I’m back from vacation: It was nice (thanks for asking). I’ve returned to better weather. Today, it’ll be sunny with a balmy high of 81. Temperatures will drop to the high 50s tonight before heating back up tomorrow. Expect a slight chance of rain Thursday into Thursday night. Friday should be a pleasant, partly cloudy day in the low- to mid-70s.
Dead Heat: Katie Wilson and Bruce Harrell are statistically tied in the mayor’s race a week before the primary election. It’s a limited sample (651) with a 4.1 percent margin of error, but still, this race is not a cakewalk for Harrell. He’ll have to fight to break the curse of the one-term mayor. His campaign seems to be betting on making Wilson, a quite normal woman, out to be a society-restructuring radical (after all, Stalin also said Seattle pizza was too expensive). Those awkward TikToks might come in handy.
Welcome Back? Debora Juarez is back in her old City Council seat for the next 16 months, replacing Cathy Moore after her resignation earlier this month. For recent transplants and the generally forgetful, Juarez used to be council president. Mexican American and a member of the Blackfeet Nation, Juarez was the first Indigenous person in that role. In a press release, Chief Seattle Club, Seattle Indian Health Board, Seattle Indian Services Commission, and United Indians of All Tribes Foundation celebrated her appointment. “Debora Juarez has long embodied the power, resilience, and vision of Indigenous leadership,” the release read. While charmingly foul-mouthed, Juarez is a conservative who fits right into the current brat pack. She’s also known for being somewhat unpredictable. It’s interesting that she applied for the vacancy—she made clear that she was tired of the job when she decided not to run for reelection in 2023—but since throwing her hat into the ring, her appointment has been expected. Juarez received 7 votes. Alexis Mercedes Rinck voted for Nilu Jenks, a former candidate for District 5.
Ferg Down: Washington voters think Governor Bob Ferguson sucks. A Monday Cascade PBS/Elway poll found his approval rating at the sixth month mark is the lowest for a Washington Governor since 1993. Of the 403 registered voters surveyed, 32 percent consider Ferguson to be doing a “good” or “excellent” job. That’s eight points lower than Gov. Inslee, 11 points below Christine Gregoire, and 20 points below Gary Locke at the same point in their first terms. Almost the same percentage of people (31 percent) think he’s doing a “poor” job; 22 percent rated his job performance as “fair.” Damn, dude. According to Cascade, people are angry that Ferguson is signing off on new taxes, that he’s cut spending, that he’s too focused on President Donald Trump’s administration, that he’s not focused enough on Trump, that he’s too in line with Democrats, and that he’s too moderate. You can’t please everyone all of the time, but Ferguson’s middling centerism seems to please nobody.
Now to HMW for the latest on Denny Blaine.
Thanks For Nothing: The City submitted its “abatement plan” for Denny Blaine Park on Monday evening. No one is thrilled about its idea to divide the already small beach into a nude area (closest to the water) and a clothed area (the vast majority of the park). “Zoning” Denny Blaine isn’t a new idea. Last year, the Parks Department proposed a nudity DMZ at the parking lot—much further back than the current abatement plan. When it was submitted for public comment, beach goers roundly rejected it because they felt it made a concession to neighbors they didn’t have to make. (This is where we remind you, dear reader, for the hundredth time, that nudity is legal in Seattle.) The city is also planning to increase the presence of park rangers and signage to the park. Sophie Amity Debs, who co-runs the park stewardship group Friends of Denny Blaine, told The Stranger that by cutting the space down to a tiny sliver of the park, the city is “not setting themselves up for success with having people respect and take these guidelines seriously.” This proposal isn’t the worst case scenario. “We are glad that it doesn’t just outright ban nudity, because that was one of our big fears … and we are also glad that the enforcement mechanisms are via park rangers and not by SPD.”
Back to me :)!
Firefighters Saving a Rainforest: The human-caused Bear Gulch fire (first reported July 6, wonder how that started?) is creeping toward the Staircase area of Olympic National Park. The 1,100 acre fire is only 10 percent contained, the Seattle Times reports. Two hundred people, including firefighters, are assigned to this fire.
Big Beautiful Electric Bills? Lawmakers say the cuts to renewable energy in President Donald Trump’s Beautiful Bill will raise the price of electricity in Washington. As it turns out, massive public infrastructure projects are not optional or spontaneous. They’re important and planned decades in advance. Cities are growing, transmission lines are aging, and AI data centers are siphoning off our excess power to animate photos of dead grandparents at a time heatwaves are more likely to hit California and Washington simultaneously. We can’t just pause this work, cross our fingers and hope the power stays on. We’ll still have to pay for repairs, new energy projects, and extra power with our money. Seattle City Light CEO Dawn Lindell says people “can expect to see significant rate increases for probably the next 10 to 12 years.” The US Department of Energy did not respond to KUOW’s request for comment.
Suspect Arrested For Shooting Lummi Nation Officer: Authorities arrested the 26-year-old suspect and Whatcom county resident for investigation of attempted murder yesterday afternoon. Early Monday morning, the officer responded to a call for a vehicle in a ditch in Lummi Nation west of Bellingham. The driver shot the officer and fled on foot. It’s unclear where and how the suspect was apprehended, but multiple law enforcement agencies were involved in the search. The officer was rushed into surgery. As of Monday afternoon, the officer was alive and receiving medical care.
Northgate Shooter: Police say they’re still searching for two suspects they say shot a man in the back of the head outside the Northgate Transit Center on Monday morning. The victim, 48, was in critical condition as of Monday afternoon.
Over 60,000 Killed in Gaza Since October 7: Gaza’s ministry of health puts the total at 60,034. At least 62 have been killed since dawn, reports Al Jazeera, 19 of them aid seekers. Yesterday, two of the most-known Israeli rights groups (B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights —Israel) called the genocide a genocide for the first time. This morning, the UK announced that it would recognize a Palestinian state if Israel doesn’t reach a ceasefire with Hamas by September.
Shooter Killed Four in Midtown Manhattan: After much unverified online speculation that gunman Shane Tamura had targeted the investment company Blackstone, police say the three-page note found in his wallet indicates Tamura had likely targeted NFL headquarters. Police say Tamura claimed he suffered from CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, from playing football and accused the NFL of concealing the danger to players. Tamura shot himself in the chest. “Study my brain please,” police say he wrote. “I’m sorry.” CTE is a serious condition that increases the risk of suicide. It can only be diagnosed in an autopsy. One study of 2,000 former NFL players published in JAMA Neurology found 1 in 3 believed they had CTE.
FIGHT! Paul Dans, a chief architect of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, is challenging Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the Republican party’s most eligible bachelor. Dans, who looks like something bad happened to Mark Cuban (the Portrait of Mark Cuban?), is expected to formally announce his campaign in Charleston this Wednesday. Chris LaCivita, advisor to Sen. Graham’s campaign and co-manager of Trump’s presidential bid, ominously told the AP that Dans’ campaign would “end prematurely.” Thanks, Chris. Strange and threatening!
Not Even Capitalism Safe From ICE Raids: The New York Times reports that work has slowed to a crawl at one Omaha, Nebraska meatpacking plant. Three weeks after ICE came to Glenn Valley Foods with a battering ram and a warrant for 107 workers, production is down by 70%. Half of the maintenance crew is being deported. About 50 workers are in ICE detention. Owner Gary Rohwer told the Times it was a “wipeout.” We don’t need the lens of capitalism to grasp the injustice of ICE abductions, but the bottom line is often the only thing that reaches Americans.
*SCREECH*: Two whistleblowers have accused Emil Bove, former defense attorney for President Donald Trump, current top official at the Justice Department, and nominee for the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, of directing Justice Department staff to ignore federal court orders in the way of Trump’s mass deportation plans. A third says he lied to Senators during his confirmation hearing last month. The Senate is expected to vote on his appointment this week.
A Tune for You: Thanks, MJ Lenderman. I love to do dishes to your music.
Editor’s Note: A previous version of this article said that people had speculated that the shooter in Manhattan had targeted Blackrock in the Midtown building. The building is home to the Blackstone offices.
Hello Vivian. It’s Blackstone, not Blackrock. Rachel Maddow made the same error last night, and corrected herself after being told by the producer.
Ferguson’s all right. All his gun laws are going to be overturned by the Supreme Court though. Now you can buy a silencer with no registration or tax.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vdOgObQvz8
A-ha – Train of Thought
Can someone get the phone number for these Israeli human rights groups so tensorna can explain actually this is not a genocide, they don’t even know what the word “genocide” means under international law, and if they keep talking about this Democrats are going to lose the next election
@4: I think at this point, even tensorna will be convinced. I was circumspect at using the word up until a few months ago.
@1, The Stranger never issues a correction, which is a major departure from journalistic norms. Grammatical errors, yes, but a correction saying they were factually incorrect, wrong, misrepresented, or plagiarized, with an apology for the error? Never. Don’t hold your breath.
@4, You, and others, have been making that allegation for years. Assuming that was sustained by the U.N., or some International Court, what outside military force is the U.N. or some international court prepared to send into Gaza to enforce and correct such a finding? How many Gazans will be killed in that three-way crossfire between Hamas, the IDF, and the outside force?
The only value of mere words, as opposed to coercive force sufficient to end the conflict being applied, has been zero. Nearly two years on, all the mere words have done is provide reams of printed reports and legal reports Gazans might strap on as low-grade body armor, or that they might eat, in a desperate attempt to avoid starvation.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result (Einstein).
Seattle City Light has had numerous rate increases over the past 10 years, of course we are going to have more over the next ten years. What used to be America’s finest utility has turned into a cesspool of wokeness and climate change hysteria. We had the lowest electric rates in the US when I moved to Seattle, now we aren’t even close. Sad display of mismanagement of a public resource.
When we are we going to start sending those unarmed first responders to traffic accidents? After all, it doesn’t take a gun to fill out an accident report. Unless the driver starts shooting at you.
I would love nothing more than to be rid of Lindsey Graham, the war-monger POS. And hey, Project 2025 had some good stuff in it, so Paul Dans seems like a good choice to me.
The meatpacking plant owner can cry me a river. Try hiring some American workers you fuckface traitor. He’s damn lucky his ass ain’t sitting in jail. As for the ICE deportations, they are the very opposite of injustice. They are justified because many immigrants broke the law by entering this country illegally, and deportation is the punishment chosen by our elected leadership.
@6: But once in a while they do, especially if glaring. But we should call attention to errors anyway, because the Slog comment section is widely known as a must for fact checking.
@6. So you admit that you are insane because for the last decade or more you have bemoaned The Stranger not reporting on your pet issues yet continue to do so religiously.
@6,
Einstein never said that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein_in_popular_culture
Now demonstrate proper etiquette and apologize for being such a stupid, obnoxious fuck.
It’s hard to take this blog seriously when they say things like “Juarez is a conservative….” She’s a middle of the road democrat. “Conservatives” believe in things like prohibiting same sex marriage, abortion, gender affirming health care, birth right citizenship, and green energy tax credits. The primary goal of modern conservatives is to secure the continued dominance of white Christians. What has Debora Juarez said or done to make you think she believes in any of these goals? Sheesh.
@6 Awww… our favorite little google fact checker can’t even look up quotes properly.
https://medium.com/understanding-games/the-definition-of-insanity-667b9aa7b083
the definition of insanity is lacking the mental capacity to be held legally responsible for your actions
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result” – from 12-Step literature, not Einstein. And it’s never actually been the definition of insanity – it’s just an example of irrational behavior of which pretty much everyone is guilty at one point or another.
@11: “Middle of the Road Democrat” is “Conservative” in the rest of the world. Many people use the international definitions these days.
@10, My research attributed the statement to Einstein. The attribution is weak, with divergent sources and opinions as to where it actually originated. I will agree with you that the attribution to Einstein is uncertain and suspect, but definitive attribution to a single source has never been conclusively demonstrated.
Presented without attribution of any kind, the idea would appear mine, which isn’t the case, so attribution of some kind, even if not definitive, or weak, was required.
To my knowledge only one author at The Stranger, has taken someone else’s work, nearly verbatim, and included it in their work without attribution. But since The Stranger doesn’t follow the industry standard for acknowledging errors (other than grammatical ones) and prominently printing corrections, with regret for the error when appropriate, we are left with no way to know whether that omission of attribution (with or without a link) was intentional or relatively innocuous human error.
So no apology from me today.
A more apt Einstein quote in this context would be, “The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.”
Oh wow can’t believe our self-appointed hall monitor didn’t leap at the chance to apologize for committing plagiarism but alas just like trump his rules are only for thee
@17 lol! Come on now guys don’t make me start feeling bad for NotMyopic
@6 Do you own a dictionary? Do you know that those exist?
“His campaign seems to be betting on making Wilson, a quite normal woman, out to be a society-restructuring radical”
Yes, Wilson will probably be asked if she still believes all the things she posted to social media a few years ago before those positions became political kryptonite. She could try saying “I changed my mind — sometimes sweeps are necessary, sometimes low-level crime should be prosecuted, and I no longer believe we should get rid of the police department and start over.”
@21 Go ahead and provide a link to when Wilson said that we should get rid of the police department and start over.
@22: https://www.cascadepbs.org/opinion/2020/06/what-defunding-seattle-police-could-look/
@ NotMyopic
Do you know the punchline “Christ! What an asshole!”?
Research that one and get back to me if you get that joke. If not, I’m sure several people here would be happy to explain it to you.
@23,
There’s nothing in that piece in the same zip code as “I believe we should get rid of the police department and start over.” That the best you got?
@25 — Wilson litetally writes “There’s a strong argument for simply disbanding police departments and starting over” in the article.
@26 it’s an essentially academic piece discussing how “defunding the police,” the topic of the day, might actually work. Especially in that context, writing “there’s a strong argument for” does not at all mean “I believe we should.”
@27 — ah yes, the ol’ “ignore what Kate Wilson wrote because words don’t mean anything” argument. I can smell the flop sweat already.
” America’s finest utility has turned into a cesspool of wokeness and climate change hysteria.”
I love it. That should be the utility’s new motto.
A big part of the reason for the rate increases, werebackbaby, is that the business model (selling surplus power to California) has pretty much dried up, thanks to all the renewable generation installed in The Golden State. Also, there’s not all that much surplus power left, as the city has grown exponentially. Add to that the uncertainty with agencies like the Bonneville Power Administration caused by trump’s incompetence, legislative mandates, the huge growth of AI, and garbage like Crypto (the dumbest waste of electricity ever), and all utilities are looking for new sources of generation. And that costs money. It’s really as simple as that.
Such a melee over comment 6.
So, no one will likely get this point.
Making part of Denny Blaine Park clothing required
means going against one of our older local laws r.e.
nudity in Seattle is legal .
It sounds like rich brat sour grapes for finding out
than they bought into an environment they were not
aware was ‘like that.’ Like heartbroken friends after
losing a beloved cat after moving into a well known
coyote and bob cat environment.
Sour grapes might be sour, but, you don’t HAVE to
eat them. Feel free to eat (or live) elsewhere.
@28: Up @4, thirteen12 again shows us his bitter hatred towards the very concept of a word having a commonly-understood, long-agreed-upon meaning, especially when his entire political argument depends completely upon it having a much different meaning. So, as you noted, his attempt to “win” an argument by ignoring the plain meanings of words comes as no surprise.
@28 it’s not that words don’t mean anything, it’s that these words don’t mean what you and others very much want them to. Normal people can acknowledge the existence of a “strong argument” for a position without agreeing with that argument or adopting the position. I’m not surprised you (and tensorna) can’t grasp that nuance though.
@32: Five years ago, the context of “defund,” in Seattle had the City Council avidly pursuing it as policy, while most citizens did not view it as remotely acceptable even as a topic for civic dialogue, let alone as an actual policy option for the Council to consider. So, in that context, the phrase “an argument can be made” was itself advocacy for “defund.”
The Council Members who advocated for it have all since lost their jobs, validating the citizens’ point of view that “defund” was never a serious topic for civic dialogue. One would expect any opponent of Katie Wilson to draw attention to her advocacy of this deeply-unpopular policy.
@33 “The Council Members who advocated for it have all since lost their jobs”
Blatantly false. You honestly do believe words mean whatever you want them to, huh?
Some of them are still around? If true, then my apologies for the error, and my deepest sympathies to Seattle. I had let my hope for better get the best of me.
Now, if a middle-aged white Republican were to write, “an argument could be made for correlating lighter skin tone to higher intelligence,” you’d immediately reject any accusation he was a racist, right?
“There’s a strong argument for simply disbanding police departments and starting over: Institutional culture change is hard.
Defunding the police, therefore, also means redirecting those funds (and likely more) to other workers and other purposes — unwelcome news for anyone hoping that cop cuts might help with the massive revenue shortfalls cities are currently facing. But it’s the work that needs to be done. Can Seattle do all this? Can America do all this? There’s never been a better time to try.”
@36: And she wrote that in 2020. In the next general election, Seattle’s Progressives had their collective ass handed to them. What lesson did she take from this drubbing?
‘Mainstream media are more than happy to provide one explanation: “Defund the police” and “abolitionism” are ideas that repel, rather than attract, a majority of the electorate, across all racial groups and even in the nation’s most progressive enclaves. I think the election results do force us to reckon with this argument. Minneapolis voters declined to replace their police department with a new public safety agency, even as they voiced support for rent control; in other words, this wasn’t a wholesale anti-progressive turn.
‘To entertain this does not mean that the goal is wrong, or that progress toward it cannot be made by electoral means, or even that the slogan should never be used. But if the left wants to win elections, we may need to think more deeply and strategically about what messages are right for what purposes.’
That’s right: when your simplistic and wrong “police-reform” policy combines with your horrible abolitionist candidate to get a REPUBLICAN elected in Seattle for the first time in decades, and to lead the City’s PROSECUTOR’S office at that, well then obviously you merely have a “message” problem, and you’ll have to think “more deeply and strategically” about how to swindle those goddamned disobedient liberal voters into supporting yet more of your abject policy failures.
That’s the type of leadership Seattle needs now, as it struggles to recover from destructive Progressive policies: a mayor who’ll spend time and energy figuring out exactly how to repackage obviously failed policies so as to inflict even more of the same upon the weary, winded, hurting city.
@37 “to get a REPUBLICAN elected in Seattle for the first time in decades, and to lead the City’s PROSECUTOR’S office at that”
The King County Prosecutor in office when Davison won, Dan Satterberg, had been elected as a Republican in 2014. Do you even try to know what you’re talking about before commenting?
I think it’s simply precious how conservatives are always blaming Democrats for the lack of Republican officeholders on the state level, blithely ignoring the fact that their candidates are total garbage. They couldn’t even get crazy Joe Kent elected in what is arguably the craziest district in the state.
Republicans need to stop whining, stop blaming everyone else, take some responsibility, and get serious about cleaning up their act.
Juarez is a conservative who fits right into the current brat pack.
What??? She was the head of the council. That means she was smack dab in the middle of the old council. That is how you get the seat — a majority of the council votes for you as president. So you are basically saying the council hasn’t moved to the right since she left. Really? You really think the council hasn’t moved to the right since 2021? That is absurd. Consider:
Saka replaced Herbold. Solomon replaced Morales. Kettle replaced Lewis. Hollingsworth replaced Sawant. The only move the other direction is Rivera replacing Pedersen and Rivera isn’t much of a progressive. Just look who heads the council now: Sara Nelson. A person who was a right-wing outlier when Juarez left is now in the middle of this right wing council.
Obviously Juarez sits to the left of most of the council now.
@38: The Seattle City Attorney’s Office is responsible for prosecution of all misdemeanors committed within the city. What planet are you on?