knowing better than ever what they were voting for. A criminal fascist sellout threat to freedom and national security. But because he looked and talked like them and othered the easy targets, they voted for him, and so enslaved themselves to a cartoon archetype of conformists escaping from freedom.
Your ambitions and dreams must outweigh your fear, and you must disobey the unjust and never sell out the principles of this country and our inalienabile freedoms enshrined in the Constitution that can never be bought in all the plus and minus infinity of imaginary fiat digits that simply boil down to a binary choice of passive consent.
You must simply vote no. Your vote cannot be bought except by some imaginary limit you enslave yourself to by forsaking the golden rule. Treat others as you wish to be treated. Look how the government is treating us? These are not the actions of domestic citizens of the U.S who honor liberty and the spirit of America. They dishonor every soldier and family and pioneer who ever set foot into the unknown to escape the grasp of small-minded tyrants lacking in basic empathy and unity in community.
I am disgusted that a so called Christian nation by those who voted for Trump would now deport Jesus, Mary, and Joseph along with the three wise kings of orient who would give the finest material offerings of their day to honor the humblest and most vulnerable refugee under the shining heavens.
You reap what you sow. Just as there is lying by omition there is also negligence in inaction in the face of known evidence, and actions speak louder than any words. The only meaningful apology can be changed behavior, and they will never do either until they learn basic empathy. There is no room in heaven for a heart besotted with hatred.
@40. Their belly may be full, but their spirit will be empty.
@27: Phoebe in Wallingford: Uh, NO, Phoebe. Have you been shacking up with raindrop lately? I highly recommend that you cut back on your FOX TeeVee binging—it causes brain cancer. Donald Trump and its MAGA tools are clearly NOT my “brethren”. It’s pretty pathetic that the two richest men on Earth bought our nation’s WORST WHITE HOUSE OCCUPANT EVER for their own selfish gain in their global race to the bottom.
They knew perfectly well what they were doing by deliberately plotting to flush our country down the toilet, so that so few could own everyone and everything at the expense of the Earth and all her inhabitants.
If MAGAS and their Mein Trumpf get irreparably hurt by their shamefully cruel and willfully criminal actions, they deserve what they get. End of story.
@30 Greenwood Bob, re: @19: Just scroll past—he’s an AI microchip activated MAGA-bot, and not worth our time. But I do agree with your comment. Donald Trump should NEVER have been shoved illegally into the White House even ONCE. That MAGA tools and so-called “Christians” wildly continue to cheer on this narcissistic neofascist idiot is beyond sickening.
@39 DOUG: Ugh! I didn’t know that about the Spady family. Just like McDonald’s. So much for a cheap burger.
I’m a good 85 miles from the closest Dick’s Drive-In and am much better off avoiding fast food anyway.
@7, @40, @46, and @47 CDizzle and @28 KEK55: +5 for the WIN!!
Keep on rocking the house!