The National Guard Has Landed: US troops arrived in Washington DC last night on Trump’s orders to put a stop to “crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse” in a city where crime is at a 30-year low. According to known liar Karoline Leavitt, “…850 officers and agents were surged across the city. They made a total of 23 arrests, including multiple other contacts.” At least one of those arrests was for “fare evasion,” the most violent crime of all crimes. The subway literally cried. It was heartbreaking. Leavitt added that they will “relentlessly pursue and arrest every violent criminal in the district.” Remember that’s what they said about immigrants, too. But more than 70 percent of the tens of thousands of detainees arrested so far this year had NO CRIMINAL CONVICTIONS.
Here in the Other Washington: ICE arrests have dropped 25 percent between June and July 29 But according to the Seattle Times, “The 218 immigrants arrested in Washington in July still represent more than any other month but June since September 2023, which is as far back as the data goes.”
Speaking of Becoming a (Even More of a) Surveillance State at an Alarming Pace: On September 2 the Seattle City Council will consider a proposal to install more police cameras throughout the city. New cameras would be added to Capitol Hill around East Pike and Cal Anderson Park, the stadium district (in time for FIFA World Cup next year), and the area around Garfield High School. Mayor Harrell loves the idea; Mayor Harrell sucks.
The Numbers Prove He Sucks: The latest election results still show Katie Wilson triumphantly holding 50.71 percent of the vote in last week’s primaries. As for the rest of the Stranger’s endorsements: All but two candidates we endorsed are winning their races. (Why didn’t you listen to us about Kim-Khánh Văn, you ding-dongs?!?) Am I bragging? Yes.
Yet Another Horrifying Headline Related to Our Government’s Obsession with Other People’s Bodies: Gerika Mudra, an 18-year-old cis woman in Minnesota, is suing Buffalo Wild Wings for discrimination after a server allegedly harassed her in the women’s restroom. They would not let her leave until she “proved” her gender by unzipping her hoodie to show her breasts.
Trump Will Meet With Putin: The two are scheduled to meet at a US military base in Anchorage on Friday to discuss ending the war in Ukraine. Trump has reportedly said Russia will face “very severe” consequences if it doesn’t stop attacks. He said the same thing in January. And April. Today, Trump is also talking to Volodymyr Zelensky and other European leaders.
In Other Alaska News: A “glacial outburst” is “threatening significant flooding” in Juneau. This has happened every August for the past three years, with last year’s 15.99-foot flood surge damaging more than 100 homes. CNN confirms the consistent issue is “yet another consequence of climate change due to fossil fuel pollution.” Morons say, “No it isn’t.” Coincidentally, this Trump administration is deleting far more environmental data than the first one did.
One Last Trumpdate: President Idiot announced this year’s Kennedy Center Honorees and the list includes George Strait, Michael Crawford, Gloria Gaynor, Kiss and Sylvester Stallone. Honestly shocked that Big Balls didn’t make the cut.
ICYMI: On Friday night, a fire burned through the Get Nice Gallery and other studios and businesses in Ballard Commons on Market Street. Get Nice staff had just finished hanging a show that was supposed to open during Ballard Art Walk on Saturday. Most, if not all of the artwork in the building has been destroyed. Vivian McCall has the details here.
If You’re Looking for an Entertaining Read: Laura Loomer’s deposition in her suit against Bill Maher is full of gems and Anna Bower is sharing some highlights on Bluesky. (I will not use the word “skeet.”)
“What is your basis for saying she puts roast beef in her pockets and in her pants?” I don’t even know where to begin. You just have to read these two pages.
— Anna Bower (@annabower.bsky.social) August 12, 2025 at 4:59 PM
Related: Here’s a free, brilliant idea for the taking.
The first drag performer in Seattle to star in a staged reading of this court transcript will become a legend.
— Paul Constant (@paulconstant.com) August 12, 2025 at 9:06 PM
Wake Up, Babe, a New Ancient Whale Just Dropped: Scientists say they have uncovered a new species of whale by way of a 25-million-year-old fossil in Australia. The Janjucetus dullardi was “deceptively cute” (same) and “essentially a little whale with big eyes and a mouth full of sharp, slicing teeth.” Sounds neat!
So Did The Album News We Need: Hallelujah! This week, the big news we’ve all been waiting for was finally announced. We’re finally getting the new music we need, the new music we deserve, the new music we’ve been patiently waiting years for. That’s right, BLACK EYES ARE BACK! The Washington DC punk band will release Hostile Design on Dischord Records on October 11—it’s their first release since 2004’s Cough. I fucking love this band so much. I cannot wait. It was produced by Fugazi’s Ian Mackaye, engineered by Don Godwin, and this morning they gave us a taste with the song “Pestilence.”
Apropos of nothing in particular in Megan’s very fine Slog this morning…
I see that Trump is saying that, thanks to his big, beautiful tariffs, hundreds of billions of dollars will be pouring into our country. Let me try to run this through the “Orwellian dictator language translator.”
Assuming those numbers are correct, thanks to Trump’s big, beautiful tariffs, unaccountable big government will be parasitically sucking hundreds of billions of dollars out of the productive domestic private sector and out of the pockets of struggling American consumers. You know how, every time a new tax gets proposed in this state, the people who don’t like it call it regressive whether it’s actually regressive or not? Well, these tariffs are indirectly about as regressive a tax as you can get. The only thing that would be more regressive is a national sales tax.
Oh, and let’s also remind ourselves of one fact that the cowering media would just as well sweep under the rug. These tariffs are blatantly illegal and unconstitutional. Of course, our bought-and-paid-for Supreme Court will look the other way once the cases eventually reach it. Further evidence we have become a banana republic, just one that doesn’t grow its own bananas and where we’ll have to pay through the nose for them as a result.
Yay for Gloria Gaynor!
Imagine being so deranged you’d follow a person into the bathroom to harass them because you (incorrectly) think they’re trans. I mean aside from the multiple commenters here for whom that requires no imagination.
thirteen12 dear, I’ve told this story before, but several years back I was in a restroom in a restaurant in some small town in deep red eastern Oregon, minding my own business, when an elderly woman burst into the bathroom and made a beeline for a stall. I panicked for an instant, wondering if I had gone into the wrong restroom, then remembered I was standing at a urinal, and you usually don’t find those in a ladies room. She did her thing, I did mine, and amazingly enough, no one was killed or injured, and society did not collapse.
4: Why were you doing in the men’s room in the first place? Aren’t you a woman?
The people of DC deserve to feel safe in their city. Because the local government (Democrat run) has failed to ensure public safety, Trump is obligated to intervene.
I am personally quite excited for ICE to place more focus on Washington State considering we have made the ridiculously stupid decision to remain a “sanctuary” for illegal immigrants. There is no sanctuary, anywhere, in Trump’s America.
Remember when people rarely, if ever, suspected someone of the opposite sex was using the incorrect restroom? Those were rational times. Then the activists had to get involved, and now, women especially, can never quite feel safe in the restroom. What a shame.
@5 is about to discover the concept that a forum screen name and avatar picture may not 100% represent the person in real life. A mind is going to be blown.
Incredible to think people have deputized themselves as public bathroom genital inspectors fully believing other people minding their own business are the problem. Just by the raw numbers the people most affected by this mass hysteria will be cisgender women who aren’t sufficiently effeminate for some people, who think they are protecting women by harassing them. Transphobia breaks brains.
“unaccountable big government will be parasitically sucking hundreds of billions of dollars out of the productive domestic private sector and out of the pockets of struggling American consumers. You know how, every time a new tax gets proposed in this state, the people who don’t like it call it regressive whether it’s actually regressive or not”
Great description of the CCA
@6 Those were indeed rational times, before the hysteria that the right created around “women’s safety” in the restroom and trans people were more or less free to do as they liked in relative anonymity. Hint: if the Republican Party actually cared about women’s safety, they wouldn’t have nominated a man who was held responsible for sexually assaulting a woman in a dressing room. Second hint: sexual assaults by trans people in restrooms are vanishingly rare. If you actually wanted to do something about sexual assault, you’d focus on about a dozen other places first.
@weregettingalittleTiredofallyouNazis
your Misinformation Campaign is Duly noted:
from The Intercept:
Trump’s Trial Run for a Police State
President Trump’s “federalization” of Washington, D.C.,
is a test of the limits of his power — and,
by extension, of our democracy.
The Justice Department announced in January that violent crime in D.C. hit a 30-year low in 2024. So far this year, it’s down 26 percent from that.
[“Crime Wave”? WHAT fucking CRIME WAVE?’]
This, in other words, is a curious time for the president to declare that the nation’s capital is a violent cesspool that demands the sort of crime-fighting expertise that only a 79-year-old man who fetishizes dictators and whose entire worldview is perpetually stuck in the 1980s can provide.
The motivation for Donald Trump’s plan
to “federalize” Washington, D.C., is same as
his motivation for sending active-duty troops
into Los Angeles, deporting people to the CECOT
torture prison in El Salvador, his politicization of the
Department of Justice, and nearly
every other authoritarian over-
reach of the last six months.
He is testing the limits of his power — and, by extension, of our democracy.
He’s feeling out what the Supreme Court,
Congress, and the public will
let him get away with.
And so far, he’s been able to do what he pleases.
–by Radley Balko, August 11 2025
oodles:
https://theintercept.com/2025/08/11/trump-washington-dc-federalization-national-guard-troops/
@weregettingalittleTiredofallyouNazis
your reichwing
Disinformation Campaign
is Beyond getting tedious & tiresome
Sexual assaults by transgender individuals in women’s restrooms may be extremely rare.
Which is why it’s so “surprising” that a girl was raped by a transgender student in a Loudon County Schools restroom so quickly after the district approved a plan allowing transgender individuals to use the restroom of their choosing.
That transgender student is back to identifying as male by the way. I guess detransition is a thing.
District13refugee @9, sure, feel free to change the topic. And to change the topic to something which the rest of us who don’t live in the fever swamps have never heard of, although I’m sure that, whatever it is, I can trust your numbers and it really does add up to hundreds of billions of dollars.
Tell you what, though, if you have nothing else add about our new king’s one-man protection racket and one-man sabotage operation against American industry and the American consumer, then perhaps we can leave it at that.
@13 – you haven’t heard of Inslee’s dumb ass tax that now has Washington citizens paying $1.27 more per gallon of gas than the National average?
It’s a highly regressive tax. @9 was correct to use it as an example.
@1 & 13: Shut up, Tensorna.
@12 I did say vanishingly rare, not never. But anyway. Nice job. You found one. Now report on how many women and girls worldwide are raped at school by cis students and teachers. Compare the numbers. And see which one is maybe the bigger issue? You might even learn something today!
@13 It’s not changing the topic. My point is progressives rail against the tariffs as increasing costs while having no measurable benefit and rightly so, its poor policy. In the next breadth though they will defend the value of the CCA when in reality its essentially doing the same things. I feel like if you support the CCA (as this blog has continually done) then you really don’t have cause to complain about the tariffs. The only true difference is political.
Why the paranoia over public surveillance cameras in heavily trafficked areas? New Yorkers don’t complain about it in Manhattan. We need to get real – things like bombs and mass killings do occur.
District13refugee @17, where do you see me defending anything? I’m just not familiar with the initials CCA.
But as long as you feel compelled to out my unstated hypocrisy, let me ask, how do you feel about Trump’s tariffs?
@18 I suppose if you implicitly trust all government actors to only use the expanded surveillance in prosocial ways then it’s no problem. So anyone who either is a child or has the mind of one shouldn’t be the least bit worried.
@19 The CCA is the Climate Commitment Act that Inslee and the legislature passed in 2021. I have no idea whether you support it, I was merely responding to your post about tariffs. These pages have been critical of the tariffs for the reasons you noted however when it comes to the CCA the same logic doesn’t seem to apply. I always think its interesting when the judgement of whether something is well intended or not is based solely on political ideaology (see the gerrymandering debate and even the notes today about the police cameras)
Fwiw I think the tariffs are poor policy and are indicative of someone who is unable to negotiate without using strong arm tactics. The damage they will do with both our trade partners and the overall economy well outweigh whatever concessions Trump may wring out of other countries.
Plenty of examples of people complaining about police surveillance cameras in nyc if you give it a google
@22: You got me. I failed to do a statistical analysis first. Go pat yourself on the back!
@24, You don’t need statistics to prove a number isn’t zero, you just need to take 2 seconds to check before declaring zero is the true value, but you should be old enough to know there has always been a debate over the balance between public safety and our right to privacy, and “people in manhattan don’t care so you shouldn’t either” isn’t a compelling argument even if it were true.
The boy in the skirt at the center of the Loudon County debacle didn’t identify as trans, he just wore skirts, which I think is well within his 1st Amendment rights of self expression. He raped a girl in the bathroom and the school which had just established a policy for trans students tried to cover up the rape and transferred the boy to another school where he attempted another rape. The school attempted to cover up the rape, as that would have brought the new trans policy under scrutiny that they were not prepared to deal with, which was just a huge progressive policy failure.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/05/magazine/loudoun-county-bathroom-sexual-assault.html
As far as public restrooms go, that’s got to be pretty much left to the honor system. In Florida, where they banned trans from opposite sex restrooms. A trans girl announced she was going to use the ladies’s room at the state capitol, went and did her business, got arrested for it and the prosecutor’s office declined to press charges. So it doesn’t look like they really meant it, when push comes to shove.
If someone is determined enough to assault women in the bathroom they don’t need to change their gender. Public bathrooms are risky is because they give people privacy in public spaces and you don’t need to self-identify as a woman or even look like one to hide in a ladies room stall.
District13refugee @21, thank you for the serious answer. I do have to ding you on your original response @9 because we ain’t talking hundreds of billions of dollars here. And sure, I don’t want to dismiss the actual cost to drivers and consumers, whatever that actually is.
I’m glad to see we agree about the tariffs.
As for Inslee’s carbon market legislation, I’m not a big fan. It’s sort of a revenue source in search of programs to spend the money on. And I doubt that most of those programs would pass muster if they didn’t have the revenue source tied to them. If you were to do this at the state level, I would just as well see a revenue-neutral carbon tax where households receive a rebate check. But even then, I don’t believe the state level is the right place to try to wean ourselves off fossil fuels. The right place is the federal level, and good luck with that!
@24: You’re the one belaboring what I acknowledged. But you could comment whether or not you think it’s a good idea – which would be more interesting.
@28, You didn’t acknowledge anything though, you just made up a “fact” to minimize people’s concerns about government surveillance. I just pointed out that your premise was false, that’s all.
@29: Thank you for rubbing it in. I clearly needed it. Touché my dear.
Anytime
@31: And with that, you get the last word. You insufferable bore.
@25 The real policy failure is arguably that the school tried to cover up two rapes/attempted rapes and then tried to blame their trans bathroom policy.
Zangief cosplayer?? Moscow Marjorie strikes again!
@25: Anyone who has ever gone through high school should know that all adolescent males, including male to female transgender, pre-op or post, are way too immature to handle transitioning and must be kept out for girl’s spaces. Another reason for not transitioning kids.
TL/DR: Boys are scum.
@35, Speak for yourself, bro. I don’t doubt you were awful as a boy but most of us managed to make it through high school without sexually assaulting anyone. You can make puberty blockers illegal but you will not stop a boy bent on assaulting a girl from doing so, in or out of the girls room. This has nothing to do with trans kids.
@36: Well, “bro”, you’re right – no such thing as a trans kid so it doesn’t have anything to do with it. Keeping all penises out of girls locker and bathrooms is a common sense prevention measure from preventing a boy from assaulting a girl. High school is an age where such measures are warranted. College and universities are a different discussion.
skies of blue dear, you’re raining on Our Dear WereBackBaby’s hysteria. People with dull lives who consume too much media often get worked up about things that are improbable to those of us who engage with the world. It helps them pass the time.
Phoebe dear, you people are always fretting over the “specter” of trans girls in girls’s locker rooms, but what about the safety of trans boys in boy’s locker rooms? Why is that?
@37, Trans kids don’t need your approval to exist, they just do, but sexual assault is overwhelmingly committed by cisgender men and boys, including the case referenced earlier. Mind you the news story that started this whole conversation was of a cisgender woman having to expose her breasts to a bar employee in the women’s room, but you guys turned this into a soapbox to accuse trans people of being sexual predators, even though you belong to the demographic who commit the most sex crimes. You clearly don’t give a shit about women or protecting their spaces, you just hate trans people.
@37 so you think people exist who would disregard the law (and any sense of morality) to commit sexual assault, but would be too intimidated to enter the wrong bathroom? Like in their mind the law against rape is more of a suggestion but a law about which bathroom to use now that’s serious. You think that?
@39: Obviously that scenario is not as prevalent. Another reason to not accommodate trans in high schools.
@41: High school is too early for faculty and students to deal with a trans policy especially when boys’ little head does the thinking for the big head. Rapes can occur anywhere but society and schools can mitigate opportunities by not allowing any males (including MTF) in girls’ spaces. It’s that simple.
@42 “Rapes can occur anywhere but society and schools can mitigate opportunities by not allowing any males (including MTF) in girls’ spaces”
Again, you really think someone willing to commit a sexual assault, which is already illegal, would not be willing to enter a restroom the school says they’re not supposed to?
Everyone that thinks that trans people potentially raping people is an issue need to watch the movie Spotlight and then worry about trans people ever again.
Also worrying about the possibility of men dressing as women to potentially rape someone in a bathroom (because rapists totally care if the little sign outside the bathroom says they’re allowed to come in or not, right?) while there’s literally a list of child molesters sitting on the presidents desk that he won’t release because he’s fucking on it is crazy work. Congrats.
@43: Not just about assault. It’s also about keeping girls protected from intimidation and curiosity in locker rooms and bathrooms. If boys are not supposed to enter girls spaces, then the school has the correct policy. If the high school allows boys in girls spaces, that’s the problem.
@42, The same mass hysteria driving you to panic over trans girls and women doing things you’ve only imagined is driving other people to harass and assault cis women in restrooms. Meanwhile rapists will not be deterred by which sign is on the restroom door. How do you not understand that you’re the problem?
@45: I find the conflation that it doesn’t matter because what Trump is doing — to be contorted and meaningless.
@46 it’s not at all about assault, that’s my point. The idea that bathroom use rules are an important or effective deterrent to sexual assault is absurd on its face. Anyone who tries to make that argument destroys their own credibility.
barth likes to serve purple kool-aid to children in public parks and public bathrooms. barth rhymes with shroomer.