Landlords Fined: The first violators of a new Washington state law capping rent hikes were fined. It’s now illegal for landlords to raise rent more than 10 percent on most rentals. The limit on manufactured homes is 5 percent. After the bill took effect in May, eight landlords who own properties across the state boosted tenants’ rents for around 250 tenants beyond the new limits. Attorney General Nick Browngave them a heads up that what they were doing violated state law and the landlords rescinded the increases and paid the rent back to their tenants. Each of the landlords still have to pay $2,000 fines from the Brown’s office. If you think your landlord is overstepping these new limits, tattle on them and complain to Brown.
Israel Plans to Intensify War, Take over Gaza City: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to intensify Israel’s military presence in Gaza—you know, the one that’s killed tens of thousands of people, forced people from their homes, and triggered famine throughout the territory. Netanyahu wants Israel to take control of Gaza City by mobilizing thousands of troops and forcibly removing civilians. This new goal is smaller than the original plans Netanyahu aired Thursday where he said he wanted Israel to control all of Gaza, a move the Israeli military did not support. The new Gaza City takeover announcement sparked resistance from international allies. Germany barred the export of any arms exports to Israel. Hamas, meanwhile, said the military takeover would mean “sacrificing” the remaining Israeli hostages in their possession.
Whippin’ It: Over the weekend, Seattle police arrested a Tacoma man after he offered firefighters whippets—or, a balloon filled with nitrous oxide to huff—while he was in traffic. The firefighters politely declined. The man then allegedly rammed his car into the firetruck multiple times. Interestingly, recreational whippet use is on the rise, especially at concerts, where the drug has been popular among jam-band fans for decades (police arrested a man outside a San Francisco Dead & Company show for possession of 100 nitrous oxide tanks). Between 2019 and 2023, deaths from whippets rose 110 percent.
The Weather: No rain today. No rain again for the foreseeable future. I hope you enjoyed your little taste of the months to come. Now, remember how much you miss the sun in those dark, gray months and cherish today’s rays. It’ll reach 76 degrees today. The big sun and big heat returns next week.
In Mosquito News… A woman in East Pierce County contracted malaria. The Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department, Washington State Department of Health, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are investigating how she got it. If she got it in Washington, then this would be the first locally-acquired malaria case in the state ever.
Give Up Your Blood: Hey, when was the last time you gave blood? Bloodworks Northwest needs to boost its supply. It’s just sitting there in your veins. This is a simple thing you can do to give back. Sign up to donate here.
The Onion puts out an ICE hiring ad:
From this month’s edition of The Onion.
— Tim Onion (@bencollins.bsky.social) August 7, 2025 at 9:32 AM
And how does that make you feel? Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed a bill into law this week that bans AI therapists, a first for any state in the US. The bill also bans therapists (human ones) from using AI to make any “therapeutic decisions” or for “therapeutic communication.” Are we all enjoying living in a sci-fi novel? I’m iffy on it so far.
Cartoon Villain Shit: Vice President JD Vance and his family went on a kayaking trip on Ohio’s Little Miami River to celebrate Vance’s 41st birthday. Apparently, ahead of the trip, the US Secret Service asked the army corps of engineers to change the outflow of the river to increase water levels to “support safe navigation.” A source told The Guardian that increasing the water levels was about more than safety, they said it was for “ideal kayaking conditions.” The core of engineers did in fact increase outflows from Caesar Creek Lake to boost the rivers’ water level.
Nothing to See Here: At a meeting hosted by JD Vance, US Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI director Kash Patel, and other Trump officials met to strategize about the Jeffrey Epstein of it all. The Trump administration continues to face criticism for not releasing all of the files, despite Trump promising to do so on the campaign trail. It could have a little something to do with his name being all over those files. Anyway maybe his crack team of idiot goons hatched a brilliant plan in their meeting. I doubt it.
Lowjacked by Meta: Hey, uh, a new Instagram feature may be taking your location and sharing it with everyone you follow. That’s a nightmare. Here’s how to turn it off.
Cringe Warning: Axios tried to write about rap.
It should be illegal for Axios to write about rap
— Bradford Pearson (@bradfordpearson.bsky.social) August 8, 2025 at 6:40 AM
Nazis Love the Trump era: White extremism is becoming normalized under Trump. “He’s the best thing that’s happened to us,” the co-leader of Aryan Freedom Network told Reuters. Read more here.
ICYMI: We’ve updated our primary election takeaways with the newest numbers for King County Elections. Progressive leads still hold strong, but there was the tiniest conservative bump in Thursday’s ballot drop.
Please Stop Throwing Green Dildos at WNBA Players: Since late July, three neon green dildos have been chucked onto the court at WNBA games across the country. The first time, it was kind of funny. Players even joked about it online. After the third time—and with many teams reporting dildo confiscation, disrupting plans for further dildo tossing—it just feels bad, a mockery of the league, and of women’s sports as a whole. The culprits make the whole thing worse. The green dildo tossers are tied to a new cryptocurrency, a memecoin called Green Dildo Coin. The attention from these disruptions increased the trading volume by more than $1.5 million. We live in the stupidest of times.
A Song for your Friday: The new women’s sports bar on Capitol Hill that’s named after this song is having its grand opening Friday.
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Only 8% of Democrats, and 32% of all Americans, now support Israel’s actions in Gaza. Imagine if the Democratic Party and it’s Presidential candidates had not been too cowardly to take a stand on this issue during the campaign. We could have had the first female President right now.
Even the Arab League thinks Hamas needs to CAPITULATE to end the war in Gaza. They call on Hamas to disarm, step down from governing Gaza, and go away. All for the welfare of the Arabs in Gaza.
THE STRANGER NEVER MENTIONED THAT.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/30/middleeast/arab-league-hamas-gaza-israel-intl
Instead we get this one-sided kind of stuff from The Stranger, and thirteen12, as if Hamas is innocent in the horrific plight of Gazans:
“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to intensify Israel’s military presence in Gaza—you know, the one that’s killed tens of thousands of people, forced people from their homes, and triggered famine throughout the territory.”
Even the Arab League recognizes that people leave the crossfire when wars end because one-side loses the will or capacity to fight. They are calling on Hamas to capitulate.
Wars don’t end when a poll is taken in the U.S., when the U.N. issues a report, or some international tribunal issues warrants and opinions. The horror ends for the non-combatants in the crossfire, when a combatant loses.
No, we would not have the 1st female President because Gaza ranked far below inflation and immigration as issues Americans were concerned about. They were concerned because of the horrible job the Biden / Harris administration did on these two issues. (Halting remain in Mexico / Introducing the CBP One App / Passing the Inflation Creation Act).
@1 Anyone who voted for Trump (or chose not to vote at all) because of Kamala’s views on Israel’s actions in Gaza are getting just what they wanted, or at least what they should’ve known was coming. They’re part of the problem.
“Hamas, meanwhile, said the military takeover would mean “sacrificing” the remaining Israeli hostages in their possession. “
The word you are looking for there is torture and murder. I know this might seem totally out of the box thinking here but I wonder what would happen if they released all the remaining hostages?
@4 is even more true for people who voted for him because of the economy
Amazing when you think about it, but Donald Trump is a man with better morals than Bibi Netanyahu.
two
War
Criminals
both Desperate
to keep tf outta Prison
with the ‘morals’
of rabid wolverines
one’ll Destroy his
Country to do so
the Other, well, as
Long as they’ve given
him the Keys, hey, wtf Not?
Anyone who thinks that Netanyahu would’ve taken his ball and gone home if Hamas had just “released the hostages” last week or last month or last year or on October 8 is a fucking moron. He wants this war, dummies.
@8
correction:
One War Criminal,
one adjudicated rapist
multi-convicted fraudster, belligerent
mendacious, predatory politically-savvy Monster.
apologies!
@9
‘tiz bibi’s Sole
keep-outta-Prison ploy
of
Course
his War on Palestine
will Never end whilst that
Monster remains in Power.
Israel’d bet-
ter depose bibi
Before it’s Too Late
@9 perhaps but as long as Hamas holds on to those hostages, releases pictures of them digging their own graves and now has all but said they will kill all of them if Israel escalates they are more culpable for this outcome. They started this and by not releasing the hostages they continue to provide justification for further action.
I would also add that anyone who believes Hamas would “live in peace” if Israel backed off and stopped enforcing restrictions on the borders is an even bigger moron.
@9:
Exactly. Apparently everyone has forgotten that, prior to the Hamas massacre on 10/7/23, Netanyahu was facing criminal corruption charges on a number of counts. This has allowed him, in the manner of our current Pedophile-In-Chief, to continue to kick that can down the road for as long as he can keep the conflict going, so he doesn’t have any reason to settle with Hamas, regardless of the increasing opposition to the genocide in Gaza, both within Israel, where his polling numbers are currently underwater, nor with the rest of the world, where the actions of his government have prompted a number of nations to formally recognize a Palestinian state in the region.
We are indeed living in the stupidest of times, but at least you/The Stranger are here to report on the stupidity, unlike our other local paper, which is whitewashing our stupid mayor’s comeuppance (may it be so).
@11 Nice straw man, man.
11: Most tragically what 12 says is true and with Bibi’s shady dealings with Qatar and also there’s reporting that Bibi instructed some Israeli forces to hold off on October 7th – so the “release the hostages” position is a moot point by now.
*moot bargaining chip I should say, they should be release regardless.
@4 & 6 you’re not wrong but rather than blaming the voters, which is pointless, my inclination is to blame the candidate that was somehow unable to convince said voters that they were better than Donald fucking Trump on these issues which should be solid ground for Democrats. The Democratic Party’s extreme unpopularity at the moment is not solely attributable to voters being stupid, as should be obvious. They need to be better.
@14 right of course, I’m sure, as your hero Khalil told the NYT the other day, Hamas had no choice but to kill all those people and take the others hostages because there was no other way for their voices to be heard. It never ceases to amaze me how little accountability progressives expect from a literal terrorist organization whose stated goal is an actual genocide not the made up one you keep protesting over.
@6, It depends who’s economy you are talking about. If you are talking the economy of the college educated professional elite of say, Seattle, then there is nothing wrong. 70% of those 25 and older in Seattle have a bachelor degree.
If you are talking the economy of Kentucky its only 27.7%. Those folks just see coal mines shutting down, manufacturing plants closing, regulation that impedes economic progress, and the jobs to pay rent or a mortgage going away, etc. Trump speaks to that. It’s snake oil, but the Dems aren’t even offering rhetoric to voters in a Kentucky economy.
Here is what they see Trump’s tariffs doing for them. GE spending $490 million to reshore appliance manufacturing from China back to Kentucky.
https://www.reuters.com/en/ge-appliances-spend-490-million-reshoring-production-washing-machines-china-2025-06-26/
I think it an illusory “gain”, but if you are working-class in Kentucky it looks like a gain.
“Clean” energy looks like a ploy by college educated, snobby readers of The Stranger in Freeattle, to take away their jobs, not as an altruistic effort to take away what Gretta Thunbeg has to complain about.
Folks electing Dems, like Seattle voters, need to come up with something that speaks to Kentucky type voters. The college educated elite aren’t enough to carry a national election anymore.
@18 Huh?
Since TS seems intent on blurbing on Gaza with the same frequency as the weather, perhaps they can simply merge them into one segment – today’s atrocities and weather in Gaza. Ex – the IDF again raided a hospital killing three, and it’s a balmy 85 degrees with a very gentle offshore breeze, so enjoy those rocket salvos without needing pesky wind correction this weekend!
@20 do you know what straw man means or do you just throw that out there for anything you don’t agree with?
@22 I actually agree with your statement: “I would also add that anyone who believes Hamas would ‘live in peace’ if Israel backed off and stopped enforcing restrictions on the borders is an even bigger moron.” I just think it’s stupid.
@17, Agree. See @19 for issue Dems not addressing well, or at all.
Go, AG Nick Brown, GO!!!!!
@10 kristofarian +1 For the WIN!!!
I share your concerns, too, about Artificial Intelligence, Nathalie. It clearly is proving to do infinitely more harm than good. Rod Serling warned us about this shit six decades ago, and we didn’t listen (See The Twilight Zone, Season 5, Episode 33, “The Brain Center at Whipple’s”, first aired on May 15, 1964, and bestselling author Stephen King’s 1979 novel, The Dead Zone, adapted to the 1983 film. In an interview [July 13, 2019, on YouTube] King has recently expressed concern about how his fictional novel relates to the present day’s Trumpian political turmoil). Serling would be having a sci-fi field day with the current dystopian Err of Felon Mu$k’s Mein Trumpf and its tech billionaire$. Both Rod Serling was and Stephen King still is ahead of their time. AI needs to be stopped before irreparable global damage is done.
Thanks to all of the Stranger’s critical commenters, for saying what needed to be said on Hamas and Gaza. I’ll merely add, the Arab governments who told Hamas to lay down arms and release hostages included Qatar, one of Hamas’ biggest financial sponsors. As @2 noted, this was HUGE news for anyone hoping to end the war and get aid to the people of Gaza. We can now clearly see the Stranger cannot be counted among that number. Neither can the UN, which has withheld food aid from starving children in Gaza because of a political dispute with Israel. The Israeli government’s decision to root Hamas out of Gaza, combined with Qatar’s abandonment of Hamas, means Hamas has no place to go or hide, within Gaza or without. Every day they pointlessly hold out, more children in Gaza will die — and the Stranger will not criticize them for it.
To the Stranger and supportive commenters, who constantly scold critics of jihadist terrorism by saying we’ll be sorry someday, I respond you have that as completely backwards as you have your accusations of genocide. Supporters of liberal democracy in the Middle East have nothing to fear from a future of more liberal democracies, while those who refused even to mention SUPER UW’s celebration of genocidal terrorism will be the ones finding themselves ostracized into utter irrelevance, and (eventually) forgotten — but never forgiven.
@2 stop this tired equating Gazans and Palestinians as Hamas. Hamas represents a small radical fraction of them. Does that small fraction technically run a lot of the official governmental and administrative areas in Gaza, yes. This does not mean they represent all Gazans and definitely not all Palestinians.
Let’s put this another way. I have a feeling you might not be a trump supporter. Let’s say a bunch of MAGA people kidnapped dozens of Canadians. Canada comes in and wipes out 15 American cities. The world continues to refer to all Americans as MAGA and that Americans won’t be safe until MAGA gives up, bc technically they run the government.
If you want to be critical of Hamas, that’s fine. I think we all should be. I think we should also understand the 80 years of conflict that led to its creation and that both sides are responsible, but also that violence is wrong and should always be condemned no matter who is doing it. However – again – Hamas.is.not.Palestine.hard.stop. Recognize that an entire people are being butchered, if you don’t want to call it a genocide, fine, but facts are facts: all of these women and children are NOT Hamas and facts show that the vast majority are not “being used as human shields”. Then comes the intentional starvation. It doesn’t take a genius to see this. Just stop dude.
Also gonna add, again, that SLOG is a fucking daily BLOG dude. Not only can they not cover everything you want them to, they are also going to cover what they want and in their opinion bc they are a liberal alternative news publication. You need to calm the fuck down with this shit every single day with your complaints of not hitting everything you want and being completely unbiased.
@28, I am definitely not a Trump supporter. Harris in 2024 was my vote.
Palestinians are getting slaughtered. That is because the combat area is inhabited by Palestinians. It’s Palestinians in the crossfire between the combatants, Hamas and the IDF.
It has been that way in every war. The non-combatants in the combat zone get slaughtered at rates of 10 times the combatants until one combatant, or both, loses the will or capacity to fight. That is why it vital for Gazans that the weaker combatant, Hamas, has more force used against them, with the resulting higher non-combat casualties in the short run, to save more non-combatants in the long run. It’s counterintuitive, but the more overwhelming and decisive the violence, the more lives are saved because the war ends sooner.
Quatar, and other Arab League Members, cutting off financial support to Hamas would help. Unpaid fighters tend to desert. So do figters with inadequate beans and bullets. We shall see if those countries take that tangible step, beyond mere words, to help Gazans.
If Israel is intent on Genocide, they are the worlds worst regime at it. They aren’t killing Gazans faster than they are born.
“the UN, which has withheld food aid from starving children in Gaza because of a political dispute with Israel.”
This is an unhinged and counterfactual opinion. You are a crazy person and history will judge you poorly.
1312 beat me to it.
tensora is gone full idiot. There is no maximal zionist propaganda lie it won’t amplify.
‘… the UN, which has withheld food aid from starving children in Gaza because of a political dispute with Israel. ‘
Anyone who writes that should be force fed their own keyboard.
Quote @ 19:
“Clean” energy looks like a ploy by college educated, snobby readers of The Stranger in Freeattle, to take away their jobs, not as an altruistic effort to take away what Gretta Thunbeg has to complain about.
End quote.
What the everloving fuck are you talking about? A ploy? Ooh… I’m so intrigued.
Also, if you’re going to do a drive-by pot-shot at Greta Thunberg, at least have the respect to spell her name correctly. I mean, Christ, what an asshole!
All you do is copy and paste here, so I’m left to conclude that if it was deliberate, you are an asshole. If it was a mistake (you of the copy/pasting masters), then you are a fucking idiot.
Your choice… asshole or fucking idiot.
I’m thinking 20% asshole, 80% fucking idiot.
not all Monsters are named
kommandunce bonespurs
nor bibi nutnyahoo
but
BINGOs
thirteen12
& angryone too
and BOO to @tS
for giving it a
Platform.
“If Israel
is intent on Genocide,
they are the worlds worst regime at it.
They aren’t killing Gazans
faster than they
are born.”
–@mr magoo
clearly Disappointed
with bibi’s slow-motion Genocide.
I’ve steered clear of the rabbit hole that is the war in Gaza on these Slog comment threads, but I can’t help but remark that this is one particularly sickening comment by tensorna @28. That the UN “has withheld food aid from starving children in Gaza because of a political dispute with Israel.”
I don’t have the time to follow all the machinations in the fog of war that the Israelis have created in Gaza, but as a sane person I would have to look at this this statement as at worst an outright lie and at best a deliberately misleading misinterpretation of some tiny kernel of truth. Of course, this is the same individual who months ago in the context of the war in Gaza made the ridiculously false assertion that the even the Russians don’t deliberately target civilians in waging war.
Lest this individual dare me to waste any more of my time digging up that quote, I’ll just have to preemptively say that this will be my first and last comment on this thread. Before I sign off, though, I think we have to agree that there’s something seriously wrong with somebody who lives on the other side of the country if they are obsessed with an alt-monthly’s daily news roundup blog failing to hold Hamas accountable. Yeah, of course Hamas (which Natanyahu has propped up through the years) are monsters.
@33, I was painting a picture for you of how the working-class voter of say Kentucky, formerly voting Dem, sees the Seattle voter and the Dems, that Seattle voters comtribute to and put in office. They see us and the Dems we elect as throwing them, their livelihood, and their children’s futites under the bus for a Swede. When voters like you then tell them they should not see it that way, even though that is their reality, they further resent elitists telling them what to think.
Then Progressives like you wonder why Dems lose the popular vote and EC to DJT. They wonder why the House and Senate are Republican.
If the agenda and messaging are anti-working class Kentuckian (Ohioan, Michiginian, Pennsylvanian) its not hard to see why that formerly Democratic demographic is going for Trump’s demagoguery.
So do you want to double-down on policies and messages that are perceived that way by voters that you need to have for Dems to win? Isn’t that self-defeating?
Cressona is soo close! Who exactly has been obsessed with Gaza the last few years? Why does TS report on it on a near daily basis? Why are some commentators here promoting making it a litmus test for Dem party politics? I think its pretty clear there is indeed an obsession, but it lies within some subset of progs who have glommed onto it like a pitbull….to terrible consequence.
That anyone, person or publication, carries on the way TS does, under the gauze of humanitarian concern, all the while remaining mum as a WW2 level conflagration engulfs eastern Europe with a scale of horrors that makes Gaza look like a rounding error, simply undermines their premise. I will say it plainly – I don’t believe the professed humanitarian concern, but I’m pretty sure there is an ideological concern. The leading theory as to why people might fixate on Israel is a way to assuage guilt for living in a country that may have conducted and completed an irreversible colonial project. Step 2 – imagine Israel as a colonial project NOT completed. Do be animated by forces of resistance to it, and revel in the possibility of arresting it. How else to explain the multitudes 20 year old female communications majors camping out on lawns chanting “river to the sea” without being able to name either?
Motives aside, this movement should go into the books as an abject fiasco – like the dystopian journey the nation was dragged through in the summer of 2020, the Gaza movement radicalized faster that it popularized. One minute it feels like the salad days of the SDS, but by morning the following day, everyone has transformed into the Weather Underground. What did Robert Downey famously advise in “Tropic Thunder?”
@38 “a WW2 level conflagration engulfs eastern Europe with a scale of horrors that makes Gaza look like a rounding error”
What? From the start of the Russia invasion in February 2022 until July 10, 2025, about 14,000 Ukrainian civilians were killed per the UN. From the Hamas attack on 10/7 2023 until August 6, 2025, 61,000 Gazans have been killed including over 18,000 children. In other words more Gazan children have been killed in just under two years than have total Ukrainian civilians in three and a half. So, yes, what was that Robert Downey quote?
https://ukraine.un.org/en/297777-civilian-casualties-ukraine-reach-three-year-high-june-un-human-rights-monitors-say
https://www.unrwa.org/resources/reports/unrwa-situation-report-183-situation-gaza-strip-and-west-bank-including-east-jerusalem
Myoptic,
‘If Israel is intent on Genocide, they are the worlds worst regime at it. They aren’t killing Gazans faster than they are born.’
The Nazis also failed in their attempt at genocide. So, according to your criteria, it’s all good?
(You don’t think Hogan’s Heroes is a documentary, do you?)
@40, Nope. The Nazi bastards cleared millions of Jews (and other groups) from most of Europe, never to have that population restored or return. It’s not something the world should allow to ever be repeated.
The allegation that Israel is attempting to repeat a genocide falls flat when one sees that that there are more Gazans today, than when the war started.
@40, And of course you don’t mention the horrors that Hamas visits on Gazans.
The fact is Gazans are caught in a cross-fire between combatants. Every time that happens the death rate of non-combatants to combatants tend to be greater that 10:1.
The caring thing to do for Gazans is to put the thumb on the scale of one side enough, that the other quickly loses. When the combat stops, the horrors for Gazans will stop.
Sorry, I forgot to include this @27: “U.N. agencies and other aid groups have boycotted GHF because they say it violates humanitarian principles.” (GHF is the American contractor charged with getting food into Gaza.) So, some unspecified “humanitarian principles” are more important to U.N. agencies and other aid groups than actually feeding children. (https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/gaza-palestine-food-aid-e74c68de?mod=WTRN_pos2)
@31: You’re right, history will judge the UN and other aid groups very harshly.
@32: Your principled support of free speech, and for civilized solutions to political problems, has been duly noted.
@36: Again, my apologies for not providing the source quote for my statement. (Even I sometimes forget that the Stranger, and supportive commenters here, simply have no real idea of what’s happening in Gaza.) And I did like you exempting yourself from having to provide any evidence at all to support your opinion of what I’d supposedly said. It was a great way to demolish your claim of being oh-so very, very concerned about what I’d written.
“…there’s something seriously wrong with somebody who lives on the other side of the country…”
Gaza sits much farther from the Stranger’s office than do I, and yet, the Stranger has obsessively told a relentlessly one-sided story about Gaza — so one-sided, even Hamas’ threat to kill hostages (as @5 noted) somehow doesn’t elicit a single word of criticism from the Stranger. Yet you find nothing “seriously wrong” with this?
@39. You are aware that war casualties alone have easily exceeded 1 million, that displaced Ukrainians exceed 10 million, that torture, child kidnapping, and POW executions are rampant, that genocide is occurring to populations under Z control including erasure of Crimean Tatars, and the landmines, and the environmental catastrophes. Cost estimates for rebuilding? Gaza – 50bn, Ukraine – 540bn. There is no comparison.
But even if it were, the simultaneous obsession of one conflict and seeming willful neglect of the other leaves the enterprise suspect. Perhaps thirteen12 will offer a testimonial to his emotional biases between the conflicts and clear this up.
Were it 1941 and the world is coming to learn the launch of Barbarossa, the Stranger would have been giving its readers daily updates on Vichy depredations of Thai militias, which would be as comedic as the current case.
@44: No, no, silly; as thirteen12 correctly notes, the only proper way to compare war zones is to COMPLETELY IGNORE ALL COMBATANT CASUALTIES — and, even further, to claim ALL of the deaths on one side are civilians. That’s what makes the most sense (at least here, apparently).
“Were it 1941 and the world is coming to learn the launch of Barbarossa, the Stranger would have been giving its readers daily updates on Vichy depredations of Thai militias, which would be as comedic as the current case.”
The Russian war in Ukraine, by almost any metric one might reasonably choose for judging war, is many times worse than the results of Hamas’ continuing to attack Israel from behind civilians in Gaza. But here, even the self-described lovers of socialism (and even Marxism!) openly care less for opposing nakedly imperialist military aggression than they care about opposing a fellow democracy’s border war against jihadi terrorists. Wild.
@44 is America spending exorbitant sums to fund the Russian invasion despite clear evidence of war crimes? Is anyone here arguing that Russia is justified in “defending itself” or because of its millenia old claim to Ukrainian territory? Do you really not understand why there is significantly more debate over one of these conflicts than the other?
The Stranger has decided that it will pay an order or two more attention to Gaza than Ukraine — and when mentions of Ukraine do appear here, they can be sympathetic to the Russian side (e.g., https://www.thestranger.com/news/2022/08/15/77807239/new-poll-shows-majority-support-in-seattle-area-for-speedy-diplomatic-solution-in-ukraine).
As both @38 and I have noted, there’s scant evidence the Stranger has humanitarian concern as their reason, but plenty of material to support an ideological driver.
@47: “…is America spending exorbitant sums to fund the Russian invasion despite clear evidence of war crimes?”
Give it a rest. Taking, keeping, and killing hostages are all war crimes. As @5 noted, the Stranger simply doesn’t care, even about the last. If they don’t care about the premeditated murders of defenseless civilians in a war zone, then they don’t actually care about any other crimes that may have happened there, either.
In fact, we can say the Stranger has shown negative concern about hostages. The Stranger criticized Israel for having the unmitigated gall to RESCUE hostages, (https://www.thestranger.com/slog-am/2024/06/11/79553687/slog-am-guilty-plea-in-ingraham-high-school-shooting-seattle-rep-announces-layoffs-un-security-council-approves-ceasefire-resolution).
@48 “If they don’t care about the premeditated murders of defenseless civilians in a war zone”
Stop projecting
@49 don’t be a fool, bro ~ it’ll NEVER STOP.
from Caitlin’s Newsletter:
Israel
Assassinates
More Journalists To
Hide Its Planned War Crimes
Ahead of a planned Israeli assault on Gaza City which UN officials warn will further exacerbate death and suffering for the Palestinian people, Israel has chosen to assassinate five Al Jazeera journalists who’ve been stationed there. Among those killed was Anas al-Sharif, one of the most high-profile surviving reporters in Gaza.
The IDF is of course claiming that al-Sharif was Hamas, because that’s what they always do. They’ve been murdering a historically unprecedented number of journalists and defending their systematic effort to blind the world to their actions in Gaza by claiming that every journalist they kill is Hamas.
The journalists are Hamas, the hospitals are Hamas, the UN is Hamas, the peace activists are Hamas, the demonstrations are Hamas, telling the truth is Hamas, human empathy is Hamas, objective reality is Hamas.
It’s all Hamas.
–Caitlin Johnstone, August 10, 2025
Oodles:
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/israel-assassinates-more-journalists