Good Morning! I’m sure Charles Mudede is disappointed to hear this, but we have two absolutely glorious days ahead of us. Today we’ve got a high of 67 and tomorrow we’ll get up to 76. And let me remind you: this is May in Seattle. Until at least July, the weather can still turn on a dime and break your heart. Get out there.

But before all that, let’s do the news.

HIV Research in the Balance: Details are light, but it’s clear that Fred Hutch laid off staff related to their HIV research last Wednesday, after losing access to federal funding. The Trump Administration has slashed more than $800 million worth of grants directed toward LGBTQ health, which, of course, includes HIV research. What could we lose? Well, Fred Hutch has been pushing HIV prevention research forward in real, concrete ways, like human trials of an HIV vaccine. Because science is fucking magic sometimes. And RFK hates magic. (And thinks poppers cause AIDS.)

Transit Shenanigans: Last fall, in an environmental impact assessment of the West Seattle light rail line, city departments flagged two concerns: First, they still needed an explicit plan to restore salmon spawning habitat in Longfellow Creek that would be damaged by the construction; and second, Sound Transit had failed to assess the impacts of using eminent domain to take privately owned land needed for its construction, which “could irrevocably harm” people from marginalized communities, without an adequate plan for compensation. So why haven’t we heard about it? Because Sound Transit asked the city to keep it quiet. The final public letter was much less critical, and vaguely refers to “ongoing conversations.” Transparency!

Stupid or Evil: In an interview with Meet the Press, Kristen Welker asked Trump if he agreed that all people on American soil are entitled to due process. “I don’t know,” Trump said. “I’m not, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know.” When Welker reminded that the Fifth Amendment demands exactly that, he didn’t back down. “It might say that, but if you’re talking about that, then we’d have to have a million or two million or three million trials.” Did he know the Fifth Amendment existed? Who knows. It ultimately doesn’t matter if he’s evil and stupid, or just evil. We’re losing the same human rights either way.

Maybe it did sink in a little, though? Because, as of this morning, he’s trying some new tactics in his mass deportation mission. According to an announcement from DHS, the Trump administration is offering $1,000 to any immigrant in the US illegally who returns to their “home country” voluntarily. They will also pay for travel assistance, they claim, and that those people who use an app called CBP Home to tell the government that they plan to return home will be “deprioritized” by ICE. Considering that the Trump administration is detaining people when they show up for green card proceedings, I wouldn’t trust an app that basically functions like a registry. But maybe that’s just me. 

Speaking of Due Process: It turns out Ring videos are good for more than just Nextdoor Karens reporting “suspicious looking” people in the neighborhood. Last week, a doorbell camera captured ICE officers as they followed Spokane resident Martin Diaz home, chased him across his front yard and through a gate and into his backyard, and physically dragged him as he held onto the fence. Diaz has lived in the US since he was a year and a half old, and he’s spent more than a decade working to get legal status. So why did ICE target him? An assault charge from 2008, when he was 18 years old and got into a physical altercation with his (now ex) father-in-law, and malicious mischief from 2017, according to his wife. His family is working with an attorney to petition Governor Ferguson to pardon the two convictions, hoping that might give him a chance to stay. 

Have you seen the president’s Instagram lately? It’s unhinged. On Friday, Stranger managing editor Megan Seling pointed out that by defunding public media, attacking universities, and taking control of the arts, he’s pulling the kind of Dear Leader antics that, just a few years ago, we mocked Kim Jong Un for. And that was before Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself as a veiny Jedi-bodybuilder mutant with eagles over each shoulder. Then there’s the posts attacking PBS, the sizzle reels of the administration’s “economic success,” and one truly horrifying Star Wars spoof: “Border Patrol Strikes Back.” It’s all absurd, sure, but if people are buying into it, it’s also dangerous propaganda. It’s easy to take comfort in the fact that his approval rating is historically low, but he’s still resonating with his base. The recent AP-NORC poll showed that at least two-thirds of Republicans still approve of his performance on every key issue. Eighty-four percent of them approve of his work on immigration. And we know those are the only numbers he cares about.

Not the Point but Kind of the Point: Have you noticed that in all of their Star Wars references, the Trump admin is always the Empire?

It’s Cinco de Mayo! Rather than getting shitfaced on half-priced margaritas (if there is still such a thing in this economy) this year has more of a “call you representatives” kinda vibe.

Strip Club Loophole: It looks like club owners have found a way to avoid paying strippers again. The Strippers Bill of Rights, which went into effect this year, allows WA strip clubs to sell alcohol for the first time since 1975, which allows clubs to monitor customers’ drinking (because they’re not doing it in the parking lot outside), and by making clubs less reliant on dancers as their sole source of revenue. The law also caps “leasing fees” for dancers and eliminates “back rent,” the debt dancers accrue if they don’t earn enough during a shift to pay off their club’s fees. Sound exploitative? It is! Which is part of why the Strippers Bill of Rights passed last year, but club owners are capitalists, and capitalists always find a loophole. Several clubs in the city have moved to a “revenue share” model—and have started charging “couch fees” for private dances—allowing them to still cut into an unreasonable share of strippers’ profits. Strippers Are Workers, the group that advocated for the bill of rights, is calling for an amendment to close the loophole. Let’s do this. Sex worker rights are workers’ rights. 

Conservatives are going to have to find something else to campaign on this year, because even the Seattle Times’ Danny Westneat is going toe-to-toe with the Seattle Police Officer’s Guild to argue that crime really is down in Seattle, in a big way. As I’m sure we all know—because City Council won’t let us forget it—we hit a 30-year high for violent crime in 2022. But since then, homicide is down 50 percent, shootings 41 percent, car theft 20 percent, and robbery 36 percent. Mike Sloan, president of SPOG, is pissed that even the Seattle Times doesn’t believe his fearmongering nonsense anymore, so he did a whole segment on his YouTube show about “Danny Westnut,” complete with a picture of him with a lil’ acorn hat. Honestly, iconic. 

To Ease You Into Monday: Here’s a little Deep Sea Diver. I caught this one on KEXP this weekend, and it’s been in my head ever since. If you dig it, they’ll be at Showbox on May 17.