Good morning! The gods have smiled upon us this morning, with a cool breeze and a high of 69. This is the perfect weather for walks in the park, outdoor coffee dates, or protesting ICE.
Until then, let’s do the news. There’s a lot happening this week, so you’ll be hearing from a few of us today.
ICE Protesters Downtown: Hundreds of Seattleites showed up to shout down the ICE raids that are happening around the country—and that are likely headed our way, if you believe the Trump administration (we do, in this case). The rally started at Cal Anderson Park, and marched down to the Federal Building downtown. That’s where things got a little spicy. Protesters pulled trash cans into the street, lit a literal dumpster fire, and set off fireworks. SPD pepper sprayed the crowd, made evacuation announcements by helicopter, and arrested at least 8 people. Watch our Instagram account for more on this later today.
Another Boeing Crash: A London-bound Air India passenger plane crashed today in northwestern India. Officials say more than 240 people were on the plane, and there were no known survivors. Plus, when the plane crashed, part of it landed on a medical school, killing five students and injuring 50 more. This is the first time that a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner has crashed—a fact that absolutely no one is taking comfort in.
Crackdown in Spokane: Two immigration protests hit the streets of Spokane yesterday. About 1,000 people came out to protest ICE raids around the country, and hundreds of them blocked federal immigration enforcement agents from leaving a downtown immigration office, reportedly with refugees who had been detained at court hearings earlier that day. The protests clearly shook the Spokane mayor, who issued a 9:30 p.m. curfew—the first since the 2020 George Floyd protests. Cops arrested more than 30 people and quibbled over the fact that they were accused of using tear gas on the crowd. They didn’t use tear gas, you see, they used smoke grenades and pepper balls.
RealPage Is on Its Way Out: The software that automates your landlord’s worst instincts is one step closer to being banned in Seattle. Yesterday, City Council’s housing committee voted 4-0 to ban RealPage, the rent fixing software that helps landlords artificially drive up rent costs. By one estimate, RealPage users control 60 percent of apartment housing in Downtown Seattle, Capitol Hill, Central District, South Lake Union, and Queen Anne. Landlord lobbyists asked the council to drag their feet and wait for the DOJ’s lawsuits against RealPage to play out, but even our landlord-friendly council called bullshit on that. The full council will vote on it on Monday.
Citizenship for Sale: For the low, low price of $5 million, you too can have Trump’s Gold Card, an obviously corrupt path to citizenship in the US that looks like a tacky ripoff of the Amex Gold Card. The program hasn’t officially launched yet, but it now has its very own website. People can enter their name and country of origin into what I’m pretty sure is a SquareSpace form. Money can’t buy taste. Or cybersecurity, apparently.
The Southern Baptists Are Coming for Gay Marriage: The Southern Baptist Convention, which represents 13 million evangelicals in the US, voted yesterday to commit to trying to overturn gay marriage in the United States. They’re clearly feeling bold after their success killing Roe v. Wade—the result of a 50-year fight on their part—and they think they can learn from that, and turn this around.
Here’s some news for ya from Stranger Staff Writer Nathalie Graham.
All Women Welcome at Olympus Spa: A federal appeals court ruled that Olympus Spa, the women-only spa with locations in Lynnwood and Tacoma, cannot discriminate against trans women. The appeals comes after a 2023 lawsuit from spa owners stating their First Amendment rights would be violated if they allowed trans women into the facility for soaks, scrubs, and steams. The court ruled Washington’s anti-discrimination law did not in fact violate the spa owners’ rights to the freedom of religion, speech, and association. Go get those scrubs, girls.
Cool New Florida Policy: Gov. Ron DeSantis told The Rubin Report that Floridians can hit protesters with their cars if you need to flee for your safety. DeSantis’ comments come in advance of Saturday’s nation-wide No Kings protests.
Fulbright Scholarship Board Quits After Trump Meddling: Eleven of the 12 board members overseeing the prestigious Fulbright scholarship program meant to “promote international exchange and American diplomacy” resigned Wednesday. In a statement, they said the Trump administration “usurped the board’s authority” and meddled in the selection process, denying awards to “a substantial number of people” already chosen for the scholarship, according to the Associated Press.
“Is this fucking play about us?” Donald and Melania Trump had a big night out at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday night. What did they see? Les Misérables, a musical about the 1832 uprising against the authoritarian regime of a new French king. Do you think Trump felt at least a twinge of self-reflection, a moment of clarity, when he heard the people sing the song of angry men, the music of a people who would not be slaves again? Or nah? Was he wondering why it wasn’t Cats?
And now I’ll hand it off to Stranger Staff Writer Vivian McCall.
Dumb and dumber, and dumber, and dumber, and dumber … Robert F. Kennedy Jr. named the eight doctors and researchers he’s picked to replace the 17 he fired on the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. This panel is extremely important. It develops recommendations for vaccines and helps set the childhood vaccination schedule. This in turn influences what vaccines are covered by health insurance. Kennedy is a vaccine denier. His picks reflect that. Dr. Robert Malone has made a name undermining the COVID vaccine. Martin Kulldorff, a Swedish biostatistician, has advised the CDC in the past, but questioned COVID lockdowns and COVID vaccines for kids. Dr. Vicky Pebsworth, a nurse with a PhD in public health, serves on the board of the conspiracy-driving National Vaccine Information Center. Dr. Retsef Levi has made claims that the COVID-19 vaccines caused “unprecedented levels of harm” to kids. At least one of these picks, Dr. Cody Meissner, is a legitimate vaccinologist, public health experts told The New York Times.
Brian Wilson Died: Losing Sly Stone was enough for one week, but then The Beach Boy of Beach Boys died. Wilson was a transcendent musician with an unbelievable ear for harmony and an almost spooky sense for what made a great pop song. It’s too hard to send him off with just one song, so I won’t. Pet Sounds really is that good. I love the flawed darkness of Surf’s Up, particularly the title track co-written with Van Dyke Parks. The Beach Boys Love You is genius. “Don’t Worry Baby,” Wilson’s reply to the Ronettes’ Be My Baby, took a corny story about a drag race and made great art.
@12, @34: “So the accurate description was that the protests were non-violent until the police decided to get violent.”
JUST YESTERDAY, you guys all got completely punked by the ‘protests were not violent until the police showed up’ li(n)e, when you could have simply watched not one, but two, videos of a woman getting harassed and assaulted by black-clad dudes outside the federal building. And now you’re back at it again. (Watch those videos: she even asks where the cops are while the black-clad ‘protestors’ chase her.) You simply won’t do the learning, not even after getting punked that hard. Amazing.
(Even if facts randomly show your line is correct this time, it’s not your fault. You did try to push the same lie. Again.)
@51 ya we got “punked so hard” by just one, not two, video of a woman being told to go away and then asserting that she’d been assaulted, although no actual assault was shown on the video. Punked SO hard
@49, If you are substituting a standard for use of deadly force that society has democratically elected, rather respecting it and using it because it has been democratically determined, even while you disagree with it, and would like to see the democratic society change it, you are, by definition, acting against the rule of law that has been democratically determined.
Comte’s standard for when its allowable to use deadly force is not the one that is democratically enacted. I
You can’t claim to support democracy while opposing the application of the law in judging criminal conduct, as it has been democratically elected.
You don’t have to agree with the majority in a majoritarian system. You do have to use and abide by the legal standards they have set, until and unless that majority changes that standard, or a new majority changes it after an election. By the current legal standard, its perfectly permissible, and not horrible, to resist an in-progress felony against a person with deadly force.
Kidnapping is taking or confining someone against their consent. It’s a felony. If your car is surrounded and you being confined in it and in a location not of your choosing against your consent, you may use deadly force. That has been democratically decided.
@53 “Kidnapping is taking or confining someone against their consent. It’s a felony. If your car is surrounded and you being confined in it and in a location not of your choosing against your consent, you may use deadly force.”
This is so obviously wrong and stupid. No judge or jury in the world would ever find that a person was “kidnapped” so as to authorize use of deadly force because pedestrians were blocking their car. You cannot possibly believe this.
The “Anarchy!” sketch by the ” Whitest Kids U’ Know” comedy troupe, which is actually the best, and funniest, depiction of what would happen if Seattle-style “anarchists” got what they want. Watch it and weep, Archies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLBospQs9Hk
@52: “…although no actual assault was shown on the video.”
Whatevs, dude. They touched her without her consent, and tried to take her telephone away. That’s assault, and attempted theft, under Washington State law.
For someone who has stated that just being a “Nazi,” (a term you refused to define, even when asked to do so) justifies felony assault, you can’t seem to recognize even misdemeanor assault for having the “wrong” beliefs, even when provided with two videos of exactly that happening. Pick a lane and stay in it, ‘k?
53, again, by this completely idiotic argument, mlk was an anti-democratic dictator or whatever, as is anyone expressing disagreement with existing law. People are just sharing opinions that differ from yours. Deal with it, loser.
@56 does repeating your counterfactual assertions make you feel like you won the argument?
@57, MLK both lobbied to change the law, while complying with it.
He and his supporters submitted to arrest. They never argued in court that the laws of the day did not apply to them or should not be enforced or applied to them. They argued that the laws of the day needed to be changed.
They marched, fully expecting to be arrested, charged, and judged under the laws and standard in place at the time.
They argued for changing the Democratic laws and norms, while submitting to the laws as they existed. E.g. If you sit at a segregated lunch counter, the penalty is arrest, trial, possible fines, and potentially incarceration. They never challenged the imposition of the price that the democratically enacted laws of the day exacted.
The civil rights protesters of the 1950’s and 1960’s never sought to stop, or be given a pass on the laws of the day with their conduct, they sought to change the laws and standards of the day. They didn’t seek to be judged by a standard other than that which democratically existed at the time. This is my choice, now judge me by the democratically existing standard for my actions.
@60, They also never sought to have Bull Connor, Governor Wallace, or other segregationists adjudicated by any standard other than what was in law at the time.
They called them out as racist, segregationist, and other moral terms that applied, but did not seek to have them arrested or charged for those things, because society had not made that a violation of law at the time. Once there was Federal Law in place that prohibited segregation, then and only then, did they seek to have people charged with violating that law.
@58: Did you not watch the videos? Or did you not understand what you saw?
White Seattle performative rioting leftist progressive liberal activists snatch an American Flag off of a Latino and burn it, and he objects. LOL!
Way to go white Seattle “activists”, nothing is more cringe than you are. The fact that you don’t realize how cringe you are is part of why I call you naive failures:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SeattleWA/comments/1la2mls/thoughts/?sort=old
Typo in #62, I meant to write “to burn it”. The wypipo Archies were not successful in their attempt, partly because they were ultimately and stereotypically wimpy, and backed down from the strong Latino man’s resistance to his American flag being burned at the attempted force of the white Archies. LOL
Check your “White Privilege” indeed!
Literally nothing in the world is more cringe than a white Seattle leftist/liberal/progressive
59 no one is trying to stop the law (????), people are just expressing opinions about it, that’s literally it. Also mlk broke the law a bunch of times and wrote extensively about the difference between what’s legal and what he believed to be just. I would ask if you can figure out how that is highly relevant to this discussion and the point that has been hand-delivered to you multiple times now but we all know the answer to that question don’t we.
Rest easy as Chuck Schumer will issue a stern tweet condemning the beat down of a U S Senator for daring to question the Trump regime!
Yikes pheebs. Tell me you are okay with vehicular manslaughter without telling me you’re okay with vehicular manslaughter
All of these nimbys and pearl clutching supposedly liberal Seattleites need to understand that the majority of the rights we have today that make Seattle liberal in the first place come from civil unrest and protesting. And when you couple that with police, it almost always results in some sort of violence (usually instigated by police and then exacerbated by civilians responding to it, almost always less equipped in the first place). It’s not always pretty but it is literally the fabric of this country and what we believe in.
If you don’t like it, look away I guess. But everything you hold dear started as a fight for that right. Sucks that it delays your ability to get to you acupuncture appt but it’s more important than you and your daily schedule
@68: Thanks for the snide condescension, but we liberals understand all of that pretty well. What you need to understand is the difference between what Dr. King did, what Pride did, and what stuff like the pointless nonsense at the federal building does. One of those things is not like the others, and it’s time for the Stranger and its (rapidly dwindling number of) supportive commenters to recognize this.
@32: Disparaging your own race and age, just to sound hip among lib elites, is such cringe.
@35: When the mob has surrounded and is on top of the car, angrily trying to break in, anyone would feel threatened. With this law, anarchists and terrorists would think twice about engaging in such violence, and that’s a good thing – and a plus for humanity.
The mistake “the left” always makes – and this goes back at least a century – is that they let themselves get infiltrated by either right-wing thugs or “anarchists”, which are nominally a creation of “the left”, and then the actions of those people get blamed on the more liberal side, which discredits them with the conservative element of the population (conservative insomuch as they don’t like property damage)
Labor struggles, anti-war protests, and contemporary protests for issues such as the death of George Floyd. They are always infiltrated. It’s a tactic as old as the hills.
For as much as the left loves their purity tests, they don’t apply them when it comes to protests.
Very few black people showing up for any ICE protest across the country. I wonder why? Oh that’s right, now I remember why.
@71 “When the mob has surrounded and is on top of the car, angrily trying to break in”
Has this been a real problem? DiSantis rhetoric is most likely to just result in additional Heather Heyers (regular protesters being mowed down by andry reactionaries), in other words to * increase * violence.
Why is it, speaking_up, dear? You mustn’t hold back on us.
@74: That was different situation. The car wasn’t surrounded and attacked by a mob, but drove into the crowd in an unprovoked attack.
@76 right, I’m saying civilian cars don’t really get attacked by protest mobs, what’s more likely is some asshole will intentionally drive into a crowd because they don’t like the message then disingenuously claim “self defense” based on DiSantis’ rhetoric.
@39, 40 Kidnapping is a crime against a person, therefor it is violence. As for the asshole throwing fireworks at the cops, yes, he or they were being violent, That does not change the fact that the majority of people for most of the protest were non-violent.