Yes, Bruce, give us nothing: Hannah covered yesterday’s State of the City address and, boy, it was one of the speeches of all time. Mayor Bruce Harrell told Seattle that he’ll be going back to basics, innovatively, which translates to doing the bare minimum and satiating the conservatives that built our new city council. The biggest news was his announcement of his “One Seattle” comprehensive plan, which he will release about a year behind schedule. The city promised us those goods in April 2023. Read more about a little levy and a big deficit.
Ceasefire now: Hundreds of people gathered on the Capitol steps in Olympia Tuesday to urge state lawmakers to pass a resolution supporting a ceasefire in Gaza. The event was the first “advocacy day” held in Olympia by the Washington Coalition for Peace, a group of Palestinian Americans and 39 organizations statewide that represent different religious and cultural groups, according to the Seattle Times. No state legislators attended the rally.
WA prisoners are being exploited: Incarcerated people in Washington work for as little as $1 per hour while paying high costs for hygienic products like soap and phone calls, according to a new report from Columbia Legal Services. The report called the status-quo “nothing short of modern day slavery.” Inmates say they are even forced to buy food to compensate for inadequate meals. In state prison, a 24-pack of chicken ramen could set you back a full day’s pay.
Planned Parenthood endorses State Sen. Emily Randall for District 6: Randall is running to replace Congressman Derek Kilmer over on the peninsula. Little distinctions like this Planned Parenthood nod may help voters separate candidates, who now include Public Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz, Jefferson County Commissioner Kate Dean, and State Sen. Drew MacEwen.
BIG news 🌟 I’ve just been endorsed by @PPact!
I’ve been so proud to fight together to expand #healthcareaccess & defend #reproductivefreedom here in this WA & to have Planned Parenthood Action on #TeamEmily as we take our fight to Congress. 💪🏽 #abortionrights pic.twitter.com/3wLLTJQOrf— Emily Randall (@EmilyRandallWA) February 15, 2024
WA woman charged with daughter’s death 18 years later: In 2005, a dead baby girl was found wrapped in newspapers and a towel in a trash can at a Phoenix, Arizona airport. Two days later, a medical examiner determined she’d been suffocated. The case went cold for nearly two decades. Then this year DNA evidence identified 51-year-old Annie Anderson of Snohomish County as the mother. Police say she’ll be charged with first-degree murder for the crime, but they did not share details of Anderson’s account.
Can Boeing build planes or what: Part of 2024 involves wondering which part of a Boeing plane is going to fail next, and this time it’s the wing. A United Airlines flight from San Francisco to Boston emergency landed in Denver after the plane began to shake. United said in a statement that it was an issue with “the slat,” or the moveable front edge of the wing used for takeoff and landing. The company did not say what caused pieces of it to fly off, though.
A United flight from San Francisco to Boston had to be diverted to Denver after it was discovered mid-air a portion of the wing was damaged. Passenger Kevin Clarke took this video. What he says he saw before getting on the plane on @boston25 this morning. pic.twitter.com/0GIaOmS46t
— Kelly Sullivan (@ksullivannews) February 20, 2024
The SGN has a new editor: Former managing editor Renee Raketty is replacing acting editor Benny Loy. Loy, who had been with the paper since 2022, took over a few months before the former publisher sold the paper to current owner Mike Schultz. Raketty, who is transgender and who first joined the paper in 2001, said that it was great to be back at the paper, particularly as the trans community faces “the same vitriol and onslaught we faced in the ‘90s and 2000s.”
US vetoes UN resolution for ceasefire in Gaza: The US said the Algerian-proposed resolution would disrupt sensitive negotiations between Israel and Hamas. President Joe Biden has used the word ceasefire, and called the IDF’s actions “over the top.” We proposed our own draft “temporary ceasefire” that warns Israel against invading Rafah without a plan to keep civilians safe, but we’re not doing all that we can to stop what has killed more than 29,000 Palestinians. In fact, today the US defended Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Jerusalem in the United Nations’ highest court.
Non-binary student beaten at Oklahoma school later died: There’s still a lot we do not know, but from what we can tell, students began bullying 16-year-old Nex Benedict a few months after Governor Kevin Stitt signed a bill that forced trans kids like Nex into school bathrooms that matched the sex on their birth certificates. Then, on Feb 7, Nex and another transgender student had allegedly gotten into a fight with three cis girls in a bathroom at Owasso High School, police said. It’s still unclear what started the altercation, but Nex was knocked down and Nex’s head hit the floor. The school did not call an ambulance and instead suspended Nex for two weeks. The next day, they collapsed in the family living room and died. Police are still waiting for toxicology and autopsy reports before determining if anyone will be charged, but once a cause of death is determined, then “all charges will be on the table.”
https://t.co/xmCYBKInCd pic.twitter.com/IRq3q3bMuU
— Christopher Mathias (@letsgomathias) February 21, 2024
Kratom might be killing people? A Washington Post review of federal and state records show more medical examiners and coroners than ever are attributing deaths to the drug, a herbal powder with opioid- and stimulant-like effects. Between 2020 and 2022, they listed Kratom as contributing to at least 4,100 deaths in 44 states. A couple caveats: The vast majority of those cases included at least one other drug, and that only accounts for a small fraction of the 300,000 overdose deaths in that time frame, but it is significant enough that an increasing number of people have begun filing wrongful death suits involving the substance, which is banned in six states.
Two men charged with murder for Kansas City parade shooting: The charges come a week after two teens were also charged for the shooting, which injured 22 people and killed a local radio DJ. Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker told reporters that suspect Lyndell Mays and another person at the parade started arguing. Mays then allegedly drew his weapon, prompting others to pull guns, including suspect Dominic Miller. Bullets from Miller’s gun allegedly killed the DJ, Lisa Lopez-Galvan.
Chilldren: In yet another blow to reproductive rights in this country, Alabama’s Supreme Court has ruled that frozen embryos count as children. Now anyone who destroys one in the state can be sued for wrongful death. The court’s ruling does not prohibit in-vitro fertilization treatments, but it could make it a hell of a lot riskier. Critics worry it could make an already expensive process pricier by sending liability insurance rates through the roof and forcing families to pay lifelong storage fees for embryos they could no longer legally dispose of. Not to mention that IVF could become scarce in Alabama if enough doctors are spooked away from offering it.
Both my practicing Catholic anti-choice cousins had IVF with nary a 2nd thought, so the irony of the Alabama ruling is thicc for me.
Rules for thee but not for me.
Burying the lede, all the way at the end:
‘Hundreds of people gathered on the Capitol steps in Olympia Tuesday to urge state lawmakers to pass a resolution supporting a ceasefire in Gaza. The event was the first “advocacy day” held in Olympia by the Washington Coalition for Peace, a group of Palestinian Americans and 39 organizations statewide that represent different religious and cultural groups, according to the Seattle Times. No state legislators attended the rally.’
This should make Seattle’s ceasefire resolution look astonishingly effective.
fertilized
eggs like
Corporations
Are people, too*
Friendo? so when
they turn 18 they’re
allowed to Vote amirite?
“it’s
God’s
Will!” obv.
*as the ‘crimson tide’
tsunamis over the
Populace
slavery’s
a Good Thing
in America’s prisons:
‘there is NO Free Ride!”
and really ‘not that
Bad of a Business Model!’
for this, Capitalism’s Final Stage.
take it away
Neolibs &
Cons
Boeing has deserved a lot of its recent criticism, but this United plane is a 29 year old 1994 build and things like this happen relatively routinely, hope we don’t start seeing news headlines every time even on old planes just because it says Boeing.
University of Alabama health has already canceled all IVF treatments.
I want my embryo Child Tax Credit!!
And the suffocated child was found in Terminal 4 of Sky Harbor Airport, which is fitting, because the child was terminal.
People are really out here trying to pin United’s shitty maintenance of a 30 year old plane on Boeing’s build quality? JFC come on guys.
Alabama is going out of their way to solidify their status as the absolute worst state in the union. Thanks to their SC, we’ve entered a new level of Giliadian bullshit.
“Free labor is the cornerstone of US economics, cuz slavery was abolished, unless you are in prison. You think I am bullshitting, then read the 13th Amendment. Involuntary servitude and slavery it prohibits. That’s why they giving drug offenders time in double digits” – Killer Mike
That United plane looks like it took a bird strike. The slat still worked fine for the emergency landing in Denver.
@5, 7, 9: plus, if you see something, say something. don’t just viddy it before the flight, ding dong.
More from The Most Moral Army In The World(tm): IDF warships fired on a food aid convoy headed to Northern Gaza. The convoy was following an agreed-upon route between the UN and the IDF, and was stopped at an IDF inspection point.
From the same article: an employee of the Palestine Red Crescent Society was arrested at a checkpoint while transferring patients. He was harassed, beaten, stripped naked, blindfolded, and his hands were tied behind his back. Eventually, the IDF decided that he wasn’t a threat because they released him without clothes or shoes and hands still tied. It’s not recorded how far he had to walk naked. So that’s awesome, and definitely a normal way for the Most Moral Army In The World ™ to conduct itself. Nooooo, no war crimes to see here!
https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/21/middleeast/un-food-convoy-gaza-israel-strike-cmd-intl/index.html
@9 Probably a result of water penetration causing ice formation leading to delamination, has happened with slats before.
@12 In other words, in order to defeat Hamas, the IDF must become Hamas? Because Hamas commits war crimes, the IDF is also forced to commit war crimes? And I marvel at your naivete thinking that Israel will hold any kind of war crimes hearings after the end of the conflict. Oh, and war is not amoral. That is the entire point of the Geneva Conventions, to take an utterly amoral system from WWII and prior and make it less terrible for the civilian populations.
The IDF has every right to detain the medical worker if there’s suspicion they may be acting for Hamas. I don’t love it, but I understand that is a necessary evil in response to Hamas’ actions. I am conflicted about stripping prisoners, though I can see military necessity only for the length of time necessary to ensure that the prisoner doesn’t have any weapons. Holding prisoners naked is not acceptable, nor is beating them or releasing them with hands tied and without clothes or shoes and telling them to walk home.
I note that you don’t have any defense for shelling the food convoy. Before you start, if the IDF had any actionable intelligence that there was contraband in the convoy, you’d think they’d send the soldiers who were right there to inspect it rather than shelling it from afar. But go ahead and try out a justification.
What can one needing an abortion expect from the neofascist blood red state of Ala-dumbfuck confusion?
@12 Oh, and by the way, it’s absolutely not true that war crimes are only prosecuted after the end of hostilities. See, for example, Abu Ghraib, or the US admitting that they made a major error and accidentally bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. Accountability can come at any time, and the sooner it happens the less likely there will be a culture of impunity which leads to further war crimes.
Yaay, Emily Randall!
Boeing: Just. Say. NO.
@17,
I just googled “is biden in danger of losing new york” and see zero results or evidence to suggest this is a possibility. Link?
@20, The only poll of NY this year is a Siena College poll showing Biden leading Trump by 12 in the state, he’s not at risk of losing it, but he wo it by 22 points last time. I think the real risk would be down ballot NYC congressional races.
@18 OK, good to know. It’s OK to commit war crimes if it’s the IDF doing it. War crimes are definitely the worst thing that ever happened when Hamas does them, but when Israel does? War is hell and boys will be boys, amirite?
You keep asserting that the majority of the civilian deaths are lawful. How exactly do you know that? Have you done an on-the-ground review? Or are you just taking the IDF’s word for it? The incidents that I raise make it very clear that (a) war crimes are common and (b) war crimes are committed with impunity. Which, of course, means that more war crimes are likely to be committed because there’s no consequences. And those statements apply equally to Hamas and the IDF with only slightly different levels of enthusiasm. I would very much like for there to be a good guy in this conflict. Unfortunately, we’re stuck with a bad guy and a worse guy.
Look, I might have some respect for Israel if they said something to the effect that they are fighting people who care nothing for the Geneva Conventions, and so Israel will not be bound by them either. At least they’d be owning their actions, even if that cost them the US’ support. But no, they (and you) make a big deal about their respect for human rights while blatantly violating human rights.
PS Tell the Chinese that bombing the Embassy wasn’t a war crime because we didn’t mean to. I’m sure that’ll go over well. Oh, and you know what? We actually punished the people responsible. And paid restitution. Both of which played heavily into the UN decision not to open a war crimes investigation. And because both of that’s what a nation that gives a shit about human rights does. Too bad you can’t describe Israel that way. Get back to me when Israel punishes a soldier for war crimes. Get back to me when restitution is paid.
get back to us
when the last Gazan
home is leveled — Domicide
another War Crime. get back to
Us when the Famine begins. Another
War Crime. get back to Us when the last
Hamas has surrendered or the last the vey Last
Gazan exterminated or expelled from their open-Air
Concentration Camp.
History
repeats.
America
a place of
Freedom where
women don’t own their wombs
& Embryos
can drink, drive &
buy & sell semi-Automatic
Weapons of Maximal Destruction
Gawd
what a
Country!
@24 kristofarian: Gawd, what a dark, dystopian MAGA / RWNJ-fucked up country!
I really miss how nice things were before neofascism reared its Trump’s butt-ugly head.
@22: “The incidents that I raise make it very clear that (a) war crimes are common and (b) war crimes are committed with impunity.”
No, cherry-picking one account of one incident here or there does not establish either of those points. You show no understanding of how evidence is collected, for crimes in either peacetime or in armed conflicts. Most of the “evidence” you think you’ve “collected” would not be admitted into any Western court of law. At most, you’ve noted items which bear further investigation.
Hamas’ extensive and chronic use of civilian infrastructure and civilians as shields against the IDF was documented by NATO, many years ago. (https://stratcomcoe.org/cuploads/pfiles/hamas_human_shields.pdf) There’s really no reason to question this, yet somehow it seems to strike you as incredible news, every time someone mentions it.
@6 pat L: I sincerely hope you get your embryo Child Tax Credit.
I’m SO grateful now that I had my bilateral hysterectomy 3 1/2 years ago. I have no regrets.
A lot could have gone sideways, though. It was the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the procedure was to be performed in a Catholic run hospital, and my admission date, at first, was up in the air because it was considered elective surgery. Additionally, I was required to test negative for COVID to be admitted.
Luckily, I tested negative for COVID, and had an excellent OB-GYN, anesthesiologist, and surgical team. My OB-GYN was retiring in 2021. She compassionately knew how horrible my monthlies were, put her foot gently but firmly down, and I had the surgery done. The only potential snag was a nurse in pre-OP, who asked me if I had had a pregnancy test. My appalled reply: “I’m 56!” All was successful otherwise. The timing was and still is eerie for me. I consider myself among the lucky ones.
I feel sorry for all women and girls feeling the Draconian impact of the reversal of the 1973 Roe decision!
three comments from Nicholas
Kristof’s nyt opinion piece
‘What Can We Possibly
Say to the Children
of Gaza?’
the first, echoing some comments here:
“Hamas could surrender and return all the hostages. The fighting would end instantly. Our the people of Gaza, who we are constantly [told] don’t all support Hamas and the atrocities of 10/7, could rise up against Hamas. And the once again the fighting would stop.
But since neither of those things are happening Israel needs to destroy Hamas to the last man to prevent the next 10/7 which Hamas leaders have ensured us will happen.”
–Todd Stuart; Key West
“@Todd Stuart Thanks for your comment on my column, Todd, but let me push back. Yes, it’s true that Hamas could surrender and the war would end; I wish that would happen.
But it’s always true in any war that it would end if the other side surrendered, and the other side’s failure to oblige is not an excuse to level entire neighborhoods, kill many thousands of children and impose starvation on civilians.
And rather than destroying Hamas, Netanyahu has been empowering it in the West Bank and creating a seething resentment that may fuel terrorism for decades to come.
Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, for example, helped create Hezbollah, perhaps its greatest present threat.
So I don’t see Bibi’s Gaza war, the way he has prosecuted it against Gazans rather than against Hamas, as either moral or in Israel’s security interest.”
–Nicholas Kristof; nyt Columnist
[and, in reply to]
“@Independent Observer Yes, it’s certainly true that the Hamas government failed the people of Gaza (and I’d also argue that that the Netanyahu government has completely failed the people of Israel, and polls agree).
The point is that bad political choices by the public are not a justification for what President Biden himself has called “indiscriminate bombing” of civilians.
Children in particular should be protected — and instead the United States is backing a war that has involved the mass killing of children.”
–Nicholas Kristof;
more:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/03/opinion/gaza-israel-war-children.html
END the fucking
Massacre Now.
[Ed.: can tS’s contributers respond
to readers’ comments as well?
thanks!]
@30 In civilized nations, when the cops take your clothes they are obliged to give them back (or replace them if they need to keep them for evidence) when you leave the police station. Civilized nations don’t send released detainees home with hand still bound. Civilized nations don’t beat detainees. Too bad we can’t count Israel among civilized nations.
@29 It’s adorable that you think that Israel’s habit of extrajudicial killings, detaining Palestinians without trial, and the whole other nine yards started on 10/7. It’s been decades and has never required a war for Israel to justify it.
@33: Yeah, change the subject when you get called on your foolishness. (Throw in some whataboutism, too; that always throws everyone off the scent, you know.)