Landlords strike again. Credit: COURTESY ARK LODGE CINEMAS/GALEN ANDRUS

That’s better: Okay, this week tested the limits of the human body and our box fans, but temperatures should be much more bearable today than, say, Tuesday. According to the National Weather Service, Seattleites can expect clear skies and a high of about 82 degrees. Don’t get me wrong, that’s still too hot, but earlier this week I felt faint walking to the grocery store, so I’ll take an 82 degree day!

Pearl-clutchers needn’t clutch so hard: According to the FBI and local cops, crime rates fell last year in Washington. Overall, crime against people fell 0.6%, with violent crimes dropping 5.5% from 2022 to 2023, property crime dropping 11.9%, and murders dropping 5.8%. Despite an overall decrease, some specific areas saw an increase. Vehicle theft rose 5.4%, hate crimes rose 5.5%, and “vice crimes” involving drugs, sex work, and gambling rose a stark 22% in the year where Washington state restarted the drug war.

More W stats: According to the latest Consumer Price Index Report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, consumer prices dropped 0.1% in June, bringing the annual rate of inflation down from 3.3% to 3%. CNN has more info. 

ICYMI: The City of Seattle approved a $1.55 billion transportation levy for voters’ consideration on the November ballot. Some urbanist types are super pleased. Transportation Choices Coalition (TCC) sent out a press release announcing their campaign’s efforts to pass what they touted as “historic investments” in transit, sidewalks, bike lanes, safety, and basic maintenance. TCC Executive Director Kirk Hovenkotter said, “No matter who you are, this levy will make it safer and easier for you to get around Seattle. Voters will soon have the opportunity to make a generational investment in our city’s transportation future.” But some urbanists say the levy did not go far enough. In a Substack post, former city council candidate and current transit wonk Ron Davis wrote that the levy still prioritizes car infrastructure, which will keep Seattle from meeting important goals to curb climate change and stop traffic violence and death. 

WiFi returns to the library: As we all know, a cyber attack in May knocked out the WiFi and shut down several key functions, but now the Seattle Public Library is back online! You can check out progress on the restoration of services here. 

Save Ark Lodge Cinemas: Yet another beloved Seattle arts institution faces the scythe. Ark Lodge, the independent theater in Columbia City, say their landlords hiked the rent $5,000 and now demand all back rent or else they’ll go through with an eviction. The theater needs $250,000 to survive. Find the GoFundMe here. 

Public Lands Commissioner? More like Public Lands Campaigner: Fifteen Department of Natural Resource (DNR) staffers told the Seattle Times that congressional candidate Hilary Franz used her job as Public Lands Commissioner for political gain. They claim that Franz “blurred lines governing the use of public resources for political purposes” by pressuring DNR staff to organize official events to help her win endorsements, attend her campaign fundraisers, and sign nondisparagement agreements. Franz denies any wrongdoing and the Seattle Times makes the important disclaimer that these power hungry little buggers use their offices for political gain all the time. But, the fact that a bunch of state workers spoke out against Franz is “unusual in Olympia, where the risk of professional consequences for speaking out against powerful officials usually keeps people quiet.”

That office building sure looks like a house: Earlier this week, the Seattle City Council passed a bill to incentivize developers to turn office buildings into housing by exempting such projects from the Mandatory Housing Affordability program. Now, you know how I feel about this—it’s goofy! Super goofy! It is a really, really expensive way to make 1,000 or so units in already dense areas to avoid spreading the burden the love of new development around the entire city, which we can no longer avoid doing if we want to build the 100,000 new homes we need over the next 20 years to claw Seattle out of housing crisis. For now, Seattle is just losing out on MHA funding that they probably wouldn’t otherwise collect because these conversions would not happen without the exemption, but the city could go even further and approve a sales tax break for these projects. Must be nice to get a tax break from your local gov! Couldn’t be the working class!

Clooney speaks: The New York Times ran an op-ed by actor and big-time Democrat George Clooney, who revealed that President Joe Biden, to put it meanly, brought a weird geriatric vibe to the function that Clooney did not really like! Despite headlining a $28 million fundraiser for the president just last month, Clooney called on Biden to step out of the race. In a celebrity-obsessed culture, Clooney’s op-ed could “change hearts and minds,” as they say in the biz. But Biden’s team pushed back, claiming that Biden out-partied Clooney, who allegedly called it a night hours earlier than the President. 

He’s not alone: Newly polling suggests 67% of Americans think President Joe Biden should drop out of the race, and it’s not just haters! Of the people who said they would vote for Biden in November, more than 80% of them think he’s too old for a second term and 44%—less than half—think he should continue. As for replacing him, it’s not so cut and dry. It would seem Vice President Kamala Harris would be the easiest person to transfer the campaign funds to, but she’s not exactly a favorite. While 70% of Democrats would be satisfied with Harris, only 29% named her as their top choice. But, hey! That’s a pretty big piece of the pie, considering voters named 30 potential choices!

The pressure is on: As more and more Democrats call on Biden to exit the race, Biden’s set to face another high-stakes public appearance in a press conference later today, where he will take questions from the media for the first time since he fumbled so historically hard on the debate stage. It will be his first solo news conference since 2020, and it may be his last if he fails to prove that he’s not on death’s door. 

Branding level 1000:

Boo: Advocates for reproductive health and autonomy are outraged after the Arkansas secretary of state rejected an abortion rights petition on some technicalities. The initiative would take away the state’s power to “prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion services” up to 18 weeks of pregnancy. But for now, the good people of Arkansas will continue to live under a near total ban.

Evacuation: Israel instructed everyone in Gaza City to move south to the central Gaza Strip as Israeli troops ramp up operations in the north. Some Palestinians in Gaza City tell BBC they will stay put. “I will not leave Gaza [City] I will not make the stupid mistake that others have made. Israeli missiles do not differentiate between north and south,” said Ibrahim al-Barbari.“If death is my fate and the fate of my children, we will die with honor and dignity in our homes.”

New Katy Perry tonight: As a fan of Ms. Perry’s old work, I take no delight in saying this diva has been washed for many, many years. Will the single she puts out tonight usher in a new era for her? I’m not feeling confident, especially since she’s hurting her reputation by working with producer Dr. Luke, who singer Kesha accused of rape. Not sure if the girls and the gays will appreciate that!

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...

60 replies on “Slog AM: Crime Falls in Washington, 67% of Americans Say Biden Should Drop Out, Save Ark Lodge Cinemas”

  3. @49 Given Palestinians owned the land from 100’s to 1000’s of years, nothing can justify the UN giving land away to recent Jew immigrants. Palestinian Arabs always opposed immigration of Jews to Palestine but the colonial power, the British, favored the establishment of a Jewish state. Armed Arab opposition to settler colonialism started in 1922 and was crushed by the British military and Zionist militias in 1939. After which Zionists waged terrorists attacks on the British to drive them out while Arabs-versus Jews violence became common place.

    Arabs refused the terms of the 1948 UN partition because Jews were ~8% of pop. at time of the Balfour declaration, then 35% of population in 1948 thanks to immigration. Yet Jews were given 55% of the land to form a Jewish state by the UN. Palestinian Arabs were violently driven off their land during the 1948 Nakba (ethnic cleansing) during and after a generalized conflict between Palestinian Arabs and Jew Settlers..

    “During the foundational events of the Nakba in 1948, approximately half of Palestine’s predominantly Arab population, or around 750,000 people,[6] were expelled from their homes or made to flee through various violent means, at first by Zionist paramilitaries, and after the establishment of the State of Israel, by its military. Dozens of massacres targeted Palestinian Arabs and over 500 Arab-majority towns, villages, and urban neighborhoods were depopulated,[7] with many of these being either completely destroyed or repopulated by Jews and given new Hebrew names. By the end of the war, 78% of the total land area of the former Mandatory Palestine was controlled by Israel. ”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba

  5. @45 I’m sorry you were so misled by the sensational reporting on the subject. Someone asked if he’d be a dictator, and he said no, except for using some presidential executive orders on day one for the border and drilling. Things any president can do. This is…not an actual confession of becoming a dictator, or have anything at all to do with democracy. Similarly, he talked about Article 2 giving him the right to fire a special counsel, which is legally debatable, but you’ll also note he didn’t do it. Not quite a Hitler there!

    @48 I definitely recall him whining a little about the election results, and a crowd of protestors interrupting a legislative session for an afternoon before he told them to knock it off, but Democracy wasn’t really at risk at any point there. You have my permission to relax.

  6. @29 COMTE, @36 kristofarian, @38 Catalina Vel-DuRay, and @48 dvs99 : +4 for the WIN!!!!!

    Jesus WEPT if the Orange Turd illegally takes over again! How many of us in the Deeply Divided Neofascist States of MAGA confusion will be seeking asylum in other countries?

    @54 necrophiliac: And as usual, the Orange Turd already has you blindly marching in lock step.

    What will you do when DJTs’s RWNJ neofascist thugs come after you when the rest of us get wiped out?

    Based on a discussion from a previous SLOG I know I’m older than Catalina Vel-DuRay.

    I was born during the Boomer II cutoff year. If Catalina was born during the following year or later she would be a Gen Xer. Griz is just sayin’.

  7. @53 C Dizzle (Garb Garblar?): Ignore him. Ol’ teenieweenie’s film reel fell off the spindle years ago.

    As one of the last of the Boomer II’s I want to make it plain: In 1980 I was only 16 and not yet eligible to vote.

    Had I been able to cast a ballot I would have voted for Jimmy Carter’s and VP Walter Mondale’s re-election to what would have been their second term. In 1984 I voted for Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro (who would have made U.S. history as the first woman VP). With Ronald Reagan’s and then VP George H.W. Bush’s abysmal track records I’m not the least bit sorry I did so (Hannah Brooks Olsen, Access Denied columnist for Real Change, I’m looking at you).

  8. For the record, I am a Gen X person. I only said that about being a boomer because one of our fellow Sloggers accused me of being a condescending boomer who needed to check my privilege because their feelings were hurt by my opinion of this whole Biden “controversy” (which some commenters and writers have apparently taken as catechism)

  9. @57 Catalina Vel-DuRay: I think you’re among the most consistently spot on Gen Xers among us.

    Don’t ever stop.

    For the record, I am a Boomer II (born between 1955 and 1964). The point I was trying to make was that a lot of Republican presidential terms prior to 1984 were beyond my doing or ability to control. Some SLOG commenters ( I don’t mean you, though, Catalina) have made blanket statements unfairly blaming Boomers exclusively for the mess we’re in now. That’s not only generalization but inaccurate misinformation.

    Although I couldn’t legally vote until 1982, even at the tender age of 8 I knew to distrust Richard M. Nixon, then up for re-election in 1972. To my dismay, Nixon won by a landslide over Democratic candidate George McGovern. My only payback came two years later in fall of 1974 at the start of my fifth grade year.

    Shellshocked classmates whose parents were staunch Nixon fans were wide-eyed on the first day of school. They wanted to know what I knew after Nixon’s formal resignation from being the 37th President of the United States was publicly broadcast on August 9, 1974.

    By 1984 I knew damned well not to cast a vote to re-elect Reagan and Poppy Bush.

  10. @52: Jews have lived in what we here call Palestine since, well, Biblical times. At the time of the British Empire’s armed seizure of the territory from the Ottoman Empire, why did the region have such a small population of Jews? From https://ismi.emory.edu/documents/Readings/Mandel,%20Neville%20J.%20Ottoman%20Policy.pdf :

    ‘…April 28, 1882:

    ‘The Ottoman Government informs all [Jews] wishing to immigrate into Turkey that they are not permitted to settle in Palestine. They may immigrate into the other provinces of [the Empire] and settle as they wish, provided only that they become Ottoman subjects and accept the obligation to fulfill the laws of the Empire.’

    This foreign imperial policy, imposed to maintain the foreign imperial power’s control over the territory, did not rely merely upon restriction of immigration, but upon the forced expulsion of persons already resident there:

    ‘When the Mutasarrif sought clarification from Constantinople, he was ordered to expel all Jews who had settled in the Mutasarriflik within the last four months; only to permit Jewish pilgrims and businessmen to remain for a brief period; and to prevent other Jews (i.e. prospective settlers) from landing. Similar instructions were soon

    received and enforced in the Vilayet of Sam (embracing the northern part of Palestine).’

    The territory’s foreign imperial masters then decided their anti-Jewish policy simply wasn’t restrictive enough:

    ‘After a further exchange with [local authority in] Jerusalem, it was decided to close Palestine to all Jewish business men, on the grounds that the Capitulations, which permitted Europeans to trade freely within the Ottoman Empire, applied exclusively to areas ‘appropriate for trade’- the Council of State did not consider that Palestine was such an area. Henceforth, only Jewish pilgrims could enter Palestine. Their passports were to be properly visaed by Ottoman Consuls abroad; on arrival they were to hand over a deposit guaranteeing their departure, and they were to leave after thirty days.’

    And, a few years later, the foreign imperial power decided even further restrictions upon Jews were necessary:

    ‘… on October 19, Said Pasha went further and-presumably with Abdiilhamid’s knowledge-closed the Empire to foreign Jews of all nationalities, on the grounds that they endangered public health.’

    Restrictions upon entry of foreign Jews also proved insufficient, so the Ottoman Empire started openly discriminating against all Jews, both foreign-born and natives of the Empire, from buying land in the territory:

    ‘In November 1892 the Mutasarrif of Jerusalem received orders from Constantinople, prohibiting the sale of miri land (state land requiring official permission for transfer) to all Jews. As most of the land in Palestine was miri, there were loud protests from Ottoman Jews and also from foreigners-both Jewish and Gentile-who had invested in land.’

    Please pay careful attention to exactly who owned most of the land in the territory: the state. Not individual Arabs, not an Arab government, not any local government at all, and certainly not individual Arabs or Arab families, but a foreign imperial power (Ottoman).

    So, by the time the British Empire forcefully seized this imperial territory from the Ottoman Empire, decades of ever-growing explicitly anti-Jewish legal discrimination, fully intended to preserve foreign imperial control over imperial territory, had severely restricted Jewish ownership of the land in Palestine.

    It is this decades-long history of explicitly anti-Jewish restrictions, imposed by a foreign imperial power, with the intent to maintain foreign imperial control over the land, which you have cited as a local organic situation — one which should persist more than a century later.

    Your acceptance of explicitly religious bigotry, fully in support of foreign imperialism, has been noted.

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