Today’s weather: Today begins with clouds, and then the sun will gradually making its appearance along with a high of 71 degrees. Feels like the slow slip into fall has begun.
Council Member Cathy Moore tweaks independent report: The Public Safety Committee meets at 9:30 am today to discuss Moore’s bill to reinstate the City’s prostitution loitering law and to create of a Stay Out of Area Prostitution (SOAP) zone, as well as a bill to create a Stay Out of Drug Area (SODA) zone. This morning, I broke the news that Moore appeared to try to tip the scales in favor of her bill by asking for revisions to a central staff memo so that it no longer included two concerns raised about her bill. Central staff memos are supposed to be nonpartisan and independent, and people familiar with Council procedure called the move unusual, and possibly unethical. Moore needs a little help on her bill though, considering that more than two dozen sex work, LGBTQ+, and anti-violence organizations publicly oppose the bill. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Washington also criticized the legislation.
Protestors call for Officer Kevin Dave’s firing: Members of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression gathered at City Hall Park Monday night to renew calls for the firing of Dave, the Seattle police officer who hit and killed 23-year-old Jaahnavi Kandula, according to KING 5. The Office of Police Accountability (OPA) paused its investigation into discipline against Dave while he faced criminal investigation, and as of early August, the OPA had yet to resume its investigation.
Latest ballot drop: Results from the primary election continue to roll in. The latest ballot drop boosted city council candidate Alexis Mercedes Rinck up to 50% as she continues to dominate incumbent Council Member Tanya Woo, who now looks to finish not only second, but more than 10 points behind Rinck. Meanwhile, in the race for Public Lands Commissioner, Dave Upthegrove has squeaked past Republican Sue Kuehl Pederson, but he only holds a lead of about 5,700 votes, and there are about 72,000 ballots left to process, so blood pressures should remain high as we wait to see if the race will be a battle between two Republicans. Hannah has more on the other races.
Woo’s ritual humiliation will continue in the general where the turnout will be even higher 😌 https://t.co/tF2CfmXkDU
— Brett Hamil (@BrettHamil) August 13, 2024
Homicides drop in Seattle: Pulling from a Council on Criminal Justice report, the Seattle Times compared homicide numbers from 2019 and 2024 and found that Seattle saw 10 more homicides during the first half of this year than it did during the first half of 2019. While the number of homicides now compared to pre-pandemic times remains higher, current homicide totals dropped by about 20% compared to the first six months of 2023. The Times‘ story has some interesting data, but I think people should also check out Axios’s story from earlier this year that provides a little more context around Seattle’s homicide statistics. Also, just go check out the homicides trends for yourself.
A “notable” rumble in Los Angeles: A little after noon on Monday, a 4.4 magnitude earthquake shook the city, temporarily trapping one person in an elevator and causing a leak to spring from a sprinkler head “at the top of the city hall rotunda” in Pasadena, CNN reports. That’s gotta be my favorite ever damage report from an earthquake.
Trump’s campaign got phished: The FBI admitted to launching an investigation into “a campaign cyberintrusion.” A “senior law enforcement official” told the New York Times that the investigation centers on a successful phishing operation into the Trump campaign that yielded “research and planning documents,” and attempted hacks into the campaigns of “top Democrats” that have so far yielded nothing. The news comes days after Microsoft reported that a group “affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps” called, lol, Mint Sandstorm, hacked Roger Stone’s email. Iran denies allegations of involvement.
Another false start: Elon Musk interviewed Trump on an X.com audio live stream 45 minutes after its scheduled start time, mirroring the technical issues the wealthy doofus faced when he tried to elevate Florida Governor and heinous transphobe Ron DeSantis’s political career with a similar live interview. Musk blamed a “DDOS [distributed denial of service] attack” for the technical difficulties, according to Politico. Musk’s fawning interview gave Trump the opportunity to lie and dissemble for an “hour-plus” about Biden, Harris, war, immigration, crime, etc., in front of a million listeners.
Wow, a DDoS attack so advanced it’s somehow able to target one specific Twitter Space while leaving the entire rest of the platform completely unaffected. A skeptic might call that impossible but the deviousness of these woke deep state leftists truly knows no bounds. pic.twitter.com/mFpsbjez3k
— Keys (@u_n_l_0_c_k_e_d) August 13, 2024
Insight finds a drink: The 2018 Mars Insight Lander found “a reservoir of liquid water on Mars – deep in the rocky outer crust of the planet,” according to the BBC. The lander used a seismometer to “listen to the pulse of Mars for four years,” and scientists discovered squiggles that indicated the presence of liquid water. If you want a sip, you’ll have to dig; the water lies between six and twelve miles underground.
War in Sudan at “catastrophic, cataclysmic breaking point”: Sudanese General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan refuses to meet with the US to begin the process of ceasefire talks after a year of civil war with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which are helmed by his former deputy, Hemedti Dagalo. Dagalo plans to show up to the talks no matter what al-Burhan does. The UN warned of the country reaching “a catastrophic, cataclysmic breaking point”: where tens of thousands more will die, after tens of thousands have already died; 10.7 million remain displaced within the country and 2.3 million have already fled for their lives, Al Jazeera reports.
Ukraine on the offense: Ukraine took a chunk out of Russia’s Kursk region, causing some agita among Kremlin loyalists and reportedly giving the defending power a much-needed shot in the arm, the Washington Post reports. A Russian newspaper said some people in the western Russian province felt “abandoned” by Putin and “lied to” about having the situation under control. US war hawks are using the news to push for the sale of weapons that would allow Ukraine to fire into Russia, not just into the parts of Ukraine currently under Russian control. Though Ukraine now holds a 7.5-mile area that includes about “28 communities,” Russia still holds one-fifth of Ukraine.
More hot girl music: My friends continue to try to create the perfect playlist for this summer. We’ve added some GloRilla and Megan Thee Stallion.
when the Richest
man on the Planet
sucks off a fellow Fascist
on his 44 BILLION dollar anti-
social anti-socialist anti-commie
pigpen you just Know democracy’s
about to meet its bitter end. & so it goes
Elon’s attempts to simulate being among a group of Great Men© discussing heady topics in a well appointed room fall flat even when the equipment is being competently operated, if we’re being honest. Probably for the best.
If there’s no anti-loitering bill for an area of high prostitution, then by what legal cause can an officer use to help to stop underage girls from being sexually sold on the sidewalk?
@3:
There are plenty of laws already on the books to cover that particular situation: kidnapping, exchanging sex for something of value, soliciting, patronizing, using a third party to facilitate sexual services, age of consent, permitting or promoting prostitution or travel for prostitution – just to name a few off the top of my head.
If the po-po are unable to effectively utilize the plethora of anti-prostitution laws already at their disposal, I honestly don’t see how adding yet another law they won’t effectively use will make any appreciable difference.
@3 – putting pimps in prison for a very long time would be a great start. The girls being trafficked are victims, too. But their pimps/traffickers are purely and simply the scum of the earth.
The Stranger: “Elon Musk sucks! (Here’s a bunch of Twitter links.)”
@3 if there’s no law criminalizing people who’ve been assaulted/robbed/raped how will police ever stop those who commit assaults, robberies and rapes?
F Russia
F Musk
F the Bleached Combover Pompadour Narcissist
F the Drift Racers in the park at midnight last night
F the plane that flew so low over my house it woke me up at 3 am
@4 you would need to catch them engaging in those acts before you could detain them which is much more time consuming and costly
@5 the only way you convict the pimps is to have the people they are exploiting testify against them.
These laws aren’t perfect but they give police a change to engage with these workers and hopefully lead to their traffickers and pimps. Beyond that though it allows the police to clear these areas so that people living and working there are not subjected to this activity on a daily basis. As usual the focus in completely on the offender and not on the people impacted by their activity. I think the benefit to the public good far outweighs the concerns listed by the activists groups. Their solution like homelessness is to let the exploitation, trafficking and public health issues continue unabated until such time that people who are generally incapable of acting rationally (either due to drug/mental health issues or threats of violence) magically change their outlook and seek out help.
@9 “Their solution … is to let the … issues continue unabated until such time that people who are generally incapable of acting rationally (either due to drug/mental health issues or threats of violence) magically change their outlook and seek out help.”
No, of course it’s much better for the state to decide who is “incapable of acting rationally” and make their decisions for them. Specifically by having armed state agents curtail their liberty. I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free!
@9: The US Department of Justice literally offers a detailed guide on operating a sex trafficking task force in order to take down traffickers and pimps…which our “tough crime” mayor and council could direct SPD to implement.
It includes none of the silliness in this legislation, and, more to the point, here’s how it emphasizes the ins and outs of dealing effectively with sex workers:
“Trauma affects how victims see themselves, their worldview, and relationships. These beliefs affect how victims respond to services and the criminal justice system and underscore the importance of task forces taking a trauma-informed approach, not only through service delivery but also throughout the investigation and prosecution process.
Both the criminal justice and victim services systems can inadvertently re-traumatize. Taskforce member responses that can lead to re-traumatization include–
Not having time to consider options; arrests, lack of choice in housing or service provision can create a feeling of a lack of control for victims.
Enforcing power dynamics; not allowing victims to make their own choices related to services, engaging with law enforcement and/or prosecution. This can cause victims to feel threatened or even attacked.”
This legislation is counter-productive to effective sex trafficking interdiction. It’s like the Council wants to do the real bad guys a favor.
Loitering is such a vaguely defined “crime” that it’s practically a blank check to the police to harass, detain, or arrest anyone existing in public space. These kinds of laws were written after the civil war to give the police just cause to arrest black men. It takes a complete lack of imagination to look to the reconstruction era to curtail activities that are already criminalized under multiple statutes, unless giving the police a blank check is the whole point.
@10/11 you’re right of course. Let’s make perfect the enemy of the good because that is the Seattle way. In the meantime the people living and working around these areas can get bent because who cares about them anyway. Just shut up and pay your taxes right?
@13 your error is thinking this proposed legislation is “good”
@13, This is just an appeal to your emotions that doesn’t even attempt to explain why more laws are needed when others already exist.
@14 by all means continue with your smug superiority while residents continue to be impacted by this activity and those involved continue to be exploited. I can only assume you don’t live in these areas so you can be indifferent to others concerns.
@16 Let’s try this one more time. The solution is for SPD to use the DOJ manual to work on the problem of prostitution. You know, by doing what’s effective. The solution is not to do something counterproductive. If the Council wants to actually solve the problem, they’d direct SPD to use the DOJ manual in the highest impacted areas.
But that’s not what they’ll do because the effective work takes time. Instead, they’ll Be Seen Doing Something (Anything!) and either shift the problem somewhere else or just arrest a raft of people while not getting to the root of the problem.
If they want to make an immediate difference, find out where the prostitutes are taking the johns for sex and then close those places (typically skeezy motels) down. That made an immediate positive difference at 125th and Aurora when the city did that last year.
@16 didn’t take you long to abandon the “give police a chance to engage with these workers and hopefully lead to their traffickers and pimps” bullshit
@16, More appeals to emotion with some personal insults added. Try again?
The Orange Turd and Elon Musk are already global plagues.
No surprise there.
Wake me when The Orange Turd, Musk, and all their greedily profiteering fellow MAGAt neofascists get wiped off the face of what’s left of the Earth. Now THAT would be news, provided how livable the Earth’s condition.
I predict that should we have a dystopian repeat of 2016, all allies of the Deeply Divided States who HAD our back (especially during WWII) will just say, ‘fuck it–the US is our enemy now’, and point all guns at us. All because ~75 million idiots have no clue how to vote wisely are so stirred up by the Orange Turd’s Misinformation Media Circus.
@17 They are following the manual as you say and have produced results:
https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/seattle-police-arrest-7-undercover-human-trafficking-operation-aurora-avenue/MBRL2DHI5BHJBNHRMQ7LT3DL6Y/
I don’t agree disallowing prostitutes to loiter is counterproductive. CA changed their law a few years ago and have seen sex trafficking increase: https://abc7news.com/ca-loitering-law-sex-trafficking-sb-357-workers/12910562.
You have to do the hard work to get to the real villains but you shouldn’t also make it easy for them to operate while you are doing that work. I would support closing down businesses such as skeezy motels but I think you’ll also find there are long term residents in those places that will end up homeless. It’s trickier than it sounds.
@18 I didn’t abandon anything merely responding to your casual brush off as anything I don’t agree with is not good
@19 I provided the reason I supported this legislation back in @9. Feel free to respond to that if you don’t agree. fwiw the entire premise of repealing these laws was essentially based on emotion (the perceived harm being done to marginalized sex workers)
@13: The issue at hand is not making the perfect the enemy of the good. The legislation is not good. It contradicts best practices for reducing sex trafficking by getting the real bad guys. That’s not just zero percent good, it is counterproductive–affirmatively bad. (Unless the goal is indeed something else, like just pushing sex workers around).
@21, The law was repealed because it put sex trafficking victims at greater risk with no impact on the crime itself. That’s not an appeal to emotion, it’s a statement of fact, and one that you at least pretended to care about in your first comment on the topic. If you think it’s good for cops to engage with sex workers to earn their cooperation, arresting them for loitering is counterproductive.
@23 greater risk of what? The only criticism I see of these laws is that it targets marginalized people who are overrepresented in the industry. However that is basically the same excuse activists use to push back against any sort of nuisance ordinance. The issue I have with that reasoning is it is 100% focused on the individual and completely ignores the wider impacts to the community. If you think this type of law is so bad then tell me how you think we can balance the needs of the community while dealing with this. What we are doing today is clearly not working either. Let’s be honest, its not going to get “solved” because this is as old as humanity itself so its how do we help people who are being coerced and/or want to get out while not allowing it to fester and impact innocent community members?
@24: “how do we help people who are being coerced and/or want to get out while not allowing it to fester and impact innocent community members?”
Human Trafficking Task Force e-Guide
Office of Justice Programs
https://www.ovcttac.gov/TaskForceGuide/eguide/
@21 Did you read your cite? The cops arrested 7 johns. Didn’t touch a single pimp or human trafficker (at least as far as that article says). Try again. And do make a note of where in the DOJ manual it suggests exclusionary areas. You seem to think that’s a good idea, so tell us how it aligns with best practices.
The skeezy motels that they closed on Aurora were warned several times to cut off prostitution activity. I would expect that the closures had some reverb through the skeezy motel community, and other motels will be more cooperative to avoid getting shut down. The places on Aurora have re-opened but it doesn’t seem to have led to a large uptick in street walkers.
@24, That’s not the only reason the law is bad.
https://www.thestranger.com/news/2024/08/06/79637113/seattles-proposed-prostitution-law-faces-criticism-from-advocates-former-city-attorney
Lol no. Elon Musk isn’t a serious person let alone a journalist. He’s ruined enough already.
Whatever happened to Raindrop?
@30 They got banned, and there’s been a parade of almost lookalikes since.
@30
see:
@28:
ronny
raygun
& the wick-
ed Witch of the West
It’s a little weird to read The Stranger moralizing about sex trafficking. Consider they made a lot of ad revenue from “Backpages” over the years, selling ads for underage sex trafficking victims.
@27 please tell me that isn’t a reference to the quote from Pete Holmes
Musk interviews Trump on X and this country acts like that is totally normal and acceptable. What a sick, vile, vomit inducing, disgusting display of everything that is wrong with this country. This country deserves what it gets.
@31 Banned for what? Raindrop was usually very polite.
@36
He ran afoul of Vivian.
@36, A bunch of troll accounts were wiped out after they left hateful comments on an article about a transgender inmate.
banned
for insisting
gender cannot
be fluid/inconclusive
whilst objecting to ‘bad’
words that upset the religulous
banned
for not knowing
that obscenity’s in
inhumane actions not
cussing or naked bodies
and
for mean-
spiritied trolling.
banned
but right
Back again.
say
that
Reminds
me: where
is Wormtongue,
Jr aka ‘fax’tosuadeyou?
a
more
amoral
commentator
we’ll never find in
this wretched hive
of scum & Villainy.
I guess the Raindrop has evaporated.
@40,
He’s now posting as Ronald and Nancy (@28, etc.)
@41, Do you have any idea how completely unhinged you sound here? You’re not fooling anyone by talking about yourself in the 3rd person.
It’s not like “raindrop” didn’t have a history of anti-trans comments and vocal support for the targeted harassment of queer people online. This was just the final straw.
You claim to be “concerned” about trans kids consenting to safe medical care while also expressing support for literal domestic terrorists threatening teachers, doctors, and department store employees for supporting LGBTQ youth. Do you care about the kids or do you think they and their families and supporters deserve death threats? It can’t be both, unless you just hate queer people while alleging to be one yourself.
It’s not that deep I’m just making fun of you.
@44 Yup, that’s the Raindrop we all know, and we just go
“meh”…
black
and white
day is night
banned
for insisting
gender cannot
be fluid/inconclusive
easy come
& easy go.
@32 kristofarian: Thanks for the warning. I have been trying not to feed the trolls lately.
@35 xina: You can’t mean me. I don’t do X (formerly known as Twitter). Never have, never will, and I’m not sorry.
I have no use for the Orange Turd’s and Elon Musk’s self-serving social media circus.