Democrats shouldn't be so pouty when we hear constructive criticism from our own. It's a bad look.

Man. Podcasts … Twitch … giant rural billboards … Conservatives have all the coolest media right now! 😖

You guys should buy the sign then run a weekly contest for readers suggestions that readers can up vote on and then put up which ever one wins each week.

OH, oh, and also, if you buy the sign, paint makeup on Uncle Sam so he is in drag :)

@4

'Auntie Sam'?
how 'bout a
Black unc-
lesam?

how
bout a
flaming
Tesla sur-
rounded by
homeless roast-
weiners? and how

You all feeling OK at The Stranger? You missed one of your favorite themes:

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/seattle-police-officer-reportedly-shoots-person-in-delridge-neighborhood/

That, and you all are missing your daily post about Gaza.

Charles also missed a post about his favorite topic. People getting successful so that life costs more more those that serve them their coffee and take-out.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/median-earnings-for-seattle-full-time-workers-passes-100000/

Somebody has to deal with going to the sign and changing the letters every week and I don't think anyone at The Stranger is sufficiently motivated to do that.

So The Stranger is now officially against health department inspections? Did they get bought by Bobby Kennedy Jr?

@1 the question is whether it's constructive at all. I say no, or at the very least not to make it public.

Someone ought to make an AI art image of AOC as Princess Leia strangling Jabba the Trumsk with her chains.

@10 that horse left the barn when they spray painted his house and Jayapal said nothing. Given she called the police when a similar incident happened at her personal residence you would expect she would condemn such actions.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/man-arrested-for-allegedly-threatening-to-kill-u-s-rep-pramila-jayapal-released-from-jail/

@9 Right? This is a couple Slogs now where apparently shutting down unlicensed/unpermitted food vendors is a bad thing.

If Starbucks had similar violations, Charles would be calling for the company to be shut down.

It’s fucking odd… these guys don’t even know what they stand for anymore. “We want housing!!! Oh not if Sarah is for it or someone makes money off it.” “We want business regulations!!! Oh, not if it involves my favorite food truck skirting health laws!”

@12 spray painting a garage is not comparable to threatening to kill someone while armed with a gun, and as far as I can tell Smith didn't comment on that incident either. But in any event I'm saying publicly airing the party's dirty laundry is a poor strategic decision--it makes them look like they don't know what they're doing. Have these debates behind the scenes.

The Uncle Sam billboard has long been detached from reality (has anyone figured out what papers are supposedly required for buying groceries?) But as an Evergreen grad, I did appreciate the irony of these postcards that were sold for many years.

https://olywadaysofchange.org/of-eco-terrorists-and-homos-biography-of-a-photo-by-anna-schlecht/

I like your apt Eurythmics metaphor, Charles. Here Comes the Rain Again--indeed. Nicely done! :)

@9 Catalina Vel-DuRay: I was wondering about that, too.

Happy Spring Equinox, everybody!
Hopefully we don't all burn up this summer.

anti-genociders
'eco-terrorists'
tesla burners

gonna get
gitmo'd?

Appeasement
won't Work.

Idk for certain but i assume seattle progressives didn’t tell kamala harris to make dick cheney’s daughter’s endorsement the centerpiece of her campaign

The dilemma for the democrats at the moment is their coalition isn’t big enough to drive away moderates who get turned off by the things Smith mentioned, nor is it big enough to lose the progressive wing and still succeed. More dems seem to be making calculated bets (e.g. Newsom) that Trump’s antics will make it easier for them to draw away enough republicans if they can sufficiently distance the party from the progressive flank to make up for base losses to try to recapture the Biden coalition. Not sure that will work without just whack a moleing some voters for others. They do have a point that there doesn’t seem to be a “centrist” party anymore, the Republicans obviously aren’t and the Dems are fracturing.

Rep. Adam Smith has repped that district since the '90s, with it becoming more diverse every year. No matter how much local progressives hate him for calling out their failures, he's not going anywhere. For next year's election, I boldly predict the Stranger will endorse for his opponent another single-issue, no-hope, no-experience, sketchy-background candidate with almost no base of local support.

@9, @13: Yes, honest businesses that actually abide by the health code and spend money on permits should have to compete with scofflaws who will soon give someone (likely plenty of someones) food poisoning. As @13 noted, if this had been about a Seattle-born company which provides great pay and benefits, the Stranger would demand their immediate closure.

"It’s fucking odd… these guys don’t even know what they stand for anymore."

Lawbreaking. It's their only consistent theme now. They started by supporting illegal tents, filth, and garbage everywhere, then supported threatening local politicians' families, moved on to random freeway shutdowns (Hungry Babies for Palestine!), and now openly advocate for dirty food. Next up: those fascists painting crosswalks outside schools.

@20 I'd say the dilemma for the Democrats is a critical mass of their power brokers don't want to lean into working class economics so instead they went all in on idpol and tokenism--like Biden explicitly choosing a Black female VP--as their brand. Unfortunately it turned out almost nobody in the country is enthused about woke capitalism, but they still don't want to come off the capitalism part so too many of them are overly focused on the woke part as The Reason they lost.

moving to the 'middle'
no longer (if it Ever)
works -- corporate*
Dems cannot keep
up with the Fascists.

speaking of
Shortfalls:

Senate Democrats
unveil revenue package,
propose reducing sales tax to
balance Washington State’s tax code

The multifaceted plan has five elements, including a tax on high value financial assets that would only be paid by about 4,300 wealthy Washingtonians and a removal of the cap on employer payroll taxes.

It's the most comprehensive plan to be put on the table by the leadership of a legislative majority in a generation.

https://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2025/03/senate-democrats-unveil-revenue-package-propose-reducing-sales-tax-to-balance-washington-states-tax-code.html

*bust 'citizens
united' or
Bust.

“ I never cared about what rural yo-yos in bumfuck lord knows where had to say about ‘the land of the free’.”

The honesty is refreshing, if deeply misguided politically. May I kindly suggest, that your “Jahari window” is a bit clouded.

@14: "Have these debates behind the scenes" comes across as being quite aloof and condescending to voters and something the DNC would say.

@6 - that was clearly suicide by cop. They tried to de-escalate things and he should've just dropped the knife.

Well I enjoyed all of your Slog Charles. Thank you and toast to you s'moar as we roast them by the swastikar fires!!!
Kristo.... Thx for the link on tax reform props.

Critics of Seattle Brand of Liberalism: "Unfortunately the stridency and perceived elitism of the Progressive Wing of the Democratic Party has made their brand unpalatable to the voters they need to advance any part of their agenda, or indeed to stave off the wholesale rollback of the last century of progress."
Seattle Liberal : "Fuck those yokels! Nobody cares what they think or how they vote."

Adam Smith, what a putz: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/25/israel-gaza-ceasefire-adam-smith

but
we're
gonna
Need the
locos' & locals'
very Pointy pitchforks.

&
may
bannon
taKe Down
MUX. pay-per-view

holograms of
torching
teslas

saturate the
Landscape

@15: the "papers to buy groceries" is a reference to Covid vaccine cards, from back when librul fascists were oppressing real 'Mercians with our comnist soshlyst nazi mandates; just ask Were Back Baby.

TS can't afford 2.5 million bucks for that sign. besides, any librul message is going to get vandalized post-haste at the fucking rush rd. exit.

28 people are rejecting the premise that the “seattle brand of liberalism” informed the harris campaign because there is zero evidence in support of this claim

@30

no
make
that the
Nitescape

use a Real kar
project around it

no one
Dies. No
One goes to
Guantanamo

fifty thousand
actually Patriotic
Americans standing
Up for the US of fucking A

even if our
Feckless
Dems
Will
not

@27
da Nada ~it's
a news site right?

Charles can be forgiven for his fascination with a rural billboard - being of perhaps the last generation that thought festooning telephone poles with "Free Mumia" billongs outside boho indie coffee houses was effective agitprop.

oops!
hey wormmy
does @33 mean
I'm a pootin' supporter?

if
Anyone'd
"know" it'd be y.o.u.

Charles Mudede. He mad. He mad at Adam Smith. He mad at those yokels. He mad at gawd knows who all. He mad, mad, mad. He don’t give a fuck about anybody else. He didn’t get his unicorn. He stand there waving his shit sammitch around like it’s a goddamn Purple Heart. Now we all gotta bite. He clamp his eyes and shout ‘Fuck y’all!” Well, fuck that Chuck. They/them got they ass kicked and all the rest of ours with ‘em. Who’da guessed? Joe Hardhat, every mother-lovin’ one, said fuck y’all, too. And more Joes than Chucks handing out those fucks. And Chuck? He don’t care. Hoo boy! It’s Chuck ’s way or the MAGA way. Thanks, Mr. Mudede, and The Stranger, too, for the pure unwavering light of your laser beam focus and the purity of the few, the righteous few, huddled, mad, in its lonely glow. And now … here’s Ezra Klein with David Shor discussing the matter like actual adults:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/18/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-david-shor.html

I didn’t realize there was such a thing as big government anarchism but clearly this is where the SLOG writers are headed. We don’t need permits, car tabs, enforcement of most kinds (fares, parking, public drug use) - yet we still need local and state governments to take the place of federal offerings (like universal health care).

@13 nailed it

And aside, since when does Charles come across as an ai generated mean girl impersonator - I think someone applied the wrong contribution to this post (I refuse to believe Charles wrote this drivel).

You be mad, cause you see me in the drop-top Jag

Gee, Charles. Maybe Adam Smith took a walk down Broadway and saw all the fentanyl addicts who don't give a shit about this city, or anything. Maybe he saw tents in Cal Anderson Park put up by people who know they're not supposed to be there. Maybe he remembers the ridiculous Black Live Matters garden, or wonders why there is a Black Lives Matter banner in the middle of Pine St. that nobody can read except by drone. Maybe he wonders what people like Charles Mudede are smoking.

@39 everyone look how triggered this guy is by "Black Lives Matter" being written in the street, what a snowflake!

Adam Smith took a walk in central Seattle neighborhoods, saw all the poverty and despair, and said to himself: "Instead of holding neoliberal economics responsible, I'll just conveniently cast blame at the social justice movements who caused none of it." That would be typical of Mr. Smith.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Puts Her Own Spin on
Bernie Sanders’s Pitch

The two progressive leaders, one young and one old, are touring Western cities with a similar message but a key difference in how they sell it.

“The worst addiction in this country today is the greed of oligarchy,” he told supporters on Thursday. “They are like heroin addicts — they need more and more and more.

And if they have to destroy Social Security and Medicaid to get what they want, that is what they will do.”

Even as Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has fired up the American left over the past decade, his speeches have the flavor of a sociology lesson. He rarely makes himself the main character.

Which is why it is striking how differently the young leader often seen as his successor, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, approaches politics.

As she kicked off a Western tour with Mr. Sanders on Thursday in North Las Vegas, Nev., she introduced herself by name — which he never does — and used her experience waitressing to explain her politics to a crowd of several thousand people.

“I don’t believe in health care, labor and human dignity because I’m a Marxist — I believe it because I was a waitress,” she said.

“Because I worked double shifts to keep the lights on and because on my worst day, I know what it feels like to feel left behind. And I know that we don’t have to live like this.”

Mr. Sanders, by contrast, delivered a version of the same speech he has given since before Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was born, railing against corporate greed.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez understands the power of placing herself in her audience’s shoes. On Thursday, she spoke of feeling helpless in the face of swirling personal and national chaos.

She even went a step further, borrowing a tactic patented by President Trump to portray a political attack on her as a broadside against her supporters.

Under a spring sun hot enough to disable cellphones, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez told a crowd dressed in vintage Sanders campaign gear about a recent television appearance by one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers.

She recalled the lawyer describing her as a mere bartender without the sufficient life experience to have important input on national affairs.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez declared that the slight against her intelligence was in fact a public dismissal of the brainpower of all working-class people.

“She isn’t just talking about me here. She’s talking about you — she is talking about all of us,” she said.

“Imagine what it means for our country that the president’s own lawyer cannot even conceive of a working-class person being intelligent simply because of the job that they have.”

--by Reid J. Epstein; March 20, 2025

oodles;
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/20/us/politics/aoc-bernie-sanders-vegas-denver.html

You could do a go fund me to raise the money to buy that thing and if you promise to drag-a-tise uncle sam I am sure you could raise enough from readers. Count me in for the first $100. It would be so cool!

@19: "Idk for certain but i assume seattle progressives didn’t tell kamala harris to make dick cheney’s daughter’s endorsement the centerpiece of her campaign"

So, having Cheney's endorsement drove the Abandon Harris movement? Good to know!

@41: Adam Smith knows that while economic policies cover the entire state of Washington, the tents, needles, filth, and garbage concentrate in the place with the longest exposure to progressive policies.

https://youtu.be/6Uf2XxVjUqo?feature=shared

@44 "the tents, needles, filth, and garbage concentrate in the place with the longest exposure to progressive policies"

Spoken like a dedicated Jason Rantz listener. What does Horseshoe Theory say about that?

@46: I have never listened to Jason Rantz, although I've been told he lives up to his surname rather overwell.

I have, however, lived in Seattle, and with my own eyes watched it go from a paradise in 2015 to a festival of "tents, needles, filth, and garbage," in the years after that. And all that while, the Stranger crowed that progressive policies and politicians made everything better. So you might want to take your complaints to the Stranger, not Mr. Rantz.

It's awfully fucking rich reading Thirteen12 @10 say that Adam Smith -- whose goal is to elect more Democrats and see Republicans lose -- should keep his criticism private, when at the same time those who loudly and repeatedly protested Biden and Harris in public -- whose goal was to elect more Republicans and see Democrats lose -- should be supported. Your only consistent operating principle is doing everything in your power to see Democrats lose and Republicans win.

Just say you support Trump and the GOP already and stop wasting all our time.

@48 an elected official and party member needs to consider optics and strategy when making public statements to a much greater extent than do (if at all) regular people. I thought this would be obvious.

@47 if you really don't listen to conservative media it's pretty wild you came up with the "crime ridden Democrat cities" narrative all on your own independently. Small minds think alike I suppose.

"... those who loudly and repeatedly protested Biden and Harris in public -- whose goal was to elect more Republicans and see Democrats lose... " --@Bax

bingo.
when the
'democratic'
national committee
annonints their corporate
centrists, desperate to keep up
in their suicidal Race to the Abyss

we must keep our
Protestations Private
and stand Lockstep with
the Corporateers. or get Fascism.

we can either END
'Citizens United'
or have Democ-
racy. but the 2
Cannot co-
Exist.

@49: As I didn't use the term, "crime ridden Democrat cities," there's no need for you to fail so painfully hard in finding 'my' source for it. I merely noted what I had seen with my own eyes, walking within downtown Seattle, and in the Seattle neighborhoods in which I lived -- and recalled what the Stranger had written about it.

Furthermore, I didn't even use the word "Democrat", I blamed Seattle's progressives. Some may also be Democrats, but some are not. During the time I mentioned, the loudest of Seattle's progressives openly hated the Democrats, called them corporate whores and sellouts, and generally refused to work with them. See @50 for an example. (I'd give the name of a prominent Seattle progressive politician from back then, but I don't want to make you cry.)

"... an elected official and party member needs to consider optics and strategy when making public statements to a much greater extent than do (if at all) regular people."

Even if both true and relevant, none of that absolves Seattle's progressives of having "... loudly and repeatedly protested Biden and Harris in public," knowing that this could only help Republicans win.

I don't suppose anyone told the Seattle Times that their conservative brand is supposed to be ANTI-regulations. Frank's clearly getting Alzheimers.

@51 you used slightly different words to make the exact same argument as conservative media ideologues. Emphasis on "to make the exact same argument as conservative media ideologues."

@53: Well, I was just making observations about Seattle. If my observations remind you of "arguments" I've never heard, made by "conservative media ideologues" I know nothing about, then I'd say this is more of an issue with your perception, rather than with my observations.

I'll add that your repeated claims to knowledge of the "arguments" made by the aptly-named Mr. Rantz, and other "conservative media ideologues," do nothing to refute Bax' assertions @48.

@54 well, setting aside for the moment that you make the exact same argument as braindead conservative shock jocks, can you explain why homelessness has increased since Harrell, Davison, et al took power? Does this not indicate that your preferred policies are actually worse in this regard?

https://kcrha.org/community-data/king-county-point-in-time-count/

@55: "...make the exact same argument as braindead conservative shock jocks..."

If they happen to agree with my observations of Seattle, well, good for them, especially as they don't seem to be of the type to base arguments upon real-world observations. (Why an alleged Seattle progressive knows so much about right-wing propagandists remains a question better answered by Bax @48 than by anyone else in this thread.)

"...can you explain why homelessness has increased since Harrell, Davison, et al took power?"

Sure, that's easy. As noted at your link, the method of counting changed for the 2022 and 2024 counts:

"Prior to 2022, the unsheltered PIT was conducted by volunteers one night in January, using a census and survey. The PIT is widely understood to be an undercount, especially as it represents a single night rather than a full year."

[...]

"For the 2024 unsheltered PIT, KCRHA gathered data from January 22 – February 2, 2024, and then worked with an expert statistician at the University of Washington to advise on sampling design and statistical modeling. The sheltered count was pulled from the Homelessness Management Information system (HMIS) data on January 25, 2024."

More extensive survey of the homeless population, later augmented by expert analysis, gave a more accurate picture of homelessness. We can only wonder how much larger the homeless population in the years prior to 2020 would have been, if counted with modern methods.

@56 but there was a 26% increase from 2022 to 2024. So in just two years of "moderate" rule the number of unhoused Seattleites increased dramatically. Can you explain that?

'Can you explain that?'

you Kidding?
there's Nothing
the Wormtongue
can Not mansplain.

@57: Did you simply fail to read the page you’d cited, or did you fail to understand it? The counting method changed between those two years. Once again, the 2024 count differed from all previous counts by both length of time spent collecting data, and sophistication in analyzing said data. The simplest explanation for the increase is the new counting method found more persons who had already been there, all along.

@59 from the website:

"Prior to 2022, the unsheltered PIT was conducted by volunteers one night in January, using a census and survey. The PIT is widely understood to be an undercount, especially as it represents a single night rather than a full year.

The KCRHA received approval from HUD to conduct the 2024 unsheltered count using a methodology called Respondent Driven Sampling (RDS). This methodology is consistent with the 2022 PIT Count."

Read and reread that last sentence as many times as you need.

@60: Sure. What part of '"consistent with,' does not mean, "exactly the same,"' have you a problem comprehending? The methodology for all of the counts required surveyors to go out and find homeless persons. Later surveys spent more nights counting, thus increasing the chances they will find more homeless persons. The page tells you that explicitly: "For the 2024 unsheltered PIT, KCRHA gathered data from January 22 – February 2, 2024..." Do you find it odd that searching for almost two weeks will find more persons than will searching for one night?

Again, the 2024 count was intended to find persons who had been overlooked in previous surveys, including the 2022 survey:

"The KCRHA received approval from HUD to conduct the 2024 unsheltered count using a methodology called Respondent Driven Sampling (RDS). This methodology is consistent with the 2022 PIT Count. RDS has been shown to be effective in reaching people who are not already connected to services, providing a data point that supplements client data in the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) and other systems. This methodology has a strong track record for producing high-quality demographic and population estimates, confirmed by numerous studies by academic researchers and the World Health Organization."

As for the counts prior to 2022 -- you know, the ones for the homeless population under progressive rule in Seattle? -- please read and reread another sentence you just quoted: "The PIT is widely understood to be an undercount, especially as it represents a single night rather than a full year." So, all of the counts before Harrell took office were undercounts. Improvements in 2022 and 2024 found more persons each time. This increase in number of persons found can be completely explained by changes in the survey methodology. About the only conclusion it definitely cannot, by itself, support is that homelessness became worse after progressives left office.

@61 "blah blah blah"

The question was why did the problem get so much worse between 2022 and 2024?

@62: Why do you believe the problem got any worse between 2022 and 2024?

@63 when all else fails just play dumb. Impossibly, mind-numbingly dumb.

@64: "...when all else fails just play dumb."

That's a lot of words, especially as you'd already said, "blah blah blah."

when one wrassles
with the Pig they're
wrasslin' in the Pig's
territory and he don't
Care which way it Goes
he's just Happy to be in
the Muck and Entertained

@66 preach

when one wrassles
with the Pig they're
wrasslin' in the Pig's
territory and he don't
Care which way it Goes
he's just Happy af to be
in the Muck & Entertained

--wish I'd
Seen that.

@49, @53, @55: And yet, not a single quote from either J. Rantz, or from any of the unspecified number of unnamed other "conservative media ideologues," whom you say make the same "arguments" as have I. I guess you're a-ok with having your assertions, which you have repeatedly made without evidence, getting dismissed without evidence.

@66-@68: You guys need to get a room. (Really. The rest of us simply do not want to see what you're getting up to.)

the pig
he likes to
Speak for 'every-
one' and he Loves it
if you Scratch him right
behind his ears. hear him

Grunt? That's one well-gruntled porker.