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.

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.”

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. 

Hannah Krieg is a staff writer at The Stranger covering everything that goes down at Seattle City Hall. Importantly, she is a Libra. She is also The Stranger's resident Gen Z writer, with an affinity for...

79 replies on “Slog AM: Council Member Saka Accuses Morales of Exaggerating Bullying Claims, SAM Workers Will Rally on the Picket Line, Cops Search for UnitedHealth CEO’s Killer”

  1. There was a time in City Hall when Councilmembers were collegial. It’s hard enough getting harassed by members of the public, no harm in keeping it classy with each other. The school board is all kinds of inept, but they’ve at least figured this out.

  2. @1 — Exactly. The new council is dysfunctional. The problems started with Nelson.

    Progressives may not have liked Harrell but no one accused the council of this kind of mismanagement. Same with conservatives and Gonzales. Regardless of your politics, it was clear the board was actually doing what they were supposed to do. When Juarez took over it was the same story.

    That isn’t the case anymore. The level of incompetence is striking.

  4. @2 if you are upset that a relative group of newcomers with little experience ub running a city are having issues than you should again blame the previous council. It’s true they were all knowledgable about how to run the government but their policies and attitude toward their constituents created the backlash that led to the current council being in office. If you want to pinpoint the moment decorum and working with diverse viewpoints was thrown out the window it was Jan 6, 2014.

    “Most people really feel for Morales, who faced undue scrutiny, scolding, and disparagement at the hands of her colleagues”

    I don’t know where Hannah is getting this. The comments in these pages, CHS and various social media are overwhelmingly in support of her resignation. Morales did very little for her actual district in her years in office which is why she barely held on over Woo during the last election.

  5. @4 “if you are upset that a relative group of newcomers with little experience ub running a city are having issues than you should again blame the previous council.”

    When the progressives mess up it’s their fault. When the conservatives mess up it’s also the progressives fault. Got it.

    Looking forward to the backlash to the current, incompetent Council.

  6. @4, it’s time to move on from the old city council, as convenient as it is to blame them for everything. The newcomers stepped up and promised to do better and now they must show us their stuff. It costs nothing to be civil, and it’s wise leadership to model how they’d like citizens to comport with each other as we struggle through public safety issues, homelessness etc. Using rage and grievance as a salve for for our problems is a page from the national political playbook. They can do better.

  7. @1, @2, @4: The way the Stranger simultaneously invokes Sawant’s time on the Council, whilst ignoring everything she actually did there, perfectly exemplifies Orwell’s “doublethink.” As @4 mentioned, CM Sawant arrived hot, heavy, and arrogantly convinced her way was THE way. For a decade, Socialist Alternative’s rent-a-mobs ensured Council public meetings were festivals of bullying near-riots, either implicitly or openly threatening Council Members. Very little of it worked — the Council repealed Sawant’s EHT while SA’s mob screamed obscenities and threats right into their faces — but her nastiness was always either there, or threatened. After all of that, to complain about people saying mean things after Sawant’s departure is just another nice Orwellian touch, of rewriting history on the fly. Speaking of which:

    “…permanently enshrine a tip punishment system, which CM Sawant had herself written into Seattle’s Minimum Wage Law.” There, fixed it for you; you’re welcome.

  8. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/05/biden-immigration-jails-trump-mass-deportation-plan

    Child separation is being brought back because it removes the bureacracy of keeping families together so traumatized kids can be trundled off to whichever private human trafficking facility fulfills its head counts to receive federal funding. Your taxpayer dollars well spent to indefinitely detain the most vulnerable for big profits to Geo Group and CoreCivic shareholders, with a new stock of chattel waiting to be collected in fresh concentration camps.

  9. Republicans may be waking up to the fact that grinding people to dust for profit while also letting them have all the guns they want might not have been a smart idea.

  10. @5: Seems like differentiating ‘conservatives’ from ‘liberals’ on the Seattle City Council is a matter of nuance. I’d love to see listing of the members by those categories.

  11. @3 it also does not bode well for the UH CEO that the stock jumped 7 points after the news broke. Sounds like nobody liked this man, and UH’s claim rejection rate is the highest in the industry. A big ol’ “Welp, bye” to that guy.

  12. @10 the ones who are for austerity budgeting, pro-business policy, and a blank check for law enforcement are who I was referring to as the “conservatives.” Those are traditionally conservative positions, although I admit the modern Democratic party has blurred the lines some.

  13. @5 Sure why not. When progressive polices are rejected or are proven to have made things worse its always because they weren’t extreme enough and/or some mysterious cabal of land barons, corporate elites or MAGA Republicans that have a secret base on Capitol Hill tricked the voters. I fully expect that the struggles of this council may lead to a back slide next year with Nelson losing her seat to someone like a Ron Davis but if progressives take that a sign to overreach again with more ridiculous polices and taxes they will once again get thrown out of office. This is the way.

  14. @2: “Progressives may not have liked Harrell but no one accused the council of this kind of mismanagement.”

    Please. In 2017, CM Harrell said the Council would not impeach Mayor Murray over any of the accusations made against him, because none of those accusations alleged events which had happened during Murray’s time as Mayor. Harrell was promptly accused of aiding, abetting, and endorsing the horrible crimes of which Murray was accused.

    Lest the point be missed, in 2021, CM Gonzalez tried to save her sinking Mayoral campaign against Harrell by recycling his 2017 refusal into an attack ad, again accusing him of sympathy for Murray’s alleged horrible crimes (not one of which had ever gone to court).

    Or is accusing a sitting CM of being in favor of raping minors simply not uncivil?

  15. @8, Since humans determine what is ethical and what is not, the behavior you are describing can just be made ethical by having humans change the definition of ethical to match the behavior. Problem solved.

  18. It’s almost 2025, and progressives in politics have fully worn out their welcome. If they can’t make it here, they can’t make it anywhere.

  19. Lol @1 and @2, you’re going to bat for the same seattle school board whose president only apologized for her complete incompetence with her crocodile tears after hundreds of students and parents stood up to their delusional closure plan?!

  22. “Former Council Member Kshama Sawant”

    That should read Trump supporting Kshama Sawant.

    And for someone clutching their pearls re uncivilized behavior, your actions supporting zombie twitter sort of defangs that position.

  23. nyt:

    Torrent of Hate

    for Health Insurance

    Industry Follows C.E.O.’s Killing

    The shooting death of a UnitedHealthcare executive in Manhattan has unleashed Americans’ frustrations with an industry that often denies coverage and reimbursement for medical claims.

    The fatal shooting on Wednesday of a top UnitedHealthcare executive, Brian Thompson, on a Manhattan sidewalk has unleashed a torrent of morbid glee from patients and others who say they have had negative experiences with health insurance companies at some of the hardest times of their lives.

    “Thoughts and deductibles to the family,” read one comment underneath a video of the shooting posted online by CNN. “Unfortunately my condolences are out-of-network.”

    On TikTok, one user wrote, “I’m an ER nurse and the things I’ve seen dying patients get denied for by insurance makes me physically sick. I just can’t feel sympathy for him because of all of those patients and their families.”

    –by Dionne Searcey and Madison Malone Kircher

    Dec. 5, 2024, 12:07 p.m. ET

    oodles More:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/05/nyregion/social-media-insurance-industry-brian-thompson.html

    M4A

    or Bust.

    (see: Above)

  24. @20 Enough of that canard. We may disagree with Sawant working to elect 3rd party Stein and even think that supporting a 3rd party in 2024 favored Trump (I do) but Sawant didn’t “support Trump”. I disagree with Sawant but I also acknowledge her right to think that voting for Stein was the only sensible choice she had considering the Democrats’ unwillingness to undo the legacy of 40 years of neoliberal policies, which ultimately cost them the election.

  25. @22 Democrats not earning Sawants’ vote and that of many who didn’t even bother to vote is solely the Democrats’ fault and certainly doesn’t make them Trump supporters. pretending otherwise represents a severely twisted understanding of democracy.

  27. UnitedHealth is the company that bought out The Polyclinic and The Everett Clinic, and. Is currently running both of them into the ground.

  28. @24: Sawant openly said she wanted to “punish” Harris and “defeat” her, after acknowledging Stein could not win. Therefore, Sawant was campaigning for Trump, full stop.

    Concoct any post-facto excuse you like, it does not matter in the slightest. Sawant stumped for Trump, and thus bears some responsibility for what Trump will do in office.

  29. 24: If Sara Nelson had indicated even 10% of the ire Sawant directed at Harris and/or supported Trump, this publication would be wall-to-wall continuing condemnation of not supporting Harris. If that isn’t enough for you to call out Sawant, how about these gems from Stein’s appearance in Seattle:

    https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/at-seattle-rally-sawant-says-harris-deserves-to-lose-1000-times/

    “Sawant, a leftist force on the City Council for a decade, admitted the obvious — that Stein has no chance to win.”

    “And at a rally in Philadelphia in June, Trump was explicit in his appreciation of Stein and Cornel West, another left-wing candidate who could pull votes from Democrats. “Cornel West, he’s one of my favorite candidates,” Trump said. “Jill Stein, I like her very much. You know why? She takes 100% from them.””

    What more do you need to call BS on anything Sawant has to say?

  30. “The overwhelming majority of Americans agree with progressive positions on most issues.”

    Mm-hmm, right up until they cast their votes. 😜

  31. @28. You stumped for Bibi and the far right government of Israel who wanted him elected and whose PACs paid million and millions to elect. Therefore, following your logic, you supported Trump too.

  32. @31: Quotes and urls, please, showing I ever advocated anyone vote for Bibi, or for any “spoiler” candidate to help get Bibi elected, for any elected office, anywhere, anytime.

  33. @31- last I checked, Bibi was not a candidate in any US election. It’s simple: Sawant worked to get a Trump elected. She can never be forgiven for that. Should really be tarred and feathered then shipped back to India. I’m sure the anti-immigrant asshole she helped elect would approve. It’d make more space for a White ‘Murrican to have a job in politics, amiright?

  34. How would a volunteer on the SAM board of trustees “… personal benefit” from policies the Board adopts?

    Boeing’s board, sure, but an art museum’s?!? Without supporting evidence it seems more than a stretch…

  35. @32: CDizzle (and a few other commenters around here) have bought into a theory that Israel’s campaign to defeat Hamas is actually nothing more than a conspiracy to keep Prime Minister Netanyahu in power. From this erroneous premise, they erroneously deduce that anyone who supports the destruction of Hamas must be conspiring to keep Prime Minister Netanyahu in power. The notion that Hamas deserves destruction on its own merits is utterly alien to CDizzle and the other commenters who share the conspiratorial perspective.

    For further conspiratorial nonsense from this same crowd, peep CDizzle @31 claiming that the “government of Israel” has a PAC spending millions of dollars to influence US elections. No, it doesn’t. See Federal Election Campaign Act, 52 U.S.C. § 30121 (prohibiting foreign persons, including foreign governments, from making electioneering expenditures).

  36. @24 and @31 Rightwing Democrats bear a much greater responsibility for letting demagogue Trump outflank them from the left with the many financially insecure than Sawant ever will. But of course, this uncomfortable fact won’t prevent you for attempting to demonize 3rd parties. If only you called out the DNC for running a losing campaign promoting the status quo with an electorate that desperately want change, then you might have legitimacy in criticizing Sawant for the very small part she played in splitting the vote

    @29 because whatever Trump says should taken as evidence of what exactly? and no chance of winning isn’t an argument for falling in step behind a losing strategy, and you have to chose between constantly bashing The Stranger and choosing it for a reference of how to behave.

  38. @35 “CDizzle (and a few other commenters around here) have bought into a theory that Israel’s campaign to defeat Hamas is actually nothing more than a conspiracy to keep Prime Minister Netanyahu in power.”

    Ya, CDizzle, a few other commenters, and… the hostages’ families

    https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-10-05/ty-article/.premium/hostages-families-as-long-as-netanyahu-is-in-power-theyll-stay-in-captivity-for-years/00000192-5d4f-d3f4-a3f3-fdcf756a0000?lts=1733434610355

    “Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan is a hostage in Gaza, slammed Prime Minister Netanyahu, stating he “has chosen to sacrifice the lives of the hostages to preserve his power. Even if the war in the north ends, Netanyahu wants the war in the south to continue,” she said. “As long as the war lasts, his coalition remains stable. As long as it continues, there will be no state commission of inquiry.”

  39. @36- it can be true both that the Dems made some errors and misread the room, and that Sawant and her ilk including the extraordinarily disingenuous Jill Stein worked to stop Harris from being elected. The latter is 110% equivalent to working for Trump.

  40. @39 the issue is this election wasn’t even close, Harris got wrecked, so focusing on Sawant does absolutely nothing to address the real issues that led to Trump’s reelection. You guys need to quit letting her live in your head rent free, it’s embarrassing at this point.

  41. So Trump isn’t pro-Bibi, and Bibi, Ben-Gvir, and Smotrich weren’t pro-Trump? AIPAC and CUFI don’t exist or have any influence on elections? Gaza had no impact on the elections whatsoever.

    Netanyahu is a lawless warmongering menace to the world, and Israel would be best served by a new government. Anyway, you don’t have to take my word for it.

    https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/dec/02/benjamin-netanyahu-bibi-files-israeli-corruption

    “Raviv Drucker, an Israeli television journalist and co–producer of The Bibi Files, has devoted much of his career to investigating allegations of corruption surrounding Netanyahu and his family. He says he always operated on the assumption that no one should be above the law, but now swears that, if he had known where Netanyahu would lead the country, he would rather the prime minister had never been indicted.

    “If you had taken me through some kind of time tunnel and shown me where we are in 2024, I would have told you: ‘Just don’t start with these 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.”

    Drucker argues that Netanyahu’s sharp turn to the right has its origins in his corruption indictment. The prime minister stunned people by refusing to resign, and when the indictment narrowed the field of Israeli parties willing to form a coalition government with him he turned in 2022 to the only alternative that would keep him in power.

    “This is the only reason that he established the most far-right coalition that was ever established in the history of Israel,” Drucker said. “Ben-Gvir and Smotrich are two lunatics from the far right. They represented a tiny fraction of the population.”

    He argues Netanyahu’s determination to avoid being tried led him to try to dilute the power of Israel’s supreme court, which may one day sit in judgement over him, by abolishing the court’s power to overrule government decisions. That attempt split the country and brought the biggest protests in Israeli history on to the streets last year, though the supreme court ultimately struck down the law at the heart of this judicial overhaul project.

    In sum, you jingoist shills for the most fascist government Israel has ever elected don’t even pretend to see the bold-faced corruption and war without end that Bibi is willing to drag his country through the mud and endanger them all for his own selfish aims.

    It’s like you dumbasses would say criticizing the equivalent of Trump would make one anti-Semitic if all things being equal he were Israel’s leader and happened to be Jewish. I know that it’s hard to think in multiple variables, but that’s how the world really works. The rest of you are just eating up and regurgitating the same pig vomit spread by the propaganda machine that plays over and over again in your small minds.

  47. @38: lol, I will just remind everyone that in the November 18 slog, you described Hamas’s videotaped beheading of a wounded hostage as an act of Palestinian self-defense. 🤪🤪🤪 So it’s a bit rich to hear about your deep respect for the hostages’ families now, ha ha ha! Shouldn’t the rest of the hostages be getting their heads hacked off, too, dude? 🤪😝🤪 Or was that first one a special case?

    The families of the hostages have an obvious incentive to buy into a conspiratorial view of the war. If the families admit that the war in Gaza is aimed at destroying Hamas, then the wellbeing of the hostages is probably less important to Israel than the prosecution of the war. If, on the other hand, the families can convince everyone that the war in Gaza is a mere pretext to keep an unpopular prime minister in power, then the wellbeing of the hostages is probably more important to Israel than the prosecution of the war. So the families have every incentive to identify the least significant, most venal justification for the war, regardless of the accuracy of their argument.

  49. @40: If you want to complain about anyone here “focusing on Sawant,” then please take your complaint to the writer of this very headline post, who approvingly quotes Sawant as an expert on how best to behave as an elected official. @20 even quoted from it, yet somehow you didn’t claim the Stranger’s headline poster was allowing Sawant to live in her head, or that this was embarrassing.

    So, claiming that Sawant is an example of good governance was just fine with you, but noting Sawant stumped for Trump is embarrassing? Welcome to Opposite Day!

    Priceless.

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