Primary results are in: On election night in Washington, 85.6% of Democratic primary votes went to Biden while 7.5% of ballots went to uncommitted delegates. In King County, 10% of people voted uncommitted. In the Republican race, Donald Trump picked up 74% of votes. Nikki Haley, who dropped out of the race but was still on the ballot, is pulling 22%.Â
Whatâs the national picture: The dreaded general election rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump that we all saw coming is on. With a victory in Georgia, Biden secured a critical mass of delegates to the Democratic National Convention. Meanwhile, Trump scooped up the last of what he needed from the Republicans in our great state.
Uncommitted: The movement to send a message to Biden about his policies in Gaza surpassed its goal in Washington last night. Activists were hoping for 12,000 votes, but at least 48,000 people voted uncommitted so far. The results arenât final, and we canât say for sure how these results will change. We should have firmer numbers by Friday. Nationally, 101,000 Michigan voters, 10,000 Tennesseans, 50,000 Coloradans, 59,000 in Massachusetts, 88,000 North Carolinians, and 1,500 (29.1%) of Hawaiian Democratic primary voters cast their ballots for uncommitted delegates.
Tanya Woo launches City Council campaign: Tanya Woo has announced a bid to keep her seat two months after the Seattle City Council appointed her to fill the one Teresa Mosqueda left behind. No one has yet filed to run against her in the November special election, so get on that, candidates. Hannah will have more on this today.Â
Mayor Bruce Harrell wants to hear from One Seattle: Well, he wants to hear from 250 people about public safety issuesâor, he did. Harrellâs public safety meeting hit capacity at 10:21 last night shortly after he announced the meeting to the public. Ashley says there werenât as many open seats as there could have been because the Mayor sent out the invite to all the pro-cop groups and advisory councils before he informed the rest of us. Update, 10:45 am: The form opened back up again this moring.Â
Mayor Bruce Harrell plans to hold a public safety forum at 6 pm Thursday at the downtown library. Council Member Maritza Rivera just sent out information regarding registering for the event. Heres the form to register.https://t.co/NUhw2rWIXs pic.twitter.com/FeJyUFm55Y
â Ashley Nerbovig (@AshleyNerbovig) March 13, 2024
Trans former Boeing mechanic sues company for harassment, discrimination: I wrote about Rachel Rasmussen, who claims she endured years of belittlement and mistreatment while the company looked the other way. Sheâd worked at Boeing for almost 20 years before she came out. Read more about it here.
F-R-E-E: Yesterday the Internal Revenue Service announced a Direct File pilot in 12 states including Washington. The process costs exactly zero dollars if youâve got a relatively simple tax return (sorry 1099ers), make under $200,000 (not sorry), and didnât get your health insurance from HealthCare.gov (sorry, again). You can check your eligibility here. The pilot has its limitations, but it's still cool, because in the past, Intuit spent millions of lobbying dollars to prevent the IRS from offering its own tax filing service.
The IRS free direct file program launches TODAY, and it could save Americans $23 billion.
â More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) March 12, 2024
At full capacity it could save the average person $160 in filing fees and hours of their time every year.
It's now available to 18 million people across 12 states.https://t.co/W3Xpadrsvo
Washington wants to clear human remains backlog: At the recommendation of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People Task Force, Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced $500,000 in funding to identify the stateâs 163 unidentified human remains, most of which lie with the King County Medical Examiner. A 2023 report from the task force found agencies may have to wait 18 months for results because of the significant backlog. The funding could help families get answers about their loved ones sooner.
House Republicans donât want to spend time with each other: A bunch of them are planning to skip out on a House GOP retreat at Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia this week because they think the location sucks and theyâre still pissed about the speakership drama. You know, I canât blame them. I wouldnât want to spend time with them either.Â
Clown 4 Clown: Vaccine skeptic and Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. asked two dumb guysâthe contrarian NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers and former Minnesota Governor and wrestler Jesse Venturaâto be his running mate on the independent ticket this November. Theyâre both into it. Kennedy had reportedly also asked Rand Paul, Tulsi Gabbard, and Andrew Yang, but they all turned him down. This may or may not be a hint, but the New York Times reported that someone registered the domain kennedyrodgers.com on GoDaddy last week.Â
Neil Young is coming back to Spotify: A little over two years ago, Young pulled all his music off Spotify, ruining so many playlists, in protest of the streaming service serving then as the exclusive home of the vaccine misinformation-spewing podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience. But that exclusivity agreement just ended, so heâs decided to return. In his post to fans, he told the company it should still improve its crappy low-res streaming quality.
Federal judge in Texas blocks labor rule: The new rule from the National Labor Relations Board would have made forming unions at big corporations easier for workers. The rule would have changed standards for when two companies are considered âjoint employers.â What does that mean? Under the current rules, a company like McDonalds wouldnât be considered a joint employer for employees at its many, many franchises. But the new rule, which was set to go into effect Monday, defined companies as joint employers if they could control, directly or indirectly, any condition of employment like wages, benefits, scheduling, and hiring.
Too little, too late: The Alaska Airlines 737 with the flyaway door plug and missing bolts was scheduled for maintenance the day of its fateful voyage, the airline said Tuesday. Engineers and technicians still had no idea what was going to happen. They were worried about separate problems with the planeâs pressurization system, which weren't pressing enough to take it out of service immediately. The NTSB announced Tuesday that it would hold an investigative hearing about the door plug incident in August.
The Red Power Rangerâs ⊠Hitler swag? Austin St. John, who played the original Red Ranger on Mighty Morphinâ Power Rangers, is launching a clothing line featuring quotes from historical "warriors" good and bad, including Adolf Hitler. On the podcast Toonâd In With Jim Cummings he said, âHitler was, you know, a demon on steroids, but he had some pretty good one-liners.âÂ
TikTok ban passes House: The bill gives TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance a choice between divesting the US assets of its social media network or facing a national ban. The legislation passed with bipartisan support, 352-65. Those voting against it cited free speech concerns. Many Senators have not made up their minds on the bill, but President Joe Biden said he'd sign it. Nothing says "elect me" like banning an app young people love a lot, or depend on for their income.