Oh, what a night. What a very special time for Seattle’s left. In the race for mayor, Katie Wilson was surprised to find herself ahead of incumbent Bruce Harrell by a solid point (on the first drop!). Erika Evans demolished the Trumpy incumbent Ann Davison with a stunning 14-point lead in the city attorney race. And incumbent Sara Nelson is looking at nothing but dust from Dionne Foster’s 14-point lead in the race for Seattle City Council position No. 9. This is all just the first ballot drop, and experience tells us that these leads will only grow with the coming returns.
As for Seattle City Council position No. 2, Eddie Lin, who claimed nearly 46 percent of the votes, will likely face Adonis Ducksworth, who is behind by 15 points. Seattle City Council position No. 8 is a done deal; incumbent Alexis Mercedes Rinck took the lion’s share (75 percent) of that race. Oh, what a night for the Stranger Election Control Board, which also saw its pick for King County Executive, Girmay Zahilay, claim victory (he leads Claudia Balducci by 10 points). It was, however, not such a great night for the Seattle Times, which couldn’t help but see Zohran Mamdani at the bottom of these dismal results.
But I think it’s more than that, more than Mamdani. Cities are under attack from the far right (the ICE raids, the cuts in healthcare and scientific research, the slashing of Diversity and Inclusion programs). Cities are diverse! And we’ve had enough of politicians who bend to the wind too easily, too readily. Moderate Dems are in deep trouble. Cities now want candidates who are assertive, who know there’s no room for compromises, who refuse to play ball with the filthy rich and their minions. Alexis Mercedes Rinck will soon not be alone in City Hall.
Northwest Progressive Institute to Sara Nelson: “See, I told you. Here they come now.”
For years, we have warned Sara Nelson that she is dangerously out of touch with Seattleites.
Our polling has been consistent. She has had so many opportunities to course correct… and squandered them all.
This is the result of those choices.
Nelson looks like a goner in November.
#seaelex
— Northwest Progressive Institute (@nwprogressive.org) August 5, 2025 at 8:39 PM
What is this? A wet lawn? That’s what it is indeed. A little rain fell as I slept last night. (I had a dream about walking to a grocery store with my aunt—she was visiting from Dallas and appeared to be much younger than she is in real life.) And, yesterday at around 4 p.m., Rainer Park, which I crossed after slipping my votes into the ballot box at Rainier Community Center, was cooled, again and again, by breezes that came not from this tiresome summer but the leaves-falling season that one hopes will arrive sooner than expected. It’s presently 62, and forecasters predict “spotty showers” during the day.
Microsoft is still hitting that layoffs pipe despite the fact that it became, a few days ago, the second company in the history of the United States to reach a $4 trillion valuation. Microsoft is behaving like “money is too tight to mention,” when clearly it’s far from that desperate situation.
This is Tallulah Lipson:
She and her husband, David Lipson, a local filmmaker, want Capitol Hill to know that it definitely needs a Crisis Care Center on Broadway. From their flier: “As the survivor of a mental health crisis, I know firsthand how essential these services are. But for those who believe themselves to not be in need of these resources it’s important to note that this Crisis Care Center would increase the availability of first responders and lessen the burden on local emergency rooms, creating a safer Capitol Hill for all of us.” Amen.
The New York Times gave Trump a pat on the hand for firing labor statistics chief Erika McEntarfer over a jobs report that showed exactly what everyone with a brain knows at this point: the economy is sinking, and sinking fast. Growth in the labor market is slow or already in the negative. The GDP is standing on quicksand. The unemployment rate is ready to rocket to the moon. “In announcing the firing of the government’s chief labor statistician last week, President Trump condemned the works of McEntarfer as ‘phony.’ Such a move has had few precedents, and for good reason.” New York Times is not alarmed that the US government, which began collecting economic data in the first quarter of the previous century, is about to make book cooking a regular thing. This means that we (investors, journalists, political scientists, economists, the general public) will not, for now, have anything approximating accurate information about the performance, not only of the labor market, but all other markets. Expect to see 1 billion big and beautiful jobs in the next report.
But the fools will believe it. And this is why I think Wall Street will see a silver lining in cooked jobs reports. Recall that during the years leading up to the crash of 2008, top credit rating agencies (CRAs) were also cooking the books, giving AAA ratings to garbage. This practice kept the bubble bubbling. (For more on this, watch The Big Short by Hollywood’s last great Marxist, Adam McKay.) But sooner or later, those who are not fools but wolves will begin shorting a market inflated by bogus economic data. And this crash will stand next to all other crashes like the explosion of the hydrogen bomb stands next to the ones dropped on Japan.
ICE is hurting the economy for no good reason. And even the billions it will receive from the Big Beautiful Bill will not compensate for the massive drop in economic activity in California alone. Best believe that the whole of the US will feel the damage ICE has inflicted on the galactic-sized market called Los Angeles. From The American Prospect: “[T]here are already visible microeconomic impacts today, not just in the future. The 2,800 arrests in Los Angeles since June, outside Home Depots and car washes and homeless shelters, massively understate the chilling effect of ICE raids on the largest city in the largest state in the union.” What most Americans haven’t grasped is that those Latinos who show up for work are no longer spending but saving. You spend when you have a clear picture of the future; you don’t when the crystal ball in your mind’s eye is murky. A consideration of this fact would alarm any serious economist. It means that much of that money, which is in the billions, has been removed from circulation (hence the poor job report). LA is not island. Its ICE-induced economic woes will radiate to a large number of red and blue states.
Two papers you should trust when it comes to the Middle East. One, Haaretz; the other, Al Jazeera. This headline is from the latter: “Gaza faces famine as convoys are delayed and deaths from hunger rise amid Israel’s ongoing military assault.” Yes, Israel is now starving Gaza. And it must be noted that, beginning with Ireland’s Potato Famine, the most obscene episodes of mass starvation have been imposed by capitalists rather than nature. Think only of India during WW2. That was Winston Churchill. So, what do we really learn from Zionism? The desperate situation in Gaza? And the gas chambers of Nazi Germany? Maybe we see history is, after all, a weak teacher. We make so much noise about its lessons, but Gaza clearly shows these lessons are a bunch of hot air. Maybe history can’t teach us much at all and our natural feelings of human fellowship require another cultural foundation.
What is this? Trump will now require Zambians and Malawians “to pay bonds up to $15,000 for some tourist and business visas.” The pilot program will begin in two weeks. Seriously, the bozos in that administration have no idea about Africa. A kaffir who can afford to fly to the US can afford that bond. This is why those who come to America by plane are nothing but a brain and buck drain for the Dark Continent. Do they (at the State Department) really think regular kaffirs can even afford a $3,000 ticket? Zambia’s GDP per capita, my guy, is around $1,300. You’re lucky to get on a chicken bus with that kind of scratch. Maybe the State Department is very well aware of this fact and only wants a performance out of this lame bond business. Trump, once again, is filling the troughs for his racist base.
Let’s end Slog AM with the excellent neo-soul tune, “Save Your Tears For Someone New,” by Lee Fields:
“(corporate,
middle of the road,
headed into the Abyss,
albeit nice and Slowly)
[see; frog.
see also: pot]
[[sieg fucking Heil!
mein fucking Furor!]]*
Moderate Dems are in deep trouble [About fawking Time].
Cities now want candidates who are assertive, who know
there’s no room for compromises, who refuse to play
ball with the filthy rich and their
[psycophantic] minions.”
Minions.
That’s french for
balls suckers, suckers.
see also: fucking Leeches
*reLax wormmy.
just gettin’
Warmed
up.
@1, I thought your name was Lazarus.
The left is getting its way in response to Trump, to turn America’s great cities into the ‘MAGA of the Left’ shitholes. Chicago, NYC, now us.
Gun control will stop mass shootings!
All military recruits must pass psychological screening.
All must be high school grads.
All military recruits are checked for criminal background.
All receive extensive ongoing firearms safety training.
Firearms are kept under lock and key and are strictly accounted for except when issued for training or deployment.
When issued, all use of firearms is under direction of a range master, trainer, or supervisor.
And yet we have mass shootings on bases.
https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/fort-stewart-active-shooter-08-06-25
Shootings that don’t occur with automatic weapons, weapons with high-capacity magazines, grenades, or explosives, even though all are present on military bases.
Go figure.
Please don’t confuse equity and stock-market trading levels, even valuations of companies and holdings, with actual money in a vault in the company itself. It just doesn’t work like that. Similarly, boycotts may have little enduring impact on the major stockholders, but do put the hurt on low-level employees who get laid off, and suppliers who get less business too. It’s just never simple.
“The GDP is standing on quicksand.
The unemployment rate is ready
to rocket to the moon.”
all This
just so Cadet
Bonespurs didn’t hafta
go to fucking Prison. can you
say Recession? Great Recession?
how about Thee GREATEST Depression?
so Now
he’s gonna
MAGA the Fuck
out of US. thanks, “D”NC!
thedjt’ll be coming for You Too
eventually.
@2 nah
[there’s a Cialis or
Viagra joke in there
but I refuse to go there:
this is a Family-type Rag.]
@3: oh it is not, just stop.
@3: You should try actually visiting NYC or Chicago sometime in your life. They are both awesome and anyone that fears them is an ignorant coward (the only exception being non-white people that are understandably worried about being kidnapped by ICE terrorists).
7: You’re right, there’s still a glimmer of hope. Please prove me wrong.
maga of the left shitholes: vibrant cities with robust economies and growing populations
maga of the right shitholes: decaying rural wastelands with increasing rates of addiction and suicide
Historically, the most obscene famines were engineered by Marxist-Leninists : the Chinese famine from 1958-1962, a direct result of the Mao’s Great Leap Forward, and the Holomodor, a direct result of Stalin’s collectivization of agriculture.
But there’s plenty of obscenity to go around. Communists don’t have a complete lock on disastrous agricultural policies, but they definitely excel at it.
I just LOVE that all the MAGA trolls and apologists in these comments have been humbled by the obvious reality that thus city will forever be woke and progressive.
You MAGAts can troll all you want on these comments but the reality is nobody loves you because you are a soulless, friendless, self-centered and bigoted shit factory. Nobody IRL wants to listen to you, that’s why you camp in these comments spewing your diarrhea in print thinking it will have an impact. Why don’t you pack it up and go sew your lips to another MAGAts arse hole to tow the line and take to your respective place in society.
@12
ultimately
They’re just
a Cruel Joke on
Humanity sent here for
some so-far-Unfathomable
reason by GAWD Herself but it
Appears She’s now ginning Up for
some Tipping Point that’ll FINALLY root
Out the Reptilican Brainstem in Homo Erectus
and make it so we Don’t
Regret It One. Wee. Bit.
Cruel af She May BE
but also She’s JUST
as Fuck. That’s
The Feminine
for Ya!
Great Comment,
as per Usual
Haymaker.
You will never control the Supreme Court, so all the rest is just mental masturbation. It’s cute that you think otherwise.
Just a reminder to not spike the football too early – SECB has excelled at impacting the primary but awful at the general. My advice to most of these candidates, keep running like you’re behind (good news, most left voters coalesced around one candidate in each race so hopefully we can avoid the mistakes of the past).
Aside, I was surprised AD made the cut – think that’s probably the safest race for the challenger (I don’t count Rinck given she just won an election, had no viable challenger – she basically ran unopposed).
Onto to November (our primary is either too soon or too late – can’t decide which)
Who finishes first in the primary is irrelevant. NTK won the primary in 2021 over Davison and look how that worked out. Oliver beat Nelson in that primary as well, but Nelson won the general by 8 points. Harrell and Gonzalez were basically tied after the 2021 primary, then Harrell went on to win the general by 17 points. Even when the progressive ultimately won in 2021, e.g. Mosqueda in D8, the moderate picked up far more votes in the general than the progressive did (70k to 36k). We’ll see how it goes in November, but its hard to predict anything from these primary results.
@16 Apples and oranges. The city attorney’s race in 2021 had three viable candidates. NTK got, like 35% of the vote. Erika Evans cracked 50%. That race is over.
Ditto with Nelson’s race. Dionne Foster will be sitting at 55% when the dust settles. Find me a race where a candidate got 50% in the primary and didn’t go onto win in the general. I’ll wait.
The mayoral race is a toss-up, but Wilson definitely over-acheived.
12: ooooh – so angry!
America is and has always a center-right country. Twice now, Americans have risked their future with a con man in the White House rather than ruining it with it a far-left globalist.
@18: America is and has always [been] a misogynist country. Twice now, Americans have risked their future with a con man in the White House rather than “ruining it” with it a woman.
@19 In fairness, America’s racism helped out when we really should have known better.
@9: I am from Chicago, went to grad school in Chicago, have friends and family in Chicago and it is a beautiful vibrant city with SO much to do and see. If you would rather live in the country or the suburbs that’s fine! But your fear of city living is not based in reality Cooli.
@1 Glad to see you are back.
@13 Kristo- (and the left) rising back from oblivion after being written off
19: I admit – that was clever.
21: ” SO much to do and see”
Of course, museums are still open in these cities. That doesn’t impress anyone. The reality is walking along Broadway on Capitol Hill is like downtown 3rd Ave downtown or the Ave in the U district these days. Junkies, tagging, litter, despair. Not a pleasant stroll.
OMG that cake is hilarious. Why didn’t the caterer also remove “On to the”? Someone who knew what they were doing could have smoothed out the frosting much more convincingly.
Anyway, I suspect that a lot of people who don’t hate Davison or Harrell voted against them anyway, because Davison is too Republican-adjacent to dependably stand up to Trump and Harrell is too intrinsically confrontation-averse. Resisting Trump’s all-out war on major blue-state cities is going to be the most important job of the next mayor and city attorney.
Chicago is great. Have you ever run along Lakefront/Grant Park? And food is so cheap there! It’s got a pretty cool vibe too. I dig.
@17 percentages don’t really matter in low turnout primaries. Davison and Nelson are down by like 14k votes, but in the 2021 general Nelson boosted her primary count by 60k vs only 40k for her opponent. Similarly, Davison boosted her primary count by about 68k vs 51k for NTK. So both made up gaps larger than today’s. Its clear that the general tilts towards the moderates. Will it be enough to close the gap? Who knows, we’ll find out in November.
25: No self-respecting caterer would present a cake like that. That’s a Safeway sheet cake and Duncan Heinz icing thrown together while drunk.
@24: Now you’re bitching about Seattle? I used to live on the Hill and still go up there regularly as my doctor, eye doctor and hair dress are up there, and yet! I live to tell the tale!
Dude, like I said if you want to live in the burbs or the country go right ahead! But your fears of urban living are starting to sound unhinged.
@13 SOOOOO Happy that you’re back 🙂 You’re a beautiful beast of mind and fellowship. Cheers!
@18 Like I said… so pack it up, move those ass hole sucking lips to one of your MAGA strongholds and simp your incel ways to the other lemmings driving your existence off the cliff of fascism. I’ll stay here in a part of the world that still knows what matters.
And CHi-town is an awesome city. I need to get back there soon (I hope).
@27 Ann Davison is not a “moderate”.
(And Sara Nelson is fucking weird. She’d should work on her mental health.)
29: Stop conflating projected “fear” or “unhinged” with simple sadness over how libs let cities deteriorate.
Charles, one of the reasons Microsoft is so successful is because it’s been cutting unproductive endeavors and inefficient staff throughout its history. Capitalism is a lot more than trial and error than you think is. Failure in the market is “too tight to mention” – not money.
@15 “Aside, I was surprised AD made the cut”
I think you’re underestimating how conservative the Seattle electorate actually is on certain issues, two big ones being homelessness and petty property crime. Now it’s down to two I anticipate the machine coming for Evans hard. Hopefully she was a little more judicious with her socials than the last challenger.
@34: your perception isn’t based in reality and is thus unhinged. And your out of hand dismissal of cultural institutions such as museums (which are, among MANY other things, a selling point for urban living despite your odd idea to the contrary) doesn’t work in your favor either.
But it doesn’t matter if your prejudice is based in reality or not!
You are within your rights to dislike the city and find happiness in lawn care and big box stores or dirt roads and wildlife or whatever living environment suits you.
With little else for 206ers to celebrate these days, it is understandable for the TS staff to get a little giddy today, giving Sam Rockwell in the friendship stone scene from Gentlemen Broncos a run for his money.. wwhhooo….
And Seattle progressives have every right to feel bullish. The vibe in city politics across the country seems to turning their way. New York looms large. I would not be surprised to see some “moderate” incumbants ousted in the fall.
TS claimed that “the backlash against the backlash” has begun. Well, that is a notion worth examining. It certainly does not appear to be the case in Frisco with Lurie, who continues to surf on cleaning up the excesses of the 2020 fever dream. And there is Chicago which did see a progressive victory, but one which is not yielding the fields of green. In fact his administration is beset with problems as his popularity plummets to historic lows.
For Seattle, the timeout period from the progressive dionysian “summer of love” heyday may be waning, but should Katie Wilson win, will we be sorry in sixth months time?
White House Evacuated After Trans Alarm Goes Off
https://theonion.com/white-house-evacuated-after-trans-alarm-goes-off-2/
Being afraid of cities is a core conservative value now. Republicans used to channel their fear into manly-coded things like guns and strength training but they’ve all gone soft now just like their dear leader.
37: I didn’t diss museums. I just said (implied) that because they’re open doesn’t negate the sad environment of our downtown core. They’re a great respite from the reality of current city life.
Thanks, All for
the Welcome back!
it’s Great to be Here!
speaking of Trolls
did ol’ Wormtongue
have Nice Things to say
about me in my absence?
“And it must be noted that, beginning with Ireland’s Potato Famine, the most obscene episodes of mass starvation have been imposed by capitalists rather than nature.”
Charles, roughly one million Irish died in the potato famine. The lowest estimate for the Holodomor in Soviet Ukraine is 3.5 million. The lowest estimate for the Great Leap Forward famine in China is 15 million.
Or is famine alright if self-described Marxist governments inflict it?
much like nutnyahoo’s reign of Terror over Gaza*
trumpf’ll make cities the Enemy
and then he’ll Burn ’em
to the Ground.
Cadet Bonespurs has no Plan . . . . . . the writing
for Building America other . . . . is on the Walls
than Total fucking . . . . . . . . . written in Blood
Destruction . . . . . . . . . . . . in Letters 10′ tall.
*speaking of Making Famine GREAT Again
& Excusing bibi’s War Crimes Spree:
nutnyahoo’s Starvation cum Famine
cum Genocide cum cum cum
War Crimes’re making this
Planet So Fucking Unsafe
for Jews Planet-wide
what’ll it Take for Israel
to FINALLY Dethrone nutnyahoo
and END this Madness aka bibi’s War on
Palestine cum Keep-the-FUCK-outta-Prison gambit?
@43: Not to mention it was caused by the widespread failure of the potato crop due the mold Phytophthora infestans and over planting. But I suppose fat rich Irish potato baron capitalists are to blame.
Kristofarian, it is so wonderful to have you back!! Yaaay!
@Kristofarian, @Lissa, & @Hayduke Forever! +3 For the WIN!!!
I am SO happy to see the election results in overwhelming favor of progressives.
May Felon Mu$k’s Mein Trumpf’s War on the Blue States blow up in its ugly face
like Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. And that all the idiots who ecstatically voted for
this shit get the worst of the “Big, Beautiful” fallout.
46: awww, let’s have a group hug – sniff sniff
yes
let’s
feed
the fuck
your feelings
trolls shitsammys
that’s all they Truly want
for all but the Cunning
the rest just don’t
fucking Qualify*
the reptilican brainstem
here to Doom
humanity
see:
Above.
*they don’t love Merit
they love brute
Force. soon
enough
they
too
may Taste it.
It’s always
they
but what about
us?
Can people just not respond to Kristofartian so it goes back to being “dead”?
50: Na, he’s a great foil to work with.
@47, @49, and @51, & @50: Awwwwwwww. Did I tromp on your fwagile widdle toxic male egos? Well, good.
Now run along, MAGA dumbfucks, before somebody drops a Mal-a-Turdo on you, too.
@48 kristofarian: I’ll bring the red wine, popcorn, and dark chocolate when the usual gang of trolling idiots starts whining and crying like whipped puppies. MAGAs asked for it and are gonna get it—in some parts of the Divied State$ even worse than we will.
bingo
auntie
Gee: All’s
they ever Wanted
was to OWN THE LIBS
even if it meant
the Rich were gonna
OWN THEIR ASSES* TOO
how
sick and
fucked Up
is That? mind-
Boggling, surely it Is.
*and their fucking
Progeny’s?
Whoa