Lelo Self-Deports: The Washington farmworker and union activist Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez Zeferino arrested and detained by ICE this March while driving his partner to work in Mount Vernon has decided to leave the country “voluntarily.” Not that anyone who chooses self-deportation has much agency in the context of Trump’s mass deportation plan, but his attorney told The Seattle Times it could make a future return to the US easier. Back in March, activists told me Lelo has been organizing since he was a 14-year-old kid. It’s an enormous loss for farmworkers in Washington, particularly those in his Mexican Mixteco community.
Immigrant Rights Melt Like ICE: Immigration and Customs Enforcement says millions of undocumented immigrants won’t get a bond hearing when they fight their deportation in court. Acting director Todd M. Lyons told officers in a July 8 memo to hold undocumented immigrants “for the duration” of their months- to years-long immigration proceedings. In the rare cases immigrants are released on parole, it’ll be up to an officer instead of a judge. Congress has allocated $45 billion to jail immigrants over the next four years.
What’s Happening With That? In Florida, the Trump administration is packing migrants into cages at “Alligator Alcatraz.” Republicans call the facility “safe and secure.” Democrats say it’s “inhumane.” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz told reporters cages are “wall-to-wall humans, 32 detainees per cage.” Detainees say there are worms in the food, human waste overflows from toilets on the floor, and air conditioners are abruptly shut off at night. (According to the National Weather Service, temps will be in the high 80s and low 90s this week.) According to public records reviewed by The Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times, hundreds of the “vicious” and “deranged psychopaths” the federal government says it is holding there have not been charged with a crime.
Cash Out Out Of Cash: The Washington-based casino and card room operator Maverick Gaming filed for bankruptcy a year after a debt restructuring, prompting a hip hip hooray from the down and out it put in the same position. Maverick Gaming owns and operates 27 properties, including (the closing) Roman Casino in Seattle.
ICYMI: Jewish Voice for Peace protested outside Palantir’s Seattle office to pressure the state to divest. Activists said Washington has about $742,000 in the data-mining company. The state investment board says it’s more like $73 million.
Gay Summer Is Over: A King County Superior Court judge ruled that the city has two weeks to draw up a plan to end public sex, masturbation, and “nudity as constituted” at Denny Blaine. The ruling comes after the wealthy waterfront neighbors group Denny Blaine Park for All sued the city. The judge wouldn’t go as far as to close the beach like they wanted. The city has stepped on nearly every rake it could find handling this two-acre beach. It’s unclear what it’ll come up with. Denny Blaine Park for All said in a statement to The Stranger that the decision “confirms the city has failed to stop ongoing illegal activity at Denny Blaine Park.” (SPD Chief Shon Barnes has publicly said that nudity is not illegal in Seattle.)
Weather: It’s in the 80s, sunny and, if you’re out in Whatcom, Skagit, or northern Snohomish, a little hazy from Canadian wildfire smoke. Temperatures will dip to the low 60s tonight and pop up to a high of 90 tomorrow. Heat-related illness is serious. Throw those ice packs in the freezer, drink water and check on your humbug neighbors.
Gush: Heavy rain out east has caused flash flooding from New York to the other Washington (DC), stranding cars, buses, and trains. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy declared a state of emergency after 3 to 6.5 inches of rainfall in the north of his state. So far, two people have been killed there.
In Texas rain is stalling an ongoing search for the missing after catastrophic flooding over the July 4 weekend.
AND … OH! LINDA MCMAHON GOES FOR THE CHAIR!!!! that she, the Education Secretary, will bring down on her department, the US Department of Education, in order to dismantle it completely. The AP reports she’s expected to move fast after the US Supreme Court cleared the way for mass layoffs in the department. This is a bad idea. I don’t think it’s going to, as President Donald Trump says, give the “Power back to the PEOPLE.” I think it’s going to give the “powher bahk to thuh pee pull” because no one will be able to fucking spell. That, and/or racism will continue its upward ascent in our society when we hand the department’s civil rights work over to Trump’s Department of (In)Justice. And I guess the Small Business Administration, no, wait, the Treasury Department is going to handle the small $1.6 trillion matter of student loan debt, which leaves school-aged kids with disabilities to Robert F. Kennedy’s Jr.’s Department of Health and Human Services. Gee, those complex issues sound interrelated. Should we have a department?
By the Way, the “PEOPLE” Want Their Education $$$: Twenty-four states and the District of Columbia (so, Democrats) sued the Trump administration over the $6.8 billion in education funds it withheld a few weeks before the school year. As we all know from the news, schools are overfunded. They’re so rich they won’t even miss the 14% of all federal funds for elementary and secondary education across the country. The states allege the President is violating the US Constitution by illegally withholding that money (Trump says nuh-uh). Only Congress can deprive us of our needs. That’s the system!
Take This American Institution and Shove It: Reuters reports that 69 of the 110 Department of Justice lawyers in the Federal Programs Branch, which defends the administration from lawsuits, have quit or have announced plans to quit since the 2024 election. One lawyer said that people come to the branch to defend “aspects of our constitutional system … How could they participate in the project of tearing it down?”
This Is All Such A Bummer: But sadness is okay. It leaves room for hope. Charles wrote about it.
Feel It:
Slog defending people masturbating and having sex in public might be a new low. idgaf if you wanna hang out naked (go for it – love the Euro model of “wear whatever you wanna wear on the beach”), but beating your meat in public is categorically not the move.
Everyone who has any familiarity with the State’s Nuisance Law saw this outcome coming:
“A King County Superior Court judge ruled that the city has two weeks to draw up a plan to end public sex, masturbation, and “nudity as constituted” at Denny Blaine.”
https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=7.48.010
The City still may prevail later in the case on penalties for allowing nudity; since that is lawful; however they will need to police to crack down on nudity that is of a sexual nature and related illegal acts.
That is policing is an outcome that Friends of Denny Blaine apparently doesn’t want, because they find the mere act of the City monitoring the property for unlawful acts offensive and traumatizing.
It will cost the City a fortune over time to monitor for illegal activity, pay damages to Plaintiffs, or pay damages in a potential countersuit by Friends of Denny Blaine for the City infringing on the Constitutional right to the expressive conduct of being nude under the 1st Amendment.
It might be cheaper for the taxpayers to spend tens of millions to condemn Plaintiff’s property that overlooks the park and put up hedges to screen it away from everyone else. Those hedges will make it ideal screening for a homeless encampment.
Then Friends of Denny Blaine, and The Stranger, will lead the call for sweeps, when the public space they like is appropriated for a private use as tent “homes”.
A predictable, but highly unfortunate outcome to this case.
There are seven people standing on the very busy street in front of my work smoking something from a glass crack pipe right now and the police literally will not come stop them. Soon they’ll be slumped over in the street, blocking the bus stop like they are every day. Two of them were sleeping in our flower bed when I got here and one had a tent built on our front porch entirely blocking our front entrance
But sure… lets continue to worry about what happens at a tiny little park that almost nobody wants to go to other than the naked people that already go there.
3: Addressing one depravity hot spot doesn’t preclude addressing the other. It’s called multitasking.
Please add the Continue Reading… link
@3, That conduct is actionable in court by adjoining property owners under the statute referenced @2.
The reason the surrounding business property owners or lessees don’t bring such a civil action under the statute, is that the juice ain’t worth the squeeze.
They would have to errect cameras to document it, pay employees to monitor and index the footage for conduct thst the law says is actionable, gather affidavits from employees and customers about how they patronize the business less, won’t work late, etc. because of the activities, hire lawyers, depose the respondent, do discovery on the respondent, etc.
If its next to your home, whether the juice is worth the.squeeze is a different calculus.
Lelo made a smart decision. Self deport now, get the $1,000 payment and possibly return legally in the future. Unfortunate that our government had to force him to make the correct choice however.
Why would we give illegal immigrants bond? They would simply disappear before they could be deported. That would be silly.
The folks running Alligator Alcatraz are simply doing their part to reduce climate change by shutting off the AC at night. I applaud them for looking out for the environment.
Will Denny Blaine park become safe enough to take your children? Glad to see the judge is moving in that direction.
Leftists have controlled education for decades as our children have become dumber and dumber and you want to blame Trump for children who cannot spell? That’s rich.
Good for Bothell. We should have all cities doing this.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/bothell-slashes-parking-requirements-legalizes-corner-stores/
@4, It requires a private property owner or lessee near the nuisance to step up to the plate to file the lawsuit that will force the City’s hand.
One private lawsuit to force the City’s hand, doesn’t preclude, separate, multiple private lawsuits by others. The Courts will take them up in due order. But you have to have a private litigant that decides the cost is worth the benefit to them.
@1:
Is there REALLY masturbation, drug use & public sex occurring at Denny Blaine at a level greater than any other location in the city or is it just the pearl-clutching neighbors CLAIMING – without any evidence – that it’s occurring? I mean, this should be pretty easy to determine if there have been verifiable incidents, with people actually charged, yes? And keep in-mind public nudity is perfectly legal here, which seems to be why both the judge AND City Attorney Ann Davidson – of all people – specifically cited that as “not being a problem”. So, I for one would be very interested in seeing some actual hard data on the number of calls to SPD for the activities noted above, the number of contacts at the park and the number of arrests and/or citations for said activity.
@7:
It’s not the public education system making our kids dumber and dumber, it’s parents who scream bloody murder every time the fruit of their loins are “forced” to encounter people, concepts, ideas, beliefs, and information that directly contradicts their own mythological Bronze-Age belief systems.
10 – Yes, there REALLY is. There are videos. Nobody bothers to do pearl clutching without videos anymore. Head on over to X.com and do a search for Denny Blaine. You won’t because of Elon, I know, but he wasn’t holding the cameras. Neighbors are fed up, including the real gay people who aren’t into this stuff.
@4 My point is… if they aren’t handling drug use in the middle of the busy city they certainly aren’t gonna handle it at some secluded park. If you really think they’re gonna come handle some random dude jacking off in the woods when there’s a scene straight out of Robocop on 3rd Ave every single morning you’re all even dumber than you come across. And that’s a hard thing to be.
I don’t doubt there is public sex and drug use at denny blaine but i don’t see a single video of it on twitter.
@10 – I would love to hear you explain how exempting children from radical sexual instruction has led them to be unable to read, write or perform mathematical calculations.
Maybe you are right. LOL. But nobody in my class needed Pride Puppy or Uncle Bobby’s Wedding to teach them the ABCs and 123s.
Lastly, Christianity came about well past the Iron Age. Maybe you didn’t receive a very good education either.
@12: this is going to come as a shock to you, but sometimes law enforcement seems more responsive in wealthier zip codes, to such a degree that it almost suggests that the wealth of the homeowners making complaints has a bearing on the diligence of the law enforcement response they receive.
@10 @13:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVqve83FGwg
Taken from a local Seattle news cast.
I demand that you celebrate my public jackoff buttsex. If you don’t, then you are not “progressive”.
@12 Might wanna read the article in the same Slog about how they called the police on the protesters of the huge evil very rich corporation and they still didn’t show up or do anything for 2 hours. 2 hours is probably plenty of time to do drugs and jack off in public, I would assume. I’m sure NotMyopic can google the exact amount of time that takes for us … or just set a timer next time.
“Radical sexual instruction” and it’s teaching kids about basic human anatomy and how to avoid pregnancy, STIs, and sexual abuse. I think we all know why conservatives object to it.
This conservative has no problem teaching kids basic anatomy, how to recognize sexual abuse or how to avoid pregnancy or STIs.
This conservative has a very big problem telling boys they can become girls and teaching children about polyamory or discussing kinks and fetishes.
If schools stick to the former and avoid the latter, I will no longer use the term “radical” to describe their sex ed programs.
No one is teaching kids about kink you credulous tool.
Right wing media really does rot your brain. Doesn’t even need to make sense and these cretins will believe it if you tell them liberals are doing it.
If nobody is teaching kink to kids, why does Pride Puppy include images of leather and bondage and why are LGBTQ advocates demanding it be taught to elementary students?
21: Clever doge. They’re in the school library, you fool.
It’s really going on. Parents don’t waste their time in broad meetings on wild goose chases.
@7: Leftists have controlled education for decades as our children have become dumber and dumber and you want to blame Trump for children who cannot spell? That’s rich.
Adults too. How do I know? My sibling is a professor at one of the largest public university systems in the US. The stories I hear about her graduate students (can’t read a syllabus/don’t hand in assignments yet want a decent grade/never show up for class and want a decent grade) fill me with despair. They can’t read or write – and most are working adults.
Pride Puppy? What the fuck are you talking about?
I found an abc book for babies about a family attending pride. This concerns you? Lol. Conservatives really are the biggest pussies in the world.
Yes, it does concern me. Or at least it did. It doesn’t bother me much now that SCOTUS has provided an opt-out for parents who don’t want their children exposed to that filth.
@23, I didn’t “doge” anything. We were talking about sex ed and now you’re inserting yourself into the conversation to shift the goalposts to what’s allegedly in the library. You’re probably smart enough to know anything in the school library is also in bookstores and on the internet so you’re not stopping anyone from reading a book about a family attending a pride parade. Access to information is part of living in a free society. Conservatives used to think that was a good thing but you guys will gladly destroy that, too.
@10, It doesn’t have to be happening at a greater level than anywhere else.
The Plaintiff just has to prove, and apparetly has, that it is happening and the owner of the property where its happening isn’t stopping the activity.
The difference in this case vs. the @3 case is adjoining and nearby property owners decided they had the resources to sue, and the juice was worth the squeeze.
Go to the Legislative link @2. What is defined as “nuisance” is easy to show. It doesn’t require a showing that the property owner is allowing something worse than happens elsewhere, just that its happening and impacts them adversely.
27: Elementary kids are not usually shopping at Barnes and Noble sans parents. People like you advocate no age limits, so you score a point when it comes to internet.
@26, I understand that queer people are scary and dangerous to you but giving parents an opt out tells you nothing about the content of the book, only that there are people like you who don’t want their kids to know gay people exist at all
@29 maybe you weren’t allowed to browse the bookstore without a chaperone but i was encouraged to read anything i wanted to and my parents weren’t giant pussies
Btw how many sock puppets do you have going here now lol. This is at least number 3 by my count.
@15, The City does not have to shit @ Denny Blaine, or anywhere else; however, since what the Judge has found occuring @ Denny Blaine is subject of a lawsuit, failure to stop it will just cost the City more monetary damages, and expose the City for Civil Contempt of Court charges and penalties.
@15, Plaintiff’s aren’t winning a lawsuit about what the City allows on any other property they control, other than Denny Blaine.
31: Feeling outnumbered? Aww
Antifa-turd gunman Benjamin Hanil Song has been captured
Suck it antifa
LOL
Prepare for Federal Fudgepack Prison
“The city has stepped on nearly every rake it could find handling this two-acre beach.”
As noted in the comments above, once the wealthy persons living near the park decided to end the chronic public misbehaviors there, this outcome was inevitable. It was just a question of how long it would take.
@10: “Is there REALLY masturbation, drug use & public sex occurring at Denny Blaine at a level greater than any other location in the city or is it just the pearl-clutching neighbors CLAIMING – without any evidence – that it’s occurring?”
Years ago, the Stranger stated clearly that public masturbation had become a huge problem at Denny Blaine Park:
“… voyeurs and pervs seem to have colonized Denny Blaine, so wear shoes if you don’t want to get sperm between your toes.” (https://www.thestranger.com/horrors/2019/07/22/40831261/welcome-to-summer-dont-drink-the-water)
(As the Stranger seems to have completely abandoned that bit of reporting, you can be excused for having missed it.)
@25 – here you go, dumbass: “Pride Puppy”
https://www.amazon.com/Pride-Puppy-Robin-Stevenson/dp/1459824849
Goddamn you suck
You’re so bad at this
LOL
37: (shudder) The pride is all about the adults, not the kids or the puppy.
@37 & 38: Wait. You guys are mad that there’s a book about a dog at Pride? A rainbow bandanna? On a dog?
You guys are really reaching for the out rage…
@22 what page of the book is the leather and bondage on? Show me.
I just looked through every page of Pride Puppy and there’s literally one picture of what looks to be a a women in a leather jacket with some spikes on it like a person in a punk band would wear lol. Is this what you’re all afraid of? Really?
@37 Barth literally said they found the book. Why would you send the link? Maybe you can’t read and need a book to help you learn? You should probably buy it instead of bitching about it.
there’s like one picture of a person in a leather jacket in the entire book lol
39: grrrr would be mad, shudder is like an eyeball
Oh dear, only 45 minutes for Wednesday 7/16 Slog AM to be AM!
Personally, I don’t have a problem with drag queens coming to schools to teach children. Perhaps we could have them conduct Civilian Marksmanship Program training classes.
Oh dear!
It’s funny how so many people here want to ban nudity at Denny Blain for the acts of a few, but lose their shit when we show that gun owners under our current weak system kill children on the regular. Seriously, if I had kids, I’d much rather explain blow jobs at the beach than their regular and frequent active drills.
So, here’s the deal Seattle should take. They will create an acceptable beach on the Seattle fringe, that is a free zone where consensual sex is OK, and we will let the bigots have Denny Blaine. Keep in mind that this would need to be a charter amendment.
@48: “create an acceptable beach on the Seattle fringe, that is a free zone where consensual sex is OK”
What about a nude beach where consensual sex is not OK? Won’t somebody think of the nudists? I don’t really think this will work. Because those engaging in such behaviors already have boundary issues. And one of those boundaries is the idea of a designated acceptable area. So they’ll just show up at Denny Blaine anyway.
And I’m not sure it’s really consensual if they have to strangle it like that.