After days of real rain, the real wind came and annihilated many trees and cut power for an estimated 300,000 humans in the water-clogged region. “O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark,” howled wind gusts that, in some parts, reached 112 mph. This morning, Seattle’s sky is almost calm and few of the brightest stars are visible. As for the rest of the day, expect some showers, strong and cold breezes, and a high of 47.
The Washington floods death toll is now 1. It happened in Snohomish not long after Tuesday completed its first hour. A 33-year-old man, whose state of mind (sober or not) is unknown at this point, drove past signs that clearly told drivers to turn right back and make other plans. Soon after the young man made his last and very bad decision, he plunged into a ditch filled with “six feet of water.” When rescuers retrieved him from the submerged car, he was no longer among the living.
I moved to this part of America 30 years ago to avoid real weather. Yes it rained here, but rarely heavily. Yes it got cold here, but nothing like Detroit or Chicago cold. It was just perfect for me. Now look at what anthropogenic climate change has done to my little paradise. We get weather in the summer (too many hot days) and weather in the winter (rain that doesn’t fuck around).
A second Pacific cold front will cross the Pacific Northwest Wednesday followed by another atmospheric river event. These will mean additional periods of gusty winds, mountain snow, and heavy to excessive rainfall with a renewed flooding threat. Make sure to check weather.gov for the latest.
— National Weather Service (@nws.noaa.gov) December 16, 2025 at 7:59 AM
Real talk: Rain or no rain, Metro’s 60 bus is going to be late leaving Capitol Hill. In fact, though not as bad as the 8 (the bus that knows only its own time), it’s less dependable than the Seattle Streetcar, which, despite being stuck on tracks that are not separated from traffic-generating cars, still manages to meet much of its schedule. The 60 is such a mystery to me.
The replica of a Bavarian village called Leavenworth is asking the Lord of Lords and King of Kings (mother nature) why the floods had to happen now, during the one time of the year its economy, which is centered around Christmastown, gets a good blast of much-needed tourist cash. First, the snow doesn’t fall like it used to. It’s been replaced by rain. Then came the floods, which closed the town’s lifeline (US Route 2) for five whole Christmastime days. The mayor of Leavenworth, Carl Florea, said to KIRO Newsradio: “[The holiday season is] really important for our retail establishments, it’s when people do a lot of their buying, a lot of their shopping, and a lot of that we’re dependent on. Our economy is a tourism economy.”
Speaking of the Christmas economy: Artificial Christmas trees, which are popular and mostly made in “the factory of the world,” China, are now demanding more cash from cash-strapped American consumers because of, yes, Trump’s tariffs. And it’s not just the trees; it’s also the decorations. Spectrum News: “The US Census Bureau estimates that nearly $3 billion in Christmas decorations are imported annually from China.”
But what do these Nordic trees have to do with the birth of Jesus anyway? Well, Christianity appropriated them from a bunch of German heathens (Leavenworth’s dark secret). Now is a good time for a little and relevant detour into European history. During the period, the early Middle Ages, that saw the replacement of tree-worship (arborolatry) with monotheism in Germany, a popular method of converting German pagans to Christianity was to chop down their sacred trees. In Willibald’s Life Of St Boniface—an account of the Anglo-Saxon missionary, Boniface, who killed his earthy Germanic name and adopted a dead Latin one—you will find this description of his felling of a huge pagan tree, The Oak of Thunor, in AD 723:
“Taking his courage in his hands (for a great crowd of pagans stood by watching and bitterly cursing in their hearts the enemy of the gods), [Boniface] cut the first notch. But when he had made a superficial cut, suddenly, the oak’s vast bulk, shaken by a mighty blast of wind from above crashed to the ground, shivering its topmost branches into fragments in its fall. As if by the express will of God… the oak burst asunder into four parts, each part having a trunk of equal length. At the sight of this extraordinary spectacle the heathens who had been cursing ceased to revile and began, on the contrary, to believe and bless the Lord.” Boniface did not stop with just cutting down the tree; he used the dead oak to build a chapel, which he dedicated to Saint Peter.
This primitive business of worshiping trees was eventually Christianized, and entered British and American culture in the 19th century by way of Prince Albert, the German prince who married Queen Victoria.
Fine, now back to the regular economy: The Bureau of Labor Statistics finally released jobs data after two months of nothing doing. And what did it come down to? The Trump economy is losing more jobs than it’s creating. October saw 105,000 jobs go up in smoke; November saw 64,000 jobs reappear. And unemployment ticked up to 4.6%, its highest level since 2021. So, these are not, after all, the golden years, the golden years.
When the American economy tanks, the first to go under are always Black people. This fact was, of course, confirmed in the jobs data released on Tuesday, which said that the unemployment rate for Black people hit 8.3 percent in November. It hasn’t been this high since 2021. And it will, at this pace, only get higher. Black folks have been here before and they will be here again because, in the words of that 80s hit tune, “somethings just never change.”
oh look a real unemployment problem
— jamelle (@jamellebouie.net) December 16, 2025 at 12:28 PM
The GOP has wasted our time again. It has no real plan to improve the health care system. It only wants to take money from those who don’t have it and give it to those who have way too much of it. There’s nothing much else to see in their politics than that. But the health care issue is proving to be dangerous at a time when the economy is unraveling and Trump is growing more and more unpopular. And so, some moderate Republicans have decided that political survival is the order of the day and joined Democrats to require a vote on extending health care credits for three more years. First Indianapolis, and now this! Trump must be livid. The vote, however, won’t come until January, after the ACA subsidies have expired.
Let’s close AM with a broken heart in the rain:
@38
hoping/
wishing for
Me to get shot
and stabbed the
Whole Nine Yards
like You
claim to’ve
gotten, “but only
one-Half as much!”
somehow
Fails to Convince
one of your peace-
loving ways, shankky
yet
Another
Schlogg AM
hijacked. well done
Christmas is “the one time of the year” Leavenworth “gets a good blast” of tourist dollars? Someone needs to tell Charles about Oktoberfest. And summertime.
I wonder what Iryna Zarutska did to provoke Decarlos Brown into murdering her by stabbing her to death on that train, after which he was caught on video saying “I got that White girl!”? She must have provoked him somehow. Maybe she didn’t check her White Privilege, or maybe (even worse), she didn’t check her Pretty White Woman privilege. Whatever it was, she must have caused it.
After all, every good naive White Guilt Seattle Progressive has faith, from the bottom of their bleeding-hearts, that black people never ever attack White people (or even Asian people) without provocation, and it’s also totally impossible for black people to be racist towards White people.
@51- why do you stupidly spell it “Schlogg”, or sometimes “der Schlogg”? Do you think that’s somehow funny and clever?
Knife dear, you remind me so much of previous members of Our Slog Family who eventually “flamed out” (as the kids say)
@55 – Catalina, flames for the memories!
“yet
Another
Schlogg AM
hijacked. well done”
It’s not my fault that you naive morons are so easy to mock.
@57
perhaps it’s
your ‘invincibility’
that makes you such
an ‘attractive’ target, shankky
it couldn’t
Possibly Be
your Hubris
cum Arrogance
big guy.
kringeofartian, nice victim-blaming again! That’s so “progressive” of you!
Remember kids, “progressive” = “stupid and naive”.
What could that little elderly Asian woman have possibly done to provoke Alexander Jay into attacking her, throwing her down the stairs at the light rail station? All good naive White-Guilt liberals know that black men never ever attack elderly Asian women, or anyone for that matter, without being provoked. She must have been racist, and therefore she deserved it. Asians are “White-Adjacent”, so therefore it is impossible for blacks to qualify as being racist towards them. All good naive White-Guilt progressives know that racism requires “power”, and that Alexander Jay was totally powerless when he threw that little old lady down the stairs, because blacks have no power.
Video captures vicious, random attack of woman at Seattle light rail station
March 15, 2022
SEATTLE – Seattle Police arrested a man for a vicious, random attack on a woman in her sixties, which sent her to the hospital.
Police say Alexander Jay is the man responsible for the random attack on the 62-year-old that happened earlier this month.
Video FOX 13 News obtained from the March 2 incident shows just how vicious this attack was.
The incident happened at the light rail station on South Jackson Street and 5th Avenue in the International District around 11:40 a.m.
The video shows a man running up the escalator at the light rail entrance. He leaves the frame for a brief moment, then returns dragging the victim by her coat, and then heaves her down about a dozen steps.
This is just the start of the violence.
The man then runs down the steps to where the victim landed, and hurls her down another section of the stairs.
He then chases her down the stairs a final time and goes to throw her again, but the victim is holding onto the handrail. The video then shows the man kick the woman in the head and casually walk back up the stairs, all while people continue to walk by.
According to court documents, Jay, has a criminal record dating back to 2000. His recent charges include home burglary, assault, attempted assault, and domestic violence. In total, Jay has had seven cases in King County in the last five years.
A day after the incident, police arrested Jay about half a mile away from where the attack happened.
In response to recent centralized crime in Seattle, particularly at notorious problem spot Third Avenue and Pine/Pike Street, Seattle mayor Bruce Harrell met with local, regional and federal law enforcement leaders to discuss efforts underway to address crime and public safety.
Police also listed Jay as a possible suspect for a stabbing that occurred at a bus stop moments after the incident at the light rail station.
Documents say the 62-year-old victim had three broken ribs and her clavicle was broken in half in the attack. She had to have surgery.
The victim was on her way to work at Harborview Medical Center, according to the documents.
FOX 13 News reached out to her, but she did not want to talk about the incident.
For people who ride the light rail, seeing the attack makes them question their safety.
“That is exactly why we’re trying to leave Seattle right now. We’re trying to get out of it. It’s just it’s sad. It makes me want to cry,” said Jazmine Carillo.
Sound Transit officials tell FOX 13 News safety for riders is a top priority. Sound Transit uses King County Sheriff’s Deputies and private security to patrol the light rail.
The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s office asked for a $150,000 bail for Jay.
Jay is expected back in court on March 24.
https://www.fox13seattle.com/news/video-captures-vicious-and-random-attack-on-62-year-old-woman-in-seattle
Police Searching for Suspect in CID Assault, Stabbing
by Public Affairs on March 2, 2022 5:34 pm
Police are investigating after a woman was pushed down a flight of stairs at a light rail station in the CID on Wednesday morning, and believe the suspect may have stabbed a second victim a short time later.
At 11:36 a.m., a Sound Transit security guard called 911 to report a woman had just been assaulted at the Chinatown-International District light rail station at 5th Avenue South and South Jackson Street. Police arrived and spoke with the victim, a 62-year-old woman who was being treated at the scene by Seattle Fire Department medics.
The victim said she was walking up the concrete stairs out of the station, when a man grabbed her and threw her back down the flight of stairs. He followed her down the stairs and then kicked and punched her. She fought back, and eventually the man went back up the stairs and left.
The woman described the suspect as a Black male, approximately 30 years old, 6 feet tall, thin build, wearing a grey sweatshirt, grey sweatpants, dirty white tennis shoes, and a dark grey or green puffy jacket. He also had a distinctive cross tattoo on his left cheek.
The woman was transported to Harborview Medical Center for further treatment of a possible broken bone.
Police reviewed security footage of the attack and learned the suspect took a bus up to the intersection of 12th Avenue South and South Jackson Street.
Shortly thereafter, a person was stabbed at a bus stop at that intersection. The description of the stabbing suspect was similar to the suspect in the assault, and both descriptions included the cross tattoo on his left cheek. King County Sherriff’s Office is conducting the investigation of the stabbing.
Anyone with information about these incidents can call the Violent Crimes Tip Line at 206-233-5000.
https://spdblotter.seattle.gov/2022/03/02/police-searching-for-suspect-in-cid-assault-stabbing/
Meanwhile, and related, in the absolute shit-show of Washington State / Seattle “progressive justice”… remember kids, “progressive” = “stupid and naive”, especially if they are White.
Murder suspect Alexander Jay admitted to Western State; WA to pay him nearly $75,000 for the delay
March 17, 2023
A KIRO 7 investigation in Nov. 2022 discovered judges have ordered dozens of people to receive thousands of dollars in payments from the state for waiting in jail for mental health treatment, so they can participate in their own trials.
They include Alexander Jay, accused of throwing a Seattle nurse down the steps of a light rail station on March 2, 2022, kicking her in the face and breaking ribs and her clavicle.
Police say 30 minutes later, he stabbed a woman at a bus stop and later killed a man.
“I can remember it very vividly,” said nurse Kim Hayes. “And I remember getting to that first landing and thinking, ‘Oh, God, what is happening?,’ and he came at me again.”
Documents obtained by KIRO 7 show the Washington Department of Social and Health Services has already paid out $158,150 in 2022 in what are called “compensatory sanctions” in 10 people’s cases; in five of them, records show the money was paid directly to them, while in the others it went through courts, a nonprofit, family or another appointed responsible adult on behalf of that person.
Those documents show judges have ordered more than 50 other people, including Jay, to also receive compensatory sanctions payments, which are added up and can be paid out after a person has been admitted to a state psychiatric facility. Jay’s payments began May 9 and at first, they were ordered to be paid directly to him at the end; two months later, that was adjusted to go to a responsible adult for his care.
Jay was finally admitted to competency restoration at Western State Hospital on Mar. 3, 2023, and at $250 a day, that brings the total owed to Jay from the state to nearly $75,000.
“It’s a tremendous amount of money,” said Hayes. “You’ve got people in a jail cell that could benefit from actual, appropriate psychiatric care. It’s an atrocity. It’s sad. It’s problematic. It’s a broken system, and it shouldn’t happen.”
The list also includes Jerrico Irizarry, charged with setting a fire at an apartment building in Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood in March that sent one person to the hospital in critical condition. Adan Ibrahim also stands to accumulate payments. He’s accused of carjacking two utility workers at knifepoint and then hitting four bicyclists in Seattle last November, badly injuring two of them.
The money is either ordered to be paid to a defendant or to someone else on their behalf for their care.
So why is this happening? According to a federal judge’s ruling in what’s called the Trueblood decision, once the state Department of Social and Health Services receives a court order finding someone is incompetent to stand trial, it’s supposed to admit that person in a week.
But that’s not happening.
“We’re approaching (a) seven- or eight-month wait for people to get into treatment,” said Rebecca Vasquez, a senior deputy prosecutor with the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. “It’s the longest I’ve ever seen it.”
Her focus is felony defendants going through competency proceedings. She said in some cases, judges are dismissing charges like assault and robbery. That’s because when a case is dismissed, that person goes to the top of the waitlist for evaluation by DSHS. That waitlist is now about 850 people long.
And if that person has their charges dismissed but still can’t get in for treatment, they’re leaving the system entirely, creating a whole different kind of problem.
“Are you seeing people who would otherwise be waiting in jail for mental health services from the state, then going out and re-offending?” KIRO 7 reporter Linzi Sheldon asked.
“Absolutely,” she said. “We see people who start with one case and end up with two or three or four cases pending.”.
“How often is that happening?,” Sheldon asked.
“Over and over again,” said Vasquez.
All this has created what DSHS Office of Forensic Mental Health Services Director Dr. Thomas Kinlen calls “an absolutely terrible, horrible situation.”
He points to the COVID pandemic as a cause, with hospital admissions on the DSHS end, the pandemic backlog of cases coming through, and a demand for competency restoration.
“We’ve had more referrals in this last fiscal year than ever before, almost a 40% increase from fiscal year (20)21 to (20)22,” said Kinlen.
“How do you get ahead of this?,” Sheldon asked.
“One (way) is just trying to figure out how to get more beds online,” said Kinlen.
He said next year, DSHS aims to add 58 beds at Western State Hospital between January and March, 16 beds near Rochester at the Maple Lane facility and 30 more there for people found not guilty by reason of insanity, which would free up room at places at Western.
In the interim, though, Dr. Kinlen warns that the situation will continue to escalate.
“Unfortunately, I do think we’re still going to have (it) getting worse before it gets better,” he said. “One of the things I would highlight, though, is traditionally there’s a slowdown. Data will show between November and December there’s a slowdown in referrals for competency.”
DSHS also still needs to fill positions at its facilities. Staffing vacancies are high and KIRO 7 found out DSHS is spending about $3.4 million per month for contract nurses at Eastern State Hospital.
“Are you optimistic that you can fill all those positions for those beds coming online?,” Sheldon asked.
“Optimistic, yes,” said Kinlen. “(We) recognize the reality of workforce is definitely different now, unfortunately.”
Life is different now for Kim Hayes. Her sense of safety is gone, she said, but she’s speaking up because she wants more people to know this system is in crisis.
“We need to improve this process and we need to do it thoughtfully and fast,” she said. “I want people that think about it. It’s out there, and maybe there’s someone out there who has a great idea.”
She’s still waiting for closure.
“(Alexander Jay) gets the treatment he needs, comes back,” she said. “You face a legal trial. You get that out of the way and then, the result of that is that’s what I would call justice, I guess.”
DSHS said admissions are prioritized based on the severity of a person’s illness, including whether they could hurt themselves or others, whether they’re in jail or out on bail, and how long they’ve been waiting behind bars.
Kinlen said the state does not consider the seriousness of a person’s charges, though they are looking at whether that should be factored into the decisions. DSHS does not consider whether the state has been ordered to pay a person for their wait.
https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/murder-suspect-alexander-jay-admitted-western-state-wa-pay-him-nearly-75000-delay/K2TT5EZXQBDUXHYZBK6E5TZVBE/
its
All
yours
I know
I have made it Mine
all you Can do is cry About
it
Anybody here remember that “Stop Asian Hate” thing? Remember how it “flamed out” into oblivion when it became glaringly apparent (due to video) that the overwhelmingly vast majority of the attacks on the Asian people (mostly elderly) were being committed by black men, and all the dumb naive White-Guilt Media Propaganda Progressives couldn’t blame it on White people anymore, so they stopped mentioning it?
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
@Knife, I appreciate your battling leftist insanity but why ruminate on yesteryear tragedies for mining outrage?
wow.
when even
the reich-whingers’ve
had More than Their Fill