Weather: Catch a little morning fog? I live in a basement so I haven’t had a proper look at the sky yet, so IDK for sure, but The Weather Channel said to expect some fog this morning. By the time you’re reading this, the fog’s probably cleared, but the clouds are here to stay. Mid-morning should bring temperatures in the low 40s which will steadily warm up to a peak of 47 around 3pm. Nothing special!
Stand with SAM workers: Gallery guards of the Seattle Art Museum (SAM) have been on strike since November 29 after two years of contract negotiations ending in a stalemate over pay and benefits. Today, the SAM Visiting Service Officers (VSO) Union invites you to join them on their picket line on First Avenue and Union Street from 10 am to 8 pm for their “Rally for a better museum; and a better future” during the first Thursday art walk. According to a press release, the rally aims to “draw attention to SAM’s Board of Trustees, whose corporate interests dictate SAM’s policies to their personal benefit, rather than the benefit of the workers.” Show them some love online, in their bosses’ inbox, or get your butt to the picket line!
City Council reacts: As you probably already know, Council Member Tammy Morales announced in a press release that she will resign, leaving her seat open effective January 6. I wrote about the bullying that led up to her decision here and I’ll have more on how advocates are reacting to the changing political dynamics later. Most people really feel for Morales, who faced undue scrutiny, scolding, and disparagement at the hands of her colleagues, probably because she’s more progressive than them. But Council Member Rob Saka took a different tact. Saka told KOMO that Morales’s complaints about the “hostile” workplace amount to “hyperbole.” He said, “’Look, everyone is entitled to speak their own opinion and speak their own truth. But for me, personally, I’ve been more than accommodating, been more than collaborative… [and] I strongly disagree on some of the harsh rhetoric and divisive politics inherent in her statement.’” This is especially rich since Morales accused the council of gaslighting her.
What about Woo? After Morales announced her resignation, city council followers started speculating that former Council Member Tanya Woo would apply for the vacancy. Woo lost to Morales in 2023, but got big business’s blessing and the nepo baby hook up for a different, non-elected appointment to the council. Then, she lost to Council Member Alexis Mercedes Rinck last month trying to retain the seat. Woo did not confirm or deny any plans to apply for the appointment or run for the seat in 2025.
Former CM Woo just texted me that this video will be her only statement regarding CM Morales resignation. No confirmation on the potential appointment. https://t.co/RfdCwDfupp
— Hannah Krieg (@hannahkrieg) December 5, 2024
And finally, Sawant: Former Council Member Kshama Sawant came up a lot in discussion about Morales’s sudden departure. Morales said her association with the socialist made all her moves suspect to her new colleagues. But any comparison falls flat to Sawant, who told The Stranger Morales tried to make peace with the openly pro-corporate wing of the Democratic Party—unlike how Sawant conducted herself on council. “The decade-long record of my socialist City Council office stands in stark contrast to this dead-end approach,” Sawant wrote in a text. “I never sought for one minute to make peace with big business or their politicians. And yet, I was never isolated because my alliance was with working people.” Working people certainly felt more represented by Morales than any other member of the council, but Sawant argued Morales didn’t fight hard enough, citing how she snubbed an invitation to speak at a press conference fighting against the council’s brief attempt to permanently enshrine a tip punishment system.
Unsurprising and unacceptable: The U.S. Department of Justice launched an investigation into the Memphis Police Department after they beat Tyre Nichols to death in a 2023 traffic stop. The findings are in and it turns out the department indeed uses excessive force and discriminates against Black people. The city of Memphis said in a letter “that it would not agree to negotiate federal oversight of its police department until it could review and challenge results of the investigation.”
Pumping the brakes: President Donald Trump is on track to lose his third cabinet nominee in two weeks, says Axios. In November, Trump hit the lobbying phones to get Congress to approve his controversial appointment of Matt Gaetz. After the scrutiny uncovered just the tip of his alleged history of sex trafficking and cavorting with minors, Gaetz withdrew. Now, it seems GOP lawmakers have taken that as a sign that Trump’s willing to change his mind. That seems especially true as he takes a hands-off approach to the appointment of his Department of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth, who it seems is also a walking public relations nightmare.
Twitter reacts: I know y’all hate the former bird app, but yesterday was one of those days. Like the time Trump got COVID-19 or when Henry Kissinger died, the assassination of the UnitedHealth CEO really brought the people together. But the jokes may come to an end soon. According to ABC, the cops are “closing in” on the gunman’s identity. They’ve found pictures of the gunman’s face. Additional information includes bullet casings found at the scene with “deny,” “defend,” and “depose” written on them. Those words echo the title of a 2010 book, the subtitle of which reads: “Why insurance companies don’t pay claims and what you can do about it.”
If the wife of the murdered CEO of UnitedHealth is upset now, just wait until she gets the emergency room bill
— Democrats hate the working class (@DoctorFishbones) December 4, 2024
In French news: New right-wing prime minister Michel Barnier resigned this morning after 331 lawmakers supported a vote of no confidence brought forward by an alliance of left-wing parties. However, the vote received support from the far-right party as well with 331 lawmakers voting to topple Barnier. It was the country’s first successful no-confidence vote since 1962. According to The Guardian this does not bode well. France is about to plunge into the unknown. Factions of both parties are now calling for centrist President Emmanuel Macron to resign. Stay tuned, I guess!
Stop me if you’ve heard this one: And it sound like many of you have—over and over and over again. Rising pop girlie Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” made it to the top spot of the most users’ Spotify Wrapped lists.
@45, Nope that approach is yours.
I kind of hope they do put Woo back in there, just to see the reaction of The Mean Girls at The Stranger.
@51. You sit on a throne of lies.
Antham Blue Cross cancels plan to limit anesthesia coverage for surgical procedures. And they say violence never accomplishes anything.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/anthem-blue-cross-blue-shield-anesthesia-coverage-policy/
For those interested in what a zombie twitter free Slog AM could be, look no further than our friends from Portland
https://www.portlandmercury.com/good-morning-news/2024/12/05/47533971/good-morning-news-greater-idaho-movement-begs-trump-for-help-vancouver-man-killed-by-cop-and-the-unwelcome-return-of-ron-desantis
God I miss Wm. Steven Humphrey writing for the stranger – Portland’s gain is Seattle’s loss.
@47 that’s not true and you know it, link to my comment is below if anyone actually cares. You claiming the families are just playing a political game gives a real insight into the disturbingly cynical way you view the world though
https://www.thestranger.com/slog-am/2024/11/18/79788018/slog-am-elysian-brewing-leaves-georgetown-after-union-attempt-fob-sushi-bars-tiktok-fiasco-trump-appointees-white-supremacist-tattoo/comments/33
@49 you’re the #1 offender, you can’t go three comments without mentioning Sawant even when nobody else is talking about her. Seek help
@4 — Wait, so the reason the council is so fucked up is because of someone who no longer serves? That is your argument?
I’m guessing you’ve never served on a board or know someone who did. It is common to have one firebrand who is hard to get along with. But the majority are typically collegial and get shit done. This was the case when Sawant took office. Burgess, Harrell, Gonzalez, Juarez — they all presided over a functional council. That is a very wide range of political opinion (at least for Seattle) from Republican Burgess to conservative leftest Harrell and Juarez to slightly farther left Gonzalez. Yet the board managed to handle things just fine despite their obvious difference of opinion.
Now they are incompetent and you think Sara Nelson has nothing to do with it? Instead it is the fault of someone who isn’t even on the council? Holy shit, what a stupid argument.
It isn’t complicated. Nelson is a terrible leader. Half the council doesn’t know what the fuck it is doing and she doesn’t care. She is comfortable in the chaos. That is the problem.
@56: So, the Stranger posting about Sawant as a positive example didn’t bother you in the slightest, but multiple commenters noting Sawant stumped for Trump causes you to issue repeated criticisms?
The problem here is severe embarrassment, all right, and a deeply wounding, excruciatingly painful, abjectly humiliating, and unrelentingly agonizing embarrassment it most certainly is, too.
It’s just afflicting different persons than the ones you claim it is.
Kshama
Sawant broke
wormmy’s feeble brain.
it’s All he can ‘think’ about anymore
even tho he’s
Moved across
our Vast Country
to get Away From
that “mean” Progressive.
perhaps
after all his
Cheerleading
for bobi’s Keep-
the-FUCK-Outta
Prison gambit, he’d
be Welcomed there.
@54 — hard to Argue with that.
btw your @9’s got 43 ‘recommends,’ so far:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/05/nyregion/social-media-insurance-industry-brian-thompson.html#commentsContainer
@56: lol, nice try!
Thumpus: “You can, if you want, watch video them hacking off a farm worker’s head in one of the kibbutzes while the dude is still alive, although I wouldn’t recommend it if you have a weak stomach.”
Thirteen12: “Like NotMyopic says the burden is on you to prove the head hacked off didn’t belong to a Mossad assassin. Nobody can criticize any party unless they have unassailable concrete proof the people massacred weren’t military targets, or maybe standing too close to one. Sorry I don’t make the rules”
Thumpus: “You’re, uh, defending a literal beheading video. Yikes my dude, lol!”
Thirteen12: “Gaza has a right to defend itself”
😘
@58 serious question: how many photos of Sawant with the eyes cut out do you have on the wall in your basement?
@41
“‘Just don’t start with these [nutnyahoo’s Israeli Indictment] cases.’ I would throw all of them in the garbage, even though some of them started with my investigations,’ Drucker tells me during a work visit to Japan. ‘This is the honest truth, because none of us would have imagined what Netanyahu would do.'” –@CD
is
Still
DOING.
does it not End
till bibi gets Deposed
or Armafuckinggeddon?
or is That
when Jesus
comes back?
20,000
rapturing
off to Heaven
8,200,000,000 left
to do What, exactly?
welcome in the
Cockroaches?
or wave buh-Bye! to
the Trillionaires as
They Inherit the
planet. Damn.
Who couldda
Seen that 1
comin’?
@62. My backup plan is making pizza in Antarctica at McMurdo Station.
“The problem here
is severe embarrassment,
all right, and a deeply wounding,
excruciatingly painful, abjectly humil-
iating, and unrelentingly agonizing embar-
rassment it most certainly is, too.” –@wormmy
at
his
Finest.
well
Done!
@63
no shit?
I’m gonna
Caddy* there
for a year or two
then sell weed for five
then
retire to
New Atlantis
Bezo’s Cityship
where the Party Never
Ends. till You do. whopeee
*the
Saudis
think of
Everything
https://youtu.be/pzlA9HDNwBs?feature=shared
@63, Can one make it on $7.25 an hour in Antarctica? How about $2.13 and hour plus tips?
Hard to believe somebody un-alived the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. That is a shame. A damn, dirty shame.
@67. Money doesn’t exist in Antarctica (other than novelty money) and everyone’s basic needs are met. There is no rent, bills, or taxes, and all money you make is yours to keep and the food is free. Pretty good place to be a digital nomad too in your free time.
That being said, in the event of nuclear war and currency embargoes, fiat currency isn’t going to mean jack squat. Special drawing rights and gold will be the only meaningful currency left in any world order once we blow up it up. Better to be prepared for nuclear winter and isolation in a place well stocked for years in advance as well as conditioned to a polar ice cap climate in a commune like setting. Fallout would be minimal relative to the rest of the world. Antarctica is consistently rated among the safest places to be in the event of nuclear war. If you have a better solution for the layman on a budget, you tell me.
Did I mention fresh water?
@69 Special Drawing Rights? Hahaha. The only thing that will matter is physical control of actual gold. Nobody will be redeeming “special drawing rights.”
@71. Animals could be bred and SchLAUGHTERED!
@71 physical control of ammunition
@69: Ehhh, maybe give Antarctica a test run now, before the apocalypse. Can’t hurt to try it out first, right? 😄
@61: Another day, another headline post at the Stranger tells us Sawant is highly relevant to Seattle’s politics today:
‘Sawant took a different tact [sic] with her political foes on the council. As Sawant described it to The Stranger, “I never sought for one minute to make peace with big business or their politicians.’
(https://www.thestranger.com/news/2024/12/06/79812256/one-step-forward-one-step-back-how-progressives-can-still-enact-change-after-tammy-morales-resignation)
So, after you tell us how Sawant stumping for Trump did not “make peace with big business or their politicians,” you can rip the Stranger a new one for telling us she’s still relevant today.
@75 she’s relevant in the sense her legacy still remains. Many of the polices that she used her bully pulpit to pass are continuing to restrict the city’s ability to move forward from the pandemic. Whether its the housing policies that have led to thousands of units of housing being lost and low income providers facing bankruptcy, the “worker” protections she passed that have limited job growth (you can argue some people are better off with these policies but at the end of the day others have completely lost their jobs and new jobs are not being created) or her and the previous councils unrealized threats that undermined public safety. We are sitting here today a little over a year from the election of the new council with TS and other activists trying to dunk on them for not “cleaning” up the city or fixing the budget as they had promised. It’s been 1 year after a full decade of this lunacy. You are not going to fix that or unwind it in one year.
@62 & @65 kristofarian, and @63, @69 & @72 CDizzle (Garb Garblar?): Antarctica is the only safe place left to inhabit on Earth? I understand through bestselling author Maria Semple [see Where’d You Go, Bernadette? c. 2012] that the Drake Passage between South America and Antarctica is the most dangerously turbulent crossing, with 40 foot waves—in the world. And that, according to Bernadette Fox’s brilliant teenage daughter, Bee Branch, penguins–while comical and cute— are rather territorial and actually stink (up close)!
This, and dining on cockroaches is the only hope for survival of ~ 8.5 billion people on our dying planet??
And with known anti-vaxxer RFK Jr. being sworn in as head of the U.S. Health Department I predict many of us will already be dropping like flies before the first nuclear warhead hits the soil of this Trump-benighted country.
If Kennedy is indeed sworn in Senator Patty Murray has warned us of how disastrous this will be to our healthcare and to the economy [see Patty Murray, at UW Medicine, Tries to Sound Alarm on RFK Jr and Vaccines, Front page, A1, The Seattle Times, Saturday, December 7, 2024].
All this because STILL, 55 years and 4 1/2 months after sending the first man to the Moon, too many voters are too chickenshit, misogynistic, ignorant, or All of the Above to ever elect an educated, well qualified WOMAN President of what was the United States.
I honestly hope that my friends in the blood red neofascist states of MAGA confusion can evacuate to safety, better housing, and legislature. As for all the batshit pro-Trumpists, I hope the red states promoting hatred, fear, misinformation, and propaganda all go first. They asked for this when voting against their best interests.
MAGAs don’t own the Democrats and libs—they have it backwards. Trump, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos ad nauseum own the MAGAs, especially every time gun crazed RepubliKKKan voters stupidly send money in to pay off Trump’s lawyers.
@77: Moving to Antarctica sounds a little extreme as well as cost prohibitive. It would be for me.
It seems more affordable, safer, and saner just to die peacefully at home–hopefully with my beloved VW, all that I value, and with close friends, family, and neighbors surrounding.
Jesus wept—this current Err of Trump sounds like a combination of a dystopian nightmare episode of The Twilight Zone and a page out of Stephen King’s bestselling 1978 novel, The Stand.
@23 kristofarian: Jee-ZEUS! Can I ever relate. Nobody of sound mind and body should end up at the dystopian nightmare that is Harborview Medical Center. I swear, it’s where poor, elderly, disabled, broke, and homeless people are supposed to go to die. I’m just grateful I made it safely home after a three-day ordeal, and have lived to tell the tale.
And with RFK Jr. getting sworn in as Head of the Health Department things are likely to get infinitely worse. 🙁