Thursday forecast: Good morning! ⛅ You’re in for another pretty nice day! After a foggy start, the sun should poke out around 11 am. You’ll see the sunniest hours between noon and 2 pm, with temperatures in the high 60. Then clouds will roll in and temperatures will drop to the lower 60s right around sunset a little after 6 pm. Enjoy, besties. 

GOTV: *Mariah Carey singing* It’s TIIIIiiiiIIIIMMEEee!! My dearest Seattle voters, check your mailboxes because your ballot is here! (Or it should be. If it's not there by Monday, call the elections department.) The 2023 election could totally change the balance of power in City Hall with a whopping seven City Council seats up for a vote. ThE sOuL oF sEaTtLe Is At StAke!!!

Do as we say: The Stranger Election Control Board spent months teasing out the differences between the candidates in every race. So we speak with AUTHORITY when we say we know exactly which candidates would do the least damage to our great city and county. We also studied up on the school board candidates so you didn’t have to—you’re welcome. So instead of voting for whoever has the coolest-sounding name, check out our legally binding endorsement package! Not the strongest reader? Here's a cheat sheet. 

Please thank us: We love some of you very much and we love writing our voter guide as a free resource to the public. Buuuuuuuut, if you wanna show your appreciation, here's where you can do that.  

Help for Gaza: 20 trucks of humanitarian aid such as food, water, and medicine could come to Gaza as soon as tomorrow. President Joe Biden said the US will spend $100 million to help Palestinians after paying for thousands of their deaths. The investment pales in comparison to the US’s historical financial relationship with Israel, of course. Since its inception, the US has poured more than $150 billion into Israel and tomorrow Congress could spend billions more. It probably would be cheaper—not to mention more humane—to call for a ceasefire rather than continuing to aid in genocide and then acting like the good guy when you send bandaids for bombing victims. 

Speaking of: Around the world, anti-war advocates and supporters for Palestinian freedom continue to call for an immediate ceasefire to save lives after more than 3,400 deaths in Gaza and 1,400 in Israel. Jewish Voice for Peace staged a protest in the lobby of Sen. Patty Murray’s office earlier this week, and over at the US Capitol, more pro-Palestinian protesters filled the Cannon Rotunda as shown below. 

Ceasefire now: As I reported yesterday, most of the Washington Congressional delegation seems uninterested in ending Israel’s punishing attacks and the slaughter of thousands of civilians in Gaza. Rep. Pramila Jayapal is the only one of Washington’s politicians in Congress to sign on to the ceasefire resolution. The handful of other Democrats calling for a ceasefire will face a big ole challenge in convincing their colleagues to show some human decency, as pro-war sentiment reigns supreme. To wit: the US vetoed a UN resolution condemning violence against civilians and calling for a humanitarian pause, PBS reports. 

!!!NOW PAY ATTENTION TO VIVIAN!!!

Bandcamp layoffs disproportionately affected the union: Songtradr, the music licensing company that acquired the awesome direct-to-consumer music marketplace from Fortnite publisher Epic Games last month, said it didn’t know anything about union membership when it axed half the company on Monday. That’s soooo weird, considering that CEO Paul Wiltshire RSVP’d to a meeting with the union’s bargaining unit a few days before the company laid them all off. The totals just look suspicious. Out of 67 people Songtradr laid off, 40 were union: including all eight on the bargaining unit, half the editorial team, 12/13 union-eligible support staff, and two-thirds of union-eligible engineers. C’mon.

Back to me :)

GUILTY: Former Trump attorney Sidney Powell pled guilty to reduced charges, making her the second defendant to plead guilty in Trump's election subversion case. Powell admitted her involvement in the breach of election systems in Coffee County, Georgia in an effort to overturn the will of the voters and steal the presidency from Joe Biden following the 2020 election. She got six years probation, and they slapped her with a $6,000 fine. Sounds like her lawyers cut a pretty good plea deal to me!

Tomato, tomato: Rightwing nut-job US Rep. Jim Jordan failed to win the election for Speaker of the House for a second time. In yesterday’s vote, 22 Republicans voted against him, which was even worse than his performance the day before. That’s gotta sting. This morning, Jordan said he'd back Rep. Patrick McHenry as interim Speaker until January, kicking the can down the road another mile. Here's that dweeb: 

Update: LOL, about an hour later: The party can't even agree to do the interim Speaker thing. Total chaos from these goons. 

DIMBY: Donuts in my backyard. 

Hold me, I’m scared: Last night, while courting a new friend on a Bumble BFF date, I walked down Pike Street. I was minding my own business, probably talking mad shit, when out of nowhere an enormous, hairy-legged spider rolled out from behind a corner. We jumped. We screamed. We cursed. And then we realized the big-ass arachnid was just a wiry Party City decoration strapped to a remote-control car operated by four people who smelt like weed. Enraged, we fled the scene, but after a few margaritas, I gathered the courage to confront the pranksters on my way home.

All fun and games: Carlos, the driver of the spider—who is named Charlotte, like Charlotte’s Web—said he’s not trying to terrorize anyone, he just likes to do a silly-goofy prank. One of his accomplices called it a religious experience since so many victims exclaim “Jesus fuck,” “Oh my god,” and “I just shit myself,” which sounds less related to a higher power. Carlos is a prankster vet with seven years of experience and what he called “seasonal scares.” Watch out for a remote control turkey in November and a flamingo in the summer. The crew asked that I wait and watch them scare more people, and to be honest, it was pretty fun to be on the other side of things. God forbid a man have hobbies! 

Shakeout: Time to stop, drop, and roll for earthquake readiness. If you know, you know. If you don't, then click here. 

Dan Savage: I’m watching RuPaul’s Drag Race reruns to relate to my new friend and guess who I saw? The Stranger’s own Dan Savage. He judged a mock debate between the queens, so it felt like a Stranger Election Control Board fever dream. Enjoy!