Good morning! The rain pushed back some of the smoke from the six wildfires burning around us, so we get a little bit of that dreamy, pre-fire season September weather today: highs in the mid-70s with some breaks in the clouds here and there. Take a nice, deep breath while you can.
Alright, let’s do the news.
Bruce Cosplays as a Progressive: General election season has started, and last week, at a Haller Lake community center in North Seattle, the candidates got on stage together for the first time. The biggest surprise of the night? Mayor Bruce Harrell tried to insist that he is to the left of his opponent, Katie Wilson, who trounced him by almost nine points in the primary, taking home more than 50 percent of the vote. The Stranger’s Marcus Harrison Green was there for all the shenanigans. Read about it here.
Where Wilson Leads, Harrell Will Follow: To try to establish his lefty bona fides, Harrell is chasing Wilson’s heels like an Australian shepherd puppy, and last week was a perfect example. Wilson has made affordable childcare a pillar of her campaign since day one. She talks about childcare as a public good, like schooling and libraries, which has, unsurprisingly, resonated with voters. So last week, in a fundraising email, Harrell promised to “expand free childcare and preschool, offering fully subsidized care for infants and toddlers while increasing capacity for 3-5 year olds, giving thousands of families the support they deserve.” Just like how, after Wilson announced that she was exploring a public option for grocery stores to combat food deserts, Harrell suddenly had a plan for food access in the city. He thinks he’s showing voters that he’s progressive. He’s actually showing us that he has no vision for this city.
An “Unusual Arrangement”: You may not know Christian Sinderman’s name, but you know his work. He’s one of the most sought-after political strategists in Washington state politics. And over the weekend, the Seattle Times reported that Sinderman, who was Harrell’s strategist for his 2021 campaign, was paid by the city for three years during Harrell’s term. He was given a City of Seattle email address, got regular invitations to executive team meetings and retreats, and made almost a quarter of a million dollars of taxpayer-funded consulting fees in the process. To be clear, it’s not unusual for campaign staff to work on a winning candidate’s transition team for a few months. And it’s not even unusual for them to move into government jobs when their candidate wins. It is unusual for that person to stay on contract at their consulting rates, while maintaining their consulting firm, and working with other clients running for city office. Bruce insists it’s totally fine, but even City Council President Sara Nelson doesn’t think this passes the sniff test.
Electric Car Manspreads on Car-Free Day: Sunday was supposed to be the second-to-last open streets event on Lake Washington Boulevard, where the streets are shut down to let cyclists enjoy the lakefront without risking getting rundown by a lead foot in a minivan running late for lacrosse practice. Instead, the city granted a permit for a Rivian TV commercial shoot on that same stretch.
Seattle permitted a car commercial shoot in the middle of Bicycle Weekends and an accessible cycling event #SEAbikes #Seattle
— Seattle Bike Blog (@seattlebikeblog.com) September 7, 2025 at 7:28 PM
Queen Anne NIMBYs Are Freaking Out: The Comprehensive Plan has some plans for upper Queen Anne. It’ll add about 40 blocks of multi-family housing around Queen Anne Avenue in an area that surrounds two major grocery stores, a middle school, a community center, a public pool, and two public parks. It’s the dream of the 15-minute city. So why don’t they like that? Not because they’re obsessed with white, affluent “character” of their neighborhood, they say. But because Queen Anne is a hill, they say. And hills just aren’t suitable for density, they say. Sure, Jan.
Let’s take a look at the hilliest neighborhood in Paris—home to Montmartre—and see how their topographical constraints have impacted population density.
— Qagggy! (@qagggy.bsky.social) September 6, 2025 at 7:43 PM
100 Days of Solitude (Maybe): The search for Travis Decker, the man accused of killing his three young daughters in Eastern Washington, hit the 100-day mark over the weekend. The FBI is having a rough time with it. They’ve chased down a series of false sightings, had no success with a two-day, 250-mile grid search of the woods outside of Leavenworth, and found bones that turned out to be, well, animal bones.
No Apocalypse Yet: Trump insists that he’s not declaring war on Chicago. He just wants to send the National Guard there, rename the DoD the “Department of War,” and repost memes about “Chipocalypes Now” with his face horrifically plastered onto Martin Sheen’s body. That’s all.
Trump’s “Chipocalypse Now” meme appears to have come from conspiracy theory channel Next News Network. The channel has pushed conspiracy theories like claiming Biden wore a wire during the 2020 debate & Obama admin officials killed Osama bin Laden’s body double. www.mediamatters.org/google/youtu…
— Alex Kaplan (@alkapdc.bsky.social) September 8, 2025 at 6:30 AM
Make Racial Profiling Legal Again: In a brief, unsigned order, SCOTUS lifted a federal judge’s order blocking government agents from making indiscriminate immigration-related stops in the LA area on Monday. The order had been blocked because it clearly led to racial profiling—stopping people because of the color of their skin or because they spoke Spanish. In the new tradition of our Supreme Court, they gave no reason for why they thought racial profiling was okay now.
A Little Good News for Ya: Turns out, there’s still a little bit of justice in the world. On Monday morning, an appeals court upheld the $83.3 million jury award that Trump has to pay for defaming E. Jean Carroll in 2019, after she accused him of rape in a Manhattan department store (which he was separately found liable for sexual abuse, lest we forget).
A Song for Your Morning: This groove by the lovely, Welch Cate Le Bon has been stuck in my head all weekend. So now it must be stuck in yours.
No, it’s not good news when someone is unjustly accused in civil court of a rape that didn’t occur (by her own admission there was no penetration) and has to pay a fine that is cruel and unusual punishment. This “victim” also said “rape is sexy”, had a depraved sex column for years, and said she was going on a shopping spree when she won her civil suit. Ghislaine Maxwell more integrity than E. Jean Carroll by orders of magnitude.
Also Hannah, when you write about the Queen Anne item: “Not because they’re obsessed with white, affluent “character” of their neighborhood” using the adjective white disparagingly, you are engaging in racism.
Good morning! I don’t want you to catch hell, but Trump photo shopped his face on to Robert Duvall’s body. Other than that, another great morning round up!
Trump appeared as Robert Duvall’s character Lt. Colonel Bill Kilgore, not Martin Sheen, in the now famous Chipocalypse Now meme. It was pretty masterful trolling of Let’s Go Brandon Johnson and Ozempic Fiend Pritzker.
Thank you SCOTUS for permitting reasonable profiling of those suspected of being in this country illegally and allowing “roving immigration patrols” in Los Angeles. It is very reasonable to believe that day laborers, speaking Spanish and congregating in a Home Depot parking lot are in this country illegally. Reasonable Suspicion of a crime is all that is required for a law enforcement officer to stop and identify a suspect.
Imagine if all the illegal immigrants suddenly disappeared from Los Angeles and the beneficial impacts that will have for citizens and legal residents – more access to jobs, lower housing costs, lower grocery and healthcare costs, less traffic.
@1 The definition of racism literally means you can’t be racist against white people. “prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.”
Minority or marginalized. White people are neither in our country. No matter how many pearls you try to clutch.
But of course the extremely homophobic gay dude is gonna try to pull that bullshit.
@1: Oh I’m sorry but according to the officers who responded to my sexual assault when I tried that same line of thinking (I had managed to grab the knife by the blade and got him off me and he ran before he managed to penetrate me vaginally) I was raped. And so was she.
And you sir, are being an enormous piece of shit this morning. Like two espressos and a giant bran muffin level piece of shit. Please stop.
@3 – you just conveniently glossed over the modifier “typically” in that definition didn’t you.
@3 You have absolutely no idea how much getting rid of immigrants would absolutely cripple our entire economy… Gotta pay someone $20 an hour to pick apples now and you think the price of apples are gonna go DOWN? Fucking idiot.
@3: Oh honey there’s nothing masterful about it. In fact, considering that the character is an absolute blood thirsty loon it’s really more of a self-own and kind of on the nose.
Racism (Oxford dictionary): The term ‘racism’ is often poorly understood. The Oxford Dictionary defines it as, “Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior.”
just like how
so Many of tS’s
Commentariat HATE
Progressivism & Progressives
at Times it’s Quite Con-
venient to pretend
to lean Otherwise:
“Just like how,
after Wilson announced
that she was exploring a public option
for grocery stores to combat food deserts,
Harrell suddenly had a plan for food access
in the city. He thinks he’s showing
voters that he’s progressive.”
of Course
you Are,
Bruce.
of Course
you Are.
@1, the jury landed on sexual assault over rape but it says right there in the article he put his fingers and dick inside her against her will then defamed her in the media when she came forward, and now he is on the hook because he can’t retroactively claim presidential immunity. Doesn’t matter what she wrote about in her column, even people who aren’t uptight sexless prudes like you can be sexually assaulted. She deserves the money just for having to hear from trash like you for having the guts to come forward.
@4 most people, not suffering from TDS (most NYC juries), would grant little credibility to a “rape” case in which the victim waited decades to report it to the police. If victims want to maintain credibility and pursue justice for themselves, they should report sexual assaults immediately.
@3 It means “in most cases”… you think this one sentence on a random little blog post isn’t one of those cases? God you’re not only stupid, you’re fucking boring too.
4: I’m sorry you were upset by my comment.
Ms. Carroll’s case is quite different:
Why Trump Was Found Liable for Sexual Abuse—but Not Rape
A law professor explains.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/05/trump-e-jean-carroll-verdict-rape-sexual-abuse.html
@6 – Washington, the apple capital, has a largely legal workforce (either permanent residents or true migrants with work visas) working in our orchards. And of course, illegal immigrants eat apples too. Lower demand = lower price, that’s economic law.
@11 I have a feeling you’re probably quite the expert on sexual assault but not from the victims point of view.
Kind of messed up to assume the Rivian’s gender
Another win from SCOTUS for President Trump and the Unitary Executive theory. Trump now has the blessing to fire the FTC commissioners.
That doesn’t bode well for “I Own Three Primary Residences But It Isn’t Mortgage Fraud” Lisa Cook. Bye bye Lisa!
Also, can you believe it, another 19 shootings and 7 more dead in Chicago this weekend. (Of course you can believe it, it’s a “Progressive” city). It’s like the city is collectively begging Trump to intervene!
@20: Calm down baby. We addressed that mistake over an hour ago. No need to get yourself in an uproar.
@11 you have no clue on what is going on in the mind of a rape victim. AND DON’T EVEN TRY TO SAY YOU DO. We’ve all read your anti-empathy hate fueled sociopathic bull shit enough to know you have NO empathy for anyone that is not like you. You stepped into the bear trap dumb ass. I’m gonna enjoy watching you chew your leg off to get the fuck out. I enjoy even more feeeeeeling how pissed off you are right now. Go look in the mirror, that’s where all your hate really belongs.
@21 But I bet they have read “Heart of Dasrkness”, which I am sure you haven’t.
I’m amazed at how badly Harrell is campaigning (trying to run to the left of Wilson is insane / ineffective).
He still has time to turn his campaign around but if he stays his current course, he will lose. General Secretary Wilson has some good to great policy ideas but little to no executive experience (and no, running a small nonprofit is not analogous to running one of the largest cities in the country). I really wish she would have ran against Nelson, built up some experience on the council, but alas, not what happened.
The next 30 days will be telling (if the Bruce and team haven’t righted their campaign, I suspect it will be all but over barring some last minute implosion by the Wilson campaign, which seems highly unlikely).
@25/28/31 The cases you cite appear to involve bigotry, which is simply the irrational hatred of someone based on their race (or other characteristic such as sex or religion). Racism is a theory, or ideological construct, that posits the inherent superiority of one race to another. Strictly speaking, one can be a bigot, even a murderous one who yells racial slurs at their victim, without being a racist. (“I hate whitey” is a bigoted statement on its face, but not a patently racist one.) Were the accused in those cases bigots? Quite clearly, yes. Were they also racists? Perhaps some were, but that’s impossible to discern from their words and actions as described here.
Mayella dear, how you do drone on. Are you being paid by the post? No normal person is a tedious as you unless there’s a profit motive.
Let’s change the topic. How about this: Kate Wilson should run on a platform of using imminent domain to build 100 east-german style apartment towers on Upper Queen Anne and the Admiral District in West Seattle, and Lake Washington Boulevard should be exclusively single-occupancy vehicles, 365 days a year
Oh, and the City should open a chain of supermarkets.
I should add that while it is not unheard of for people of color to harbor racist beliefs, the reality of the past several centuries is that racism has been overwhelmingly taught, believed and (especially) practiced by lighter-skinned people against darker-skinned ones, not the reverse. Unlike many other human sins, racism is not equally common to all races.
@38: “Racism is a theory, or ideological construct, that posits the inherent superiority of one race to another.”
Wow, how cosmic of you. The following clause in the definition folks are pointing to is hardly a theory or ideological:
“… basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.”
What’s theoretical about your race? Is it as fluid as gender now? What you’re doing is a contorted twist to make it so that only people of white can be racist.
All races of white and races of color have their own depraved and tragic history of bigotry and racism.
@40: Ok, I posted 41 before reading that.
But your statement “Unlike many other human sins, racism is not equally common to all races” appears to be an unnecessary and subjective extrapolation. Divisive for sure.
Oh hey, naive Slog “progressives”, it’s me again. You can nuke my comments and ban me (temporarily), but I can ALWAYS come back. It’s hilarious how you can’t argue against straightforward logic, so you had to delete all my comments that made you look like a bunch of illogical White-Guilt fools.
Anyone who believes that “racism = power + prejudice” is a naive idiot.
Nuke me again! I’ll just be right back.
It’s impossible for a poor White South African to qualify as being a “racist” against Julius Malema, because “racism = power + prejudice”!
My Sociology prof at UW taught me that!
Not only has Hanna Winter Murphy obviously not seen “Apocalypse Now”, I’d bet $100 she’s never read “Heart of Darkness” either.
“Unlike many other human sins, racism is not equally common to all races.”
It would have been a lot easier and more truthful to just write “I’m a naive fool who doesn’t get out much.”
45 to 47: Be a good troll, like me. Make a point, respond as needed, and move on. Only bad trolls conflate their quantity of sequential comments as quality.
41 your reading comprehension is absolute dogshit
“Only bad trolls conflate their quantity of sequential comments as quality.”
Except I never did that. I did, however, post multiple real-world examples that prove beyond all doubt how stupid and naive and illogical the whole “black people can’t be racist towards white people, because the progressive definition of racism is “power + prejudice = racism”.
I totally destroyed that whole progressive “religious” belief, using only logic and real-world examples, and the goofy progs at Slog deleted my comments and nuked my account, because I made them look like stupid fools, and they couldn’t argue against what I wrote.
@42 I said nothing whatsoever about power, at least not explicitly. While power imbalances are heavily conflated with racism in practice (I don’t think it’s disputable that racism is often employed by the powerful as a tool of oppression against the relatively powerless), power is not an essential component of racism.
So with that caveat I’ll make a small concession: the Nation of Yahweh can plausibly be called racist (specifically, Black supremacist), although I question how serious they are or ever were about their professed theological doctrine. They seem more interested in amassing material wealth and exercising power over their adherents than anything else (and at least some of them seem to have an affinity for Trump and other white, right-wing politicians).
“although I question how serious they are or ever were about their professed theological doctrine”
Does that matter? They literally murdered White people for being White.
@53 It matters only in regard to the narrow question of whether, strictly speaking, the group is actually racist or is (as I suspect) play-acting a facetious Black supremacist theology in pursuit of other goals, however murderously they did so at one time. I don’t find that question particularly relevant, interesting or useful, no. I really don’t. But you brought it up, and I did my best to address it. I kind of wish I hadn’t.
50: When you can’t reply with intelligence, you reply with insults. I’ve noticed that about you.
54: Then it’s possible that that the KKK was play-acting a facetious White supremacist theology in pursuit of other goals — if one is to follow your theoretical or ideological construct application to racism.
@51: “I totally destroyed that whole progressive “religious” belief, using only logic and real-world examples, and the goofy progs at Slog deleted my comments and nuked my account, because I made them look like stupid fools, and they couldn’t argue against what I wrote.”
Except you never did that.
@57 – Yes I did, all day long. You weren’t even here. I proved how stupid the “progressive” religious dogma that “racism = prejudice + power” is, using real-world examples.
55 i can do both and i’m happy to respond thoughtfully if it’s warranted but sometimes it’s not and this is one of those times
@1: “by her own admission there was no penetration” = standard date rapist deflection. It looks like werebackbaby isn’t the only rape-from-the-perp’s POV expert. Quite knowledgeable for someone who has claimed to be a ‘mo.
@51: new name, same unpleasant personality, and level of self aggrandizement. Your comments and accounts get nuked because you are hostile, foul mouthed and a hate filled weirdo.
You will note that there are plenty of other posters here who would set themselves on fire if someone thought they were liberals or progressives and yet have managed to somehow to express themselves and even be obnoxious without crossing the line.
You are SO, SO angry to the point of being unhinged. I’m legitimately worried about you. Sincerely.
@58: Why would my presence be necessary? All I have to do is peruse the posts you wrote today to correctly extrapolate your failure – your communication style is that…let us say distinctive, and leave it at that.
@57, Imagine thinking an argument that has been made millions of times in comment threads all over the internet was so devastating that people had to nuke your profile to keep it from seeing the light of day. Fucking delulu lol.
60: You can believe her if you really want to. I choose not to.
@63, okay, it seems like you believe the “progressive” religious dogma that “racism = power + prejudice”, and that means that it’s impossible for Black people to be “racist” towards White people.
Tell me how that makes any sort of logical sense to you, go for it! This should be good.
65 no you just made an argument everyone has heard a million times and no one is under any obligation to agree or disagree with lol were you born yesterday bc it sure seems like it
@66 – thank you for your tacit admission that you can’t logically make sense of that stupid nonsensical “progressive” cult mantra.