That was a big storm: The winds from the bomb cyclone eased around 4 am, but last night the National Weather Service in Seattle clocked winds of 77 mph winds on Mount Rainier, 74 mph in Enumclaw, 57 mph in Federal Way, and 55 mph at Sea-Tac Airport, a speed that diverted flights. A buoy in Canadian waters recorded the highest windspeed of 101 mph at around 6 pm last night. At least two people are dead. One woman died when a tree fell on her while she took a shower, another woman died after a tree crushed her at a homeless encampment in Lynnwood, and hundreds of thousands are still without power. As of 2:45 am, Seattle City Light was down to 92,000 customers without power, after getting the lights back on for 29,000 people overnight. At least 641,000 people lost power overnight across Western Washington. This probably goes without saying, but if you see a downed power line, don’t touch it. Excess electricity is bad for you health.
A quick sample of highest gusts recorded across the area:
Sunrise – Mt. Rainier 77 MPH
Enumclaw 74 MPH
Crystal Mountain 74 MPH
SeaTac Airport 59 MPH
Sedro-Wooley 56 MPH
Arlington 49 MPHMore complete list: https://t.co/h50bbv35T3 pic.twitter.com/zu8pZmb3cf
— NWS Seattle (@NWSSeattle) November 20, 2024
We’re due for another bomb cyclone: A second system may develop Thursday or Friday, coming further north and possibly much closer to the shore.
Seattle City Council approves budget: After a hard-to-follow process packed with last minute amendments, the Council approved its budget in a committee hearing yesterday, and will take a final vote on Thursday. Hannah will have more later, but the Council is planning to divert money from JumpStart, a tax on big Seattle businesses to fund affordable housing, to plug the $250 million deficit.
Your vote does matter: In a bit of a squeaker, Tacoma trial attorney Sal Mungia came out on top in the statewide race for the seat, beating Federal Way Municipal Court Judge Dave Larson by a mere 21,000 votes out of the more than 3.2 million votes counted. Mungia will replace Justice Susan Owens who is stepping down after reaching the mandatory retirement age of 75.
On the 2,199th day of Christmas, Boeing said to me: 2,199 layoffs in Washington state…. and a partridge in a pear tree. Last week, the company told KUOW that it would notify workers in mid-November that they’d be out of a job come January 17, but it looks like they’ll find out a few days before the holiday instead. A Christmas miracle. The machinists, who recently ended an eight-week strike, won’t lose their jobs, and the company’s CEO said the layoffs were a separate issue anyway. Boeing is a mire of corrupt executives, shitty working conditions, and catastrophic failure that sent profits in a tailspin. Boeing reported a third-quarter loss of $6 billion in October, and has a backlog of 5,400 airplane orders.
Will they/won’t they: Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Brent Jones said at last night’s board meeting that he’s considering withdrawing his latest proposal to close Seattle schools. After hearing emotional testimony from parents, School Board President Liza Rankin said she couldn’t imagine hearing anything between now and December that would allow her to vote for Jones’s plan. Jones said it was clear the direction is shifting, and he needs to consider “when it comes back, if it does.” It’s unclear what happens next, but, if the public hearings are postponed, it would be the second time the district has backed off from closure plans this year, according to The Seattle Times.
Dave Reichert conceded to Bob Ferguson—yesterday: Reichert is always late to the party. Catching serial killers. Acknowledging election losses. You just wish he knew earlier, you know? But after two weeks of ballot counting he finally conceded the race the Associated Press called on election night for Ferguson, who earned 56% of the vote.
Whooping cough’s banner year in the PNW: Pertussis, or the p in the Tdap vaccine, is a highly contagious bacterial illness that’s particularly threatening to infants. Washington state saw cases soar from 51 last year to more than 1,193. Idaho reported 700 cases this year, over just 34 in 2023. Oregon is expecting to break its record of 910 cases in 2012. This is what it sounds like. Do you want a baby to make this horrible sound? Make sure your shots are up to date.
Go see that Keith Haring exhibit at MoPop: Charles did, and he wrote about it here. (I also went a few weeks ago and really recommend it).
More cabinet picks: Trump tapped heart surgeon and snake oil-selling former talk show host Dr. Mehmet Oz to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the insurer to over 140 million poor, elderly and disabled Americans, and the World Wrestling Entertainment mogul Linda McMahon to run the Department of Education.
There’s more to hate than I have space for: During his unsuccessful Senate campaign, Oz supported funding privatized Medicare Advantage plans with a 20 percent payroll tax, basically subsidizing the private sector with public dollars, a move he would benefit from financially because he and his wife own stock in private insurance. McMahon, board chair of the America First Policy Institute, a think tank to advance Trump’s policies, ran the Small Business Administration during his first term. McMahon has barely any education experience, which might not matter if Trump lets her dismantle the department and send “Education BACK TO THE STATES.” Linda and her husband Vince McMahon, who she’s separated from, are also facing a lawsuit by five former WWE “ring boys,” who claim the couple knew that high-ranking WWE employees were sexually abusing them and did not stop it. They deny the allegations.
Trump won’t ever play by the rules: Donald Trump is an authoritarian, so what is supposed to be a peaceful transfer of power looks like a “hostile takeover” of the federal government, as one close ally of the President-elect told The Washington Post. So far, Trump has almost fully cut out the federal agencies his predecessors have relied on to take charge of the government. He has yet to collaborate with the General Services Administration, which handles the handoff between administrations, because he hasn’t signed requisite pledges to follow ethics rules. He’s cut out the State Department—with its secure lines and official interpreters—of calls with foreign leaders. He’s not supposed to negotiate foreign policy before he’s sworn in, but that statute is rarely enforced. As Nathalie wrote Monday, he’s not letting the Federal Bureau of Investigation background check those insane cabinet picks. The plans to decentralize federal agencies and replace civil servants with political loyalists seem very plausible at this moment. It’s worth saying that so far, all of this is legal, and that should scare us, because many of our institutional norms are norms, not laws. Trump has repeatedly shown that he is an amoral bad actor willing to cross any line he can legally cross, and then some.
https://t.co/nMfshamMzi pic.twitter.com/9I4FcxudVv
— Amanda Yee 余美娜 (@radiofreeamanda) November 12, 2024
Republican bigots target first trans congresswoman: Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina has introduced a bigoted resolution intended to keep newly-elected Delaware congresswoman Sarah McBride and transgender staffers and visitors to the Hill from using women’s bathrooms and locker rooms at the Capitol, a policy that will be well-insulated if anti-LGBTQ House Speaker Mike Johnson folds it into the House rules package. Republicans want to manipulate Americans into believing Mace’s resolution is about protecting women’s rights and spaces, when it is a policy designed to embarrass and denigrate a single person because her aggressively-normal vibe threatens to undermine propaganda that suggests trans people are dangerous to cis women and a sign of moral decay, rather than a minority seeking basic freedoms and equal treatment under the law.
Rep. Mace took it farther: As of Wednesday morning, she’s introduced a bill to ban trans people from bathrooms, locker rooms and changing rooms on all federal property. As trans people have said for years, the fanatical Republican crusade against trans people was never about sports or kids.
Oh you thought threatening me would silence me? No. I just doubled down and filed a new bill to protect women and girls across the entire country on all federal property everywhere. pic.twitter.com/TmRgtSQqFx
— Rep. Nancy Mace (@RepNancyMace) November 20, 2024
Spain to legalize 300,000 undocumented migrants by 2027: In contrast to the US and most of Europe, Spain is embracing immigrants. The country’s leaders see the migration crisis, propelled by young men from countries like Mali, Senegal and Mauritania making dangerous voyages over the ocean, as means to support an aging workforce, maintain the welfare state, and compensate for the low birthrate, in what is one of the fastest growing economies in the European Union. Added legal protections will also curb the rampant exploitation of people seeking a better life and feeling political instability and violence.
Jesus in schools: Officials from the Texas Board of Education voted Tuesday for an optional curriculum that includes lessons with biblical teachings, so students can “better understand the connection of history, art, literature, and religion on pivotal events like the signing of the US Constitution, the Civil Rights Movement, and the American Revolution.” The Texas Federation of Teachers condemned the state board’s decision which they said violated the “separation of church and state.”
Well Hell-Lo, TEXASS!
re Bibles in school:
you Gotta have a Pic
of a ‘roided-out, AK-37-totin’
bandolered blue-eyed blond-haired
Prosperity Jesus on your walls — All of ’em
gaazing on in Supreme Satisfaction
as the Money-Changers strip-
mine America, our poor
huddled masses ter-
rified in their Tents*
wondering when
They’re gonna
get Gazaed
welcome to The donold’s
Fleecing of America!
they’re only
just gettin
Warmed
up.
*bloody oozing
tentsores for
Everyone!
https://www.patriciarobertsmiller.com/2024/11/19/why-was-hitler-elected/
Well, hello, Texas. Regarding bibles in school. You got to have a picture of a steroided-out, AK-37-toting, bandoliered, blue-eyed, blond-haired prosperity Jesus on your walls. All of them gazing on in supreme satisfaction as the money-changers strip-mine America. Our poor, huddled masses terrified in their tents. Wondering when they’re going to get Gaza. Welcome to the Donald’s fleecing of America. They’re only just getting warmed up. Bloody, oozing tent sores for everyone.
“Trump won’t ever play by the rules:”
The only rules of a purely majoritarian system, which is what Progressives have said they want (that pesky Senate, that pesky filibuster, those pesky courts) is that whoever won the last election can do whatever they want, without being restrained in any way by the side that lost.
So Trump is taking Progressives at their word. If you won a majority, the folks who lost should not be able to impede the winner of the majority in any way.
Majoritarianism sounds great, unless your side lost the Electoral College and the popular vote. Then non-democratic institutions like the Senate, Courts, and the filibuster, to obstruct the majority start looking pretty good.
In regard to Farian, @3 has a more readable iambic prose, but @1 has a vertical pentameter tapestry that we’ve become accustomed to.
“Trump won’t ever play by the rules…”
So, the Stranger now believes Sawant’s campaigning for him was a bad thing, then?
@4. Hey, man. You want some taffy?
@6. Why don’t you and Sawant get a room already.
Agree with @4. We need checks and balances no matter who is in power. I know progressives will forget this the next time they win an election (and will certainly push to have no constrains here in Washington in the meantime) but the rest of us ought to remember it.
Americans of every political stripe expect the 3 branches of government to serve the purpose they were created for. Majoritarianism should only be constrained by the courts and the constitution but we have some stupid and ineffective procedural rules that empower the minority and disenfranchise voters and those riles could be discarded at any time. If we allowed our government to function as it was designed people might actually expect them to do their job but instead they treat it like a favor to voters that they are unable to.
WWE running the US Department of Education is the natural progression of things.
@10, The Constitution established the anti-democratic Senate. The 600,000 citizens of Wyoming get as much representation and power in the Senate as 39,000,000 Californians. The Constitution contemplated the Senate would set their procedural rules, as would the House. That has been a feature of all deliberative bodies for all time. The Constitution established the EC which gives small states a check on the more populous ones.
The default for legislative bodies is a 2/3 super-majority to close debate on a bill. The reason for that is so that the majority can’t just call up a bill and vote on it without giving the minority the right to make their case and try and persuade the majority, and the broader public, its a bad idea. Without such a rule, majorities would just call up bills without any hearings or debate, put them on the floor, and vote them in. The minority and the public would learn what the new law is, only after its passed.
Since forever, minorities that feel very strongly about opposing a bill, have used 1/3 + 1 votes, to keep debate open, so a bill doesn’t proceed to a final vote, while bringing the chamber to a halt, since only one bill can be brought up at a time. The Senate has modified their rules to from 2/3 down to 3/5 being required to close debate.
The House alters the rules every two years depending on how much the majority thinks they can get away with as far as limiting the other sides rights to debate or offer amendments. Each new majority tends to shit all over who lost the last election and limit the rights of the minority to debate or challenge bills offered to the degree they think the public will tolerate it, and restrain themselves only to the degree required to keep the retribution from being too severe the next time they lose.
@8: Sawant and Trump were the ones in bed together, politically speaking.
Please do try to keep up.
as long as TWO political Parties
one Orwellianly-named “democratic”
and about as ‘democratic’ as Any LLC can be
the other “Republican” yet willing to drop that
Identity the instant a Better Dictator comes around
when we cede Our Power to parties Uninterested in
protecting the Citizenry, other than those most
Comfortable, we’re Bomd to get things like
MkMitch KkKonnell’s supreme court
issuing non-democratic ‘Citizen
United’-type takeovers of OUR
political process starting with
and including Our elections.
and now it’s Finally come to This
(speaking of Bizarre Cabinet posings):
We enter
parliament in order
to supply ourselves, in the
arsenal of democracy, with its own weapons.
If democracy is so stupid as
to give us free tickets & salaries
for this bear’s work, that is its affair.
We do not come as friends,
nor even as neutrals. We
come as enemies. As
the wolf bursts into
the flock, so
we come.
–Joseph Goebbels
circa 1935. whose
Ideology echoes
MAGAville’s.
12, Dude, either try to be intellectually honest for once or just shut the fuck up. I simply do not understand what you get from making up bullshit that can ve easily disproven.
Supermajority rule is not the default for legislative bodies everywhere. It’s not even the default in our government but the senate chose to make it that way and we have been beholden to this tradition ever since.
The filibuster and the EC are not enshrined in the constitution and could be undone at any time. The senate is more or less functioning as it was created — to represent the states, not the voters — which is arguably poor design even without the filibuster, but that is how our country was made. The rest is a bunch of procedural bullshit that breaks voters’ will through disempowerment and everyone suffers for it.
@14: Again with the Joseph Goebbels quotes, lol!
@15: “The filibuster and the EC are not enshrined in the constitution”
The electoral college is very much enshrined in the constitution. Article II, Sec. 1 Clauses 2–4.
@13. Hey, look in the mirror. You are obsessed with Sawant. She is simultaneously feckless and singlehandedly responsible for every ill the country has ever seen. You are the problem, buddy, not Sawant.
That windstorm fucked up my neighborhood but good. I lost about 20 shingles off my roof.
@15, It is the default rule. It’s in Robert’s Rules of Order, which is what courts look to if the legislative body in question doesn’t adopt separate rules for itself.
It’s not supermajority rule. It’s supermajority on the procedural vote to close debate on the bill before the legislative body. Without such a rule, majorities would just offer bills, immediately move to close debate, win that vote, and then vote on the bill.
Nobody would know what is in the bill, let alone be able to argue against it, or propose amendments to it, before it became law. There would be no public process or debate. You would have laws adopted by majority, but without any democratic deliberation, or deliberative democratic process.
The voters will is that proposed laws be publicly debated, not crammed through without examination, debate, and possible amendment. Without a super-majority requirement to close debate on a bill, the voter’s will of public examination and debate of proposed laws would be thwarted. The opposition would lose all ability to object to a bill before it was passed.
17, Fair enough but the states have latitude in how electors are apportioned. They could pass a law that says the popular vote overrides their state’s vote or they could allocate electors proportionally. Either of these would be an improvement over the current system.
@4 Stop building strawmen arguments to better knock them down. No, the winner isn’t elected to do whatever they want but they are elected to do what they campaigned for within the constitutional framework. The problem is that Trump is now preparing to implement the authoritarian 2025 playbook even though he campaigned against it.
Supermajority requirements are in large part responsible for the lack of trust in institutions and the election of Trump because elections haven’t produced the change in status quo long demanded by the electorate. We should do away with undemocratic supermajority requirements as soon as practically possible.
@18: Your wild gesticulations at your straw men notwithstanding, the topic here is Sawant’s campaigning for Trump. As Trump had already served one term, presumably making him a known quantity, and was pretty forthright about what he wanted to do with another term, we can assume Sawant knew what she was doing when she campaigned for him, and so she was ok with the very outcomes the Stranger now complains about.
I was just wondering what the Stranger thought about that.
@20 “The voters will is that proposed laws be publicly debated, not crammed through without examination, debate, and possible amendment.”
Someone tell CM Nelson.
@22 The Stranger doesn’t think about it at all, like all normal people. You on the other hand think about it a lot. But that doesn’t mean you also have to write about it a lot
@18 ~ someone’s
overly-Guilted
him so he’s
just trying
to Off-
Load
that.
his lil ‘thumper”s
here to help Alleviate
some of that Pent-uppedness
thru his Infliction & revenge on the Lefties
@20: lol, if you’ve got that many state legislatures on board, you could probably just amend the constitution directly! Our current system is not as malleable as you seem to think.
@23, @24: “Normal people” didn’t spend 10+ years telling Seattle about how well-qualified Sawant was for political leadership, how all other elected officials should strive to emulate her, and how incredibly great her political judgment was. The Stranger did all of that — and much, much more.
So, what does the Stranger think of her political judgement now?
@3
nice try
but it’s an
AK-47 and
sans Inflection
what’s the Point?
(Hell even I make mistakes:
his* ‘lil thumper”s
here to help Alleviate
some of that Pent-uppedness thru
his Infliction & savage Revenge on usf Lefties
see what I mean?)
but you’re doing
Great! keep
it up!
*wormmy’s
“So, what does the Stranger
think of [Kshama’s]
political judge-
ment now?”
–@wormmy
why
don’t
you ask
the Stranger?
several thousand times
maybe make it
a Millon
times
See what I mean? It’s pathologically unnecessary.
But at least we can all agree — our current situation is far superior than our having a President-elect who, as a candidate, refused to promise an illegal arms embargo to a fringe constituency.
Right?
Right?
Anyone?
Anyone?
Bueller?
BUELLER?!?
Enjoy the next four years, guys.
high-
jacker
Warning
see above.
cuz it’s All
about the
Cruelty
cuz.
from one of my FAVES
Tombstone:
Wyatt Earp: What makes
a man like Ringo, Doc?
What makes him do
the things he does?
Doc Holliday:
A man like Ringo
has got a great big hole,
right in the middle of him.
He can never kill enough, or steal
enough, or inflict enough pain to ever fill it.
Wyatt Earp: What
does he need?
Doc Holliday:
Revenge.
Wyatt Earp:
For what?
Doc Holliday:
Bein’ born.
Sawant should be exiled to Siberia. At best.
@30: No one yet knows whether a second Trump presidency will be good or bad for Palestine.
On the good-for-Palestine side, a pro-Israel Trump might make Israel feel more secure, which could boost Israeli confidence in making concessions to the peaceful faction of Palestinians (who remain a majority, even today). It’s basically the Kissinger approach to the Middle East, updated for the Palestinian issue specifically. It worked for Egypt and Jordan, and it can work for Palestine, if they’re savvy enough to take advantage! 😄
Also on the good-for-Palestine side, a Trump who turns against Israel, either on anti-semitic grounds or America first grounds, might scare Israel into making concessions. Israelis don’t scare easily and especially don’t like to be yanked around by foreign powers, but yank them hard enough and they might just yield. Israel would not be keen to return to a 1960s level of economic and military isolation. They would survive, but it would hurt enough that they might make concessions on Palestine to avoid going there.
On the bad-for-Palestine side, a pro-Israel Trump might just green light an indefinite war in Gaza. Hamas is still only about half defeated, so there is no reason the war couldn’t continue at its current intensity for two or three more years, with Palestinian casualties approaching 70 or 80,000. Palestine has a very high birthrate, so even 80,000 KIA over four years would hardly make a dent in the population, but it’s still a humanitarian and economic catastrophe for Palestine, and Palestine would be no further ahead politically once it’s over.
Perhaps most likely of all, of course, is a status quo muddle, in which Gaza and Lebanon get their ceasefires but US-Israeli relations and Israeli-Palestinian relations do not fundamentally alter. Israel keeps gradually encroaching on the West Bank, the Palestinians keep launching major terrorist operations a couple times each decade and keep deservedly getting their assess kicked for it every time, and Iran keeps pouring in weapons to its proxies to make sure the Middle East remains a shitty place to live for everyone. This situation, while nasty, is extremely stable because it requires endurance from everyone but concessions from no one, and so it remains the likeliest of outcomes.
Sawant made Harris say “the economy is super duper good” when most live paycheck to paycheck. Proof that Sawant made Harris lose. Sawant can do anything. What will she do next?
Sawant this, Sawant that. Have I found…Sawant?
No one was listening to “It’s the economy, Stupid” because it’s not the mid 1990’s anymore. It was always about the stuff that makes people clutch their pearls and cry “Won’t anyone think of the children!?” (Drag shows, trans rights, women’s sports, Palestine, etc)
Someone should tell the bigots what REALLY happens in the bathrooms:
People piss. And shit. Won’t someone think of the children???
@20 Most legislatures do not have supermajority requirements to close debate. Not even close. It’s not surprising that you’re wrong and doubling down on that, since you’re wrong and double down on so many things. 72 of 99 state legislative chambers in the US end debate with a simple majority vote.
https://levin-center.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Curry-Oldham-Filibustering-in-the-American-States.pdf
As for Robert’s Rules? Only 4 state legislatures use Robert’s Rules. Most everyone else uses Mason’s Manual of Legislative Procedure, which uses a simple majority rule to cut off debate absent a chamber-specific rule. So little knowledge, so much confidence. But that’s typical for you.
@37: Yup. But, as you can see from the comments here, progressives would rather lose an election outright than compromise on a single one of those issues. 🤪
@40 There is no evidence Harris lost because progressives refused to compromise. To the contrary, the evidence points to Harris losing because she didn’t campaign on pocketbook issues like Sanders (a progressive) and others repeatedly told her to do but she chose to not offend corporate donors.
repressives pissing all over
progressives on a ‘Lefty’
newsite* ~ isn’t there a
4Chan or wtvtf just
Dying for y’alls
most pleasant
Company?
*and
ENTERTAINMENT.
repressives pissing all over
progressives on a ‘Lefty’
newsite* ~ isn’t there a
4Chan or wtvtf just
Dying for y’alls
most pleasant
Company?
*and
ENTERTAINMENT.
@41: lol, course there is. Have you ever talked to a Trump voter? Cultural issues are 90 percent of what they talk about! 😂
I’m glad that on Wednesday Slog AM thinks that it’s important to hold bad actors who break the law accountable, since on Tuesday Slog AM said that it’s important to never hold bad actors who break the law accountable. Usually it takes more than 24 hours to do a 180 on a position unless of course you’re The Stranger and are only pretending to care about what you write about on any given day.
@39, I said Robert’s is the default unless they adopt the rules.
The U.S. House, sets limits on time for debate and number of speakers per side.
The Washington Legislature also puts time limits on members who rise to address a bill, and limits how many times they may speak. Once that has expired, the bill goes to a vote. So then how do minority parties thwart legislation they find extremely unpalatable under such rules? They then insist that every one of their members be allowed for the maximum time allowed, not only on the objectionable bill, but all bills. They insist that every required committee hearing, every required reading, and every possible procedural vote on that bill, and all bills, be observed. The Legislature, which has time limits to the session, loses 75% of its capacity to pass bills in the time-limited session. Bill output comes to a grinding halt. It’s done rarely, but its done. The Majority then has to be willing to trade the bill they want, for the other bills they wanted that will die because their isn’t time to get them to a vote.
The Oregon Legislature and a few other states, including Texas Democrats in one instance, have had the minority flea the Legislature, depriving the Legislature of State Constitution required quorum to conduct business.
Skillful and united opposition can still be obstructionist when they decide a particular hill is worth dying on.
Democracy isn’t just voting and observing the result of the vote count, its debate, deliberation, and publicly exposing and vetting different aspects of proposed law. It’s back and forth to get 80% (or 50%) of what you want in a bill, instead of 0%. It’s occasionally having the minority opposition thwart the will of the majority by bringing legislation to a grinding halt, or the flow of legislation to the pace of nearly frozen molasses.
@39: “72 of 99 state legislative chambers in the US end debate with a simple majority vote.”
Ha ha well, OK, but another way of putting that is to say that 27 out of 50 states have one or more legislative chambers in which a supermajority is needed to end debate. In other words, a majority of the states require a supermajority to enact legislation, just like Congress does. This is not quite the devastating anti-filibuster refutation you were hoping for! 😜 If anything it’s an argument in favor of a filibuster in Congress, just like the majority of the states! 😁
@46: Eh, I just it’s just 20 states, not 27. Well, there’s a reason I didn’t become a mathematician!
@43 Rightwing Democrats desperately want ‘wokeness’ to be the culprit because they don’t want to admit that progressives were right all along about addressing inequality but culture war issues did not even register in any of the post-election analyses/polls: the reasons invoked by voters were the economy (inflation), change to the status quo, and immigration. Culture war stuff is important to the Trump base but we are talking about voters, not his cult following with whom compromising is neither possible nor is it necessary.