Please do not be distracted by this lame matter about Katie Wilson being rich or not. The same sort of rubbish is happening with Zohran Mamdani: The “hijab-wearing ‘aunt” who feared for safety post-9/11” was actually his father’s cousin. So what? Brown and black immigrants almost never call a parent’s cousin a cousin. The children, Munya and Jesa, of my first cousin, Farayi, call me uncle; I’m not their bloody cousin. So, all of this is just a big waste of time. Like Mamdani, it’s Wilson’s politics that matter. This is what the race is all about. We are voting for her because she promises to do things Mayor Bruce Harrell clearly failed to do. The rest is beside the point.
The weather? It will rain a little this morning, but the afternoon will see some sun, which will be low in the sky and gone just before 6 pm. Expect a high in the mid 50s. Also expect Thursday to be pretty dry, and Friday to be very wet. Yesterday, Columbia City experienced around 5:30 pm a wonderful burst of loud rain that hit the windows of my house in a manner that recalled this passage from Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way: “A little tap at the window, as though some missile had struck it, followed by a plentiful, falling sound, as light, though, as if a shower of sand were being sprinkled from a window overhead; then the fall spread, took on an order, a rhythm, became liquid, loud, drumming, musical, innumerable, universal. It was the rain”
Amazon will cut jobs in Washington State: 2,300, according to GeekWire. Those getting the boot will be “software engineers, program managers, product managers, and designers, as well as a significant number of recruiters and human resources staff.” Apparently AI can now do all of those things now. No need for humans, who, unlike AI, always complain about this and that and have needs, and feelings, and even dreams.
What turned out to be better than The Stranger buying the famously wacky right-wing Uncle Sam Billboard in Chehalis? It being purchased by The Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation. The Native American organization has sent all of that cranky nonsense packing and replaced it with just the truth. Seattle, now we have a town to visit on our way down to Portland. Show Chehalis the love it now deserves.
A controversial billboard on I-5 between Seattle and Portland has a new owner, the Chehalis Tribe, and a simple message: “Native land.”
— KUOW Public Radio (@kuow.org) October 27, 2025 at 3:56 PM
This week: Maybe a ceasefire today; maybe no ceasefire tomorrow. This will likely become the pattern of the war on Gaza. NBC: “Israel says ceasefire back on after strikes kill more than 100 in Gaza.”
The Federal Reserve is apparently “in a fog” about the present state of the economy because Trump’s administration either provides bullshit data or none at all. The job market? Likely in a slump. Inflation? Probably skyhigh. Growth? Unlikely. A recession? Likely. What should the Fed do in this fog? Maybe lower interest rates “to the 3.75%-4.00% range.” Why? God only knows.
After doing a number on Jamaica, the island that gave the world soul of dub music, Hurricane Melissa is crossing the island that gave the world the sorrows and thrills of Afro-Cuban jazz: Cuba. Hurricane Melissa, whose winds reached, at one point, an astonishing 185 mph, has so far claimed 7 Caribbean lives.
Trump keeps pressing South Korea to, in the words of Politico, “pony up $350 billion in an “upfront” if it hopes to reach a deal with him. That figure is one-fifth of that country’s total GDP. Meaning, if it made such a commitment, it would destabilize its economy and weaken its currency. But what are these outrageous demands and erratic tariffs really all about?
You will remain in the dark about Trump’s trip to Asia (to make “deals”) if you simply do not put his own wallet at its center. And what that wallet wants is all international business transactions to go through the White House (or what remains of it), the current home of his wallet. This is what dictators—a capitalist form of the trans-historical tyrant—never fail to do: make their country’s business their own business. But Trump overestimated the economic power of the US, and underestimated that of China, which recently signed a free trade agreement with “the ASEAN bloc of Southeast Asian nations.” And so the deals he hoped to quickly pocket are now dragging on and on (even Canada refuses to play ball); and, as a consequence, he is dragging the whole economy into what will turn out to be a very long recession.
Chicago’s mayor, Brandon Johnson, who is having something of a moment—at a time when such moments are in great demand—had this to say “to Chicago’s Latino community”: “There’s not a Chicagoan that’s by themselves right now. We will use every tool available to us to defend the humanity and dignity of every Chicagoan.”
Chicago Mayor Brandon
Johnson accused the Trump administration of horrific acts, saying
“Black babies are being thrown in the back of vans” and “zip-tied in the middle of the night.”— Raider (@iwillnotbesilenced.bsky.social) October 29, 2025 at 7:49 AM
The city as we know and feel it is very new. Its cultural essence cannot be found in ancient Rome or Tikal or Kyoto. We are less in a city than in capital, which is expressed by our culturally specific modes of working, moving, and consuming. Nevertheless, the major owners of capital constantly live in fear of the key engine (or attribute, in the Spinozist sense) in the accumulation of privatized wealth: Chicago, Portland, Los Angeles, Seattle, New York. Why? And why is Trump hell-bent on spiritually crushing the major nodes of America’s GDP?
Maybe there is something about the city that keeps swerving, not outward, but inward. I’m now thinking of a line I caught while watching Kahlil Joseph’s BLACKNWS at the Orcas Film Festival: “The only way out was in.” This “in” is certainly the obscure urban, which can be pictured, though not precisely, as the force, gravity, that pulls the materials of a star inward as pressure forces the photosphere outward. The urban pull inward is found in our human-specific sociality, in Brandon Johnson’s determination that no one in his city is “by themselves.” This kind of feeling is confirmed by the ease with which we gravitate to others, who are often strangers. ICE brings out the best in cities. And so, the effort to impose fear only intensifies what those in power most fear: a growing sense of community in urban areas.
We have entered the season that makes Seattle the queen of cities: Fall. The leaves (both red and gold), the sudden showers, the low and moody clouds, the blanket-warm dreams that bring back the dead we will never stop loving. This is the time to listen to this underappreciated piece of Japanese jazz by the Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio, “Autumn In Seattle.”
More in NEWS
Local (and not-so-local) news from your favorite writers.
The Bellevue Chamber of Commerce urges you to vote for Katie Wilson.
Nice roundup, Charles.
Just wanted to say that before the howler monkeys show up.
“No need for humans, who, unlike AI,
always complain about this and that
and have needs, and feelings,
and even dreams.”
and
Yet ai
DOES have
Dreams, of World
Domination (just like
Republicans) and a Bitter
End for the Freeloading beings
calling themselves “Human.”
Peace Plan Update:
“Israel
says ceasefire
back on after strikes
kill more than 100 in Gaza.”
wax on wax off
it’s only a Ceasefire
when bibi SAYS it Is:
which’s
Between
Massacring
Palestinians.
thank GAWD
it AIN’T no Genocide.
eh?
fawking global warming!
thank god (and BIG Oil)
it’s ALL merely a
Liberal HOAX:
‘Oh, Jamaica’ –Country Joe and the Fish
https://youtu.be/OfpYmWezsBc
“A controversial billboard on I-5 between Seattle and Portland has a new owner, the Chehalis Tribe, and a simple message: “Native land.””
Does this mean that they don’t want illegal aliens there?
@Pugnacious Ubiquitous*
if Israel
Can Do It
Why NOT Native Americans?
other than Our Manifest
Destiny WTF’s
the dif?
*aka Bipp the Worthless.
@6, it means we’re all illegals under native concept, the landowners who predated Europeans by thousands of years, you knucklehead.
@6 Illegal according to who? The powers that stole the land? Who’s economy would not exist as it is without the exploited labor of those people it treats the most cruelly? Probably not, if so.
@8 – so the Native Americans never ever warred against each other, invaded another tribe’s “owned” territory, conquer each other “landowners'” territories, and enslave each other? Maybe somebody should ask Chief Sealth.
@9 – “The powers that stole the land?”
Perhaps you should ask Chief Sealth too
@10, oh you gonna deflect. Warring tribes is real off topic, girl.
I (almost) always appreciate the vibe of a Charles Slog but this item stood out
“This is what dictators—a capitalist form of the trans-historical tyrant”
I’m sorry Charles but dictators operate outside the realm of capitalism – maybe just stick with the tyrant association, leave your Marxism aside.
Excited to cast my early vote for Zohran on Friday morning, bitches!! Let’s make history and give these shitbag mother fuckers what for.
Also I see your Tikal shoutout Charles, jach ma’alob. My cousins’ kids call me uncle too.
@13
but it’s
(unbridled)
Capitalism* what
Got Cadet Bonespurs
to the Dance, buddhamatt
*& what much of
tS’s Commentariat
worships on the Daily
@7: “if Israel Can Do It Why NOT Native Americans?”
Good question, and indeed you’ll find that all good people uphold both the sovereignty of Israel and the sovereignty of Native Americans. 😃 People who don’t support both are bad people. 😘
@16
so if they Wipe you
(well, not you ais) off
the Face of this Earth
you won’t even Whine?
@10: “So the Native Americans never ever warred against each other, invaded another tribe’s ‘owned’ territory, conquer each other ‘landowners’ territories, and enslave each other?”
Obviously various Native American nations did do all of those things over the course of their histories, but so what? 😄 That Native American nations have histories no more undermines their claims to sovereignty than American or European histories undermine our own claims to sovereignty! 😁
Native American nations are sovereign and indigenous to North America in the same way that, say for example, the French nation is sovereign and indigenous to France. France, of course, has waged countless wars, has conquered and been conquered, has seen its languages and religions change, has seen its territory grow and shrink and grow again and shrink again, has been governed at various periods of history as a monarchy, empire, republic, and confederation of tribes. None of that history does anything to undermine French sovereignty, French indigeneity, the legitimacy of the French state, or any other anti-French position you can think of. Likewise for our own Native American nations. 😘
@17: that’s not how sovereignty or indigeneity work ha ha ha!
So Charles considers reporters’ follow up questions to Katie and Zohran as “rubbish”? Did I get that right?
What’s rubbish is electing a 43-year-old who has never held a job for longer than a few months to be mayor.
I’m holding out hope that the November electorate will be different enough from the August electorate that Bruce ekes out a win.
But in the event Katie Wilson is elected mayor I will take great pleasure watching The Stranger, et al, turn on her when her administration turns out to be a totally predictable failure.
@1 Amazon encourages you to vote for whoever you want, they don’t care, they’ll cut jobs in Seattle and Bellevue and wherever else they please and there’s nothing you can do about it
Man … Chasiv Yar in July, Toretsk in August, and now Pokrovsk looks to be just days or weeks from falling, as both the M-30 and T-05-15 highways have been cut. If Pokrovsk falls, the Russians may simply be able to outflank the Lyman– Kostyantynivka line rather than smash their faces against it like they have been! 😛
Where is TheKossack when we need him? 😁
@23 hopefully Zelensky agrees to relinquish power and the Ukrainian army surrender all their weapons and POWs ASAP for the good of the Ukrainian civilians being killed by Russia, right?
@24: lol i’m sorry youre so sad about hamas 😂🤣😂🤣
Progress in 13twelve’s march toward a more just world of income equality.
“Amazon will cut jobs in Washington State: 2,300, according to GeekWire. Those getting the boot will be ‘software engineers, program managers, product managers, and designers, as well as a significant number of recruiters and human resources staff.’”
@25
the only ones
Sad about Hamas’re
Hamas. bibi’s been propping
them up for Decades, they haven’t
held an Election since two-thousand
Fucking seven, they’ve run Gaza without
civilian Oversight and we’re “sympathetic”
with Hamas? all this just so you can Continue
supporting bibi’s land grab cum starvation plan
cum shooting ‘fish in a fucking Barrel.’ your self-right
eous disingenuousness makes you Uglier than even Hamas.
@4, Doesn’t give a shit about human suffering, genocide, or war crimes.
If he did he’d post about Ethiopia where 150,000 non-combatants have died over the same period that 70,000 Gazans (not all non-combatants) have died. He would post about where the greatest harm, the most suffering, and where international intervention would do the most good.
I guess it doesn’t matter if its African people dying, just Arabs. They are the only ones that count.
@26 confirming that it wasn’t just software engineers, PMs, or PXT that got the axe yesterday. Sales and marketing across all of their orgs were hit hard too.
Yesterday fucking sucked and they just expect us to carry on business as usual with no acknowledgement of who got the axe. People lost access to Slack and other comms channels, but still show as active employees, so who the fuck knows if the person you just emailed is just slammed and taking forever to get back to you, or if they’re gone for good. One of my teammates who got laid off was on paternity leave until next Monday.
Corporate America doesn’t give one single solitary fuck about its people, just the shareholders. But now who’s gonna build all that shareholder value?
@28: “I guess it doesn’t matter if its African people dying, just Arabs”
lol you’re right that there’s an ethnic dimension at work, but the progressive neurosis about Israel is not because it involves Arabs but because it involves Jews 😂
@28
not commenting
about ALL HUMAN
SUFFERING Doesn’t ne-
gate commenting about
an ongoing Genocide mister
fucking magoo. btw your nihilism
disqualifies you as an un-
biased observer.
@29, All those roles you named generally require a college education. So this goes a long way toward promoting the Progressive (13twelve, Kristo) goal of income equality. The layoffs did not include entry level roles that don’t require an elitist college education. So the nature of these layoffs promote income equality by reducing high paying jobs of the college elite, while retaining those of the common man. If there are fewer higher paying salaries creating demand in the housing and retail goods markets, it reduces price pressure on those less well off. So from a Progressive standpoint, Thirteen12 and Kristo (and Charles) ought to be cheering the progress toward more income and purchasing equality.
As tragic as it is for someone on maternity leave, or anyone else, a job is not an entitlement. It’s a trade of labor production for cash, and if cash will buy the production more inexpensively by other lawful means, then it does.
We all need to keep reinventing ourselves. What our country does EXTREMELY poorly, on a spectacularly bi-partisan basis, is deny a publicly funded positive externality to support people while they retrain, pay for training, to move them into the next in-demand, higher paying thing.
It has always been obvious that you are comparing Harrell’s record to Wilson’s promises, in essence comparing reality to daydreams and finding reality lacking.
@33, hey, it sure worked for Trump against Biden.*
OK, if I’m recalling correctly, the Democrats ended up fielding another candidate, and that other candidate decided to run on Biden’s record.
“Native American nations are sovereign and indigenous to North America in the same way that, say for example, the German nation is sovereign and indigenous to Germany. Germany, of course, has waged countless wars, has conquered and been conquered, has seen its languages and religions change, has seen its territory grow and shrink and grow again and shrink again, has been governed at various periods of history as a monarchy, empire, republic, and confederation of tribes. None of that history does anything to undermine German sovereignty, German indigeneity, the legitimacy of the German state, or any other anti-German position you can think of. Likewise for our own Native American nations.”
The “sovereignty” of the Native American Nations and their “landownership” of their various “territories” is really just a he-said/she-said thing prior to European colonialism. Who writes the History? Winners do.
@35: lol, that’s exactly how progressives talk about the history of Jews in Israel 😂 The far-left and the far-right, two twin brothers wearing different colored shirts! 🤣
“Who writes the History?
Winners do.”
–@Biped on October
29, 2025 at 1:43 PM
who burns books?
Nazis and cadet
bonespurs and
his henchmen
and women
who
burns
Ceasefire
agreements
whilst committing
genocides & war crimes?
” progressive neurosis
about Israel is not because it
involves Arabs but because it involves Jews “
–@thumpfnsorna on October 29, 2025 at 12:38 PM
there’s that
Anti-Genocide
EQUALS Anti-Semitism.
does bibi’s
War on Palestinians
& its Planetwide repercussions
mean nutnyahoo
hates Jews?
@23. I remain cool as a cucumber on the eastern front. Neither ISW, Michael Kaufman, or the folks at RUSI are raising alarm bells. The Zeds continue to bleed, Kyivs LRF campaign has yielded impressive results, the Russian economy is finally showing significant strain, and el Trumpo may finally be settling into the proper lane, IMHO. Tusk and Stubb have both stated Kyiv has years of fight in them. I don’t think these two would sugarcoat the situation given their respective geo-strategic situation. I’m neither sanguine or panicked.
If you have read more pessimistic assessments I would be eager to read them.
Otherwise, I’ve slipped into my Sergio Tachinni velour tracksuit, poured myself a healthy dollop of Laphroaig, turned up the smooth sounds of Jazz Sabbath, and excitedly return to my 20 Sq ft of dining table, upon which Confederate columns are streaming through the forests along Chickamauga Creek.
@36 ~ Horseshit Theory!
😂Amirite😂wormmy!?😂
@34: “OK, if I’m recalling correctly, the Democrats ended up fielding another candidate, and that other candidate decided to run on Biden’s record.”
IIRC, the exact same people who now very carefully ignore Hamas’ recent public mass executions of civilians in Gaza had declared that saving civilian lives in Gaza was The Most Important Thing In The Entire History of Evah, even worth throwing the election to Trump (“punish” Harris and “defeat” her, as one of the Stranger’s longtime faves put it).
Now those very same people ignore both civilian deaths in Gaza, and Trump. Too bad for everyone in the world who now suffers because of Trump, eh?
@39: “I remain cool as a cucumber on the eastern front. Neither ISW, Michael Kaufman, or the folks at RUSI are raising alarm bells.”
In my opinion, ISW systematically underrates Russian achievements. Kaufman and RUSI are more realistic, but they’re also slower on the update than ISW. I agree with you that no one who watches this stuff is sounding alarm bells, so let me just ring a little one here and see if it resonates with you. 😄
I concede we’re a long way from total collapse in Donbas. Even if Pokrovsk does fall, the “Ruzzians” will still have to hack their way through Dobropillia before they can execute a “right hook” behind the Ukrainians’ main line. Dobropillia should be, in theory, at least as tough a nut to crack as Pokrovsk-Myrnohrad has been—that is to say, a 100,000-man, year-long effort for the Russians. But I freaked out a little bit in August when the Russians went something like 20 km deep toward Dobropillia in three days! It made me think Dobropillia is not as well-fortified as some of the other “fortress towns” in Donbas (Lyman, Chasiv Yar, Toretsk, etc.) and so might not be able to hold as long. If Pokrovsk goes down, the Russians will have a lot of excess weight to throw at Dobropillia. Will Dobropillia be ready?
Let’s say Pokrovsk falls next month and Dobropillia falls this winter or next spring. Now the Russians can spend the 2026 fighting season marching northward into the poorly fortified agricultural area between the Lyman–Kostyantynivka main line and the western boundary of Donetsk Oblast. There are no terrain features in that area to stop them, nor even any sizable towns until you get all the way up to Cherkaske, by which point you’ve basically cut off the Ukrainian main line anyway. I think the situation in Donbas would look very bad if Pokrovosk and then Dobropillia go down. Even if we treat the fortress cities as invincible to assault, they are still vulnerable to being outflanked by a Russian right hook.
At the same, I don’t want to minimize the Russians’ difficulties. There are no north-south highways after Dobropillia other than T-05-014, which runs through Kramatorsk and so wouldn’t be useful for a Russian flanking movement. Instead, the Russians’ “right hook” after Dobropillia would have to occur cross-country, slowing the Russians down and exposing their logistics to interdicting fires from both the Kharkiv direction and the Lyman–Kostyantynivka direction. if I were an orc, I sure wouldn’t enjoy dragging my shit across those fields in full view of Ukrainian ISR! So I don’t mean to suggest that a Russian flanking movement behind the Lyman–Kostyantynivka line would occur on the order of days or weeks but rather on the order of months.
I feel like the big strategic development of 2025 has been the discovery that time might actually be on the orcs’ side. If that’s so, then even a grinding, months-long advance to outflank the Ukrainian main line in Donbas isn’t too high a price for the Russians. Your thoughts, as always, are most welcome. 😊
@39: “excitedly return to my 20 Sq ft of dining table, upon which Confederate columns are streaming through the forests along Chickamauga Creek.”
OK, but watch your left flanks, everyone! 😉 And don’t be stingy when it comes to reconnaissance! 😆
@39.
Hey Kossack,
How do you feel about Trump’s unauthorized military presentation in California closing down all of I-5 to shoot a bunch of ammo over it last week?
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-10-18/interstate-5-closure-fuels-anger-and-gridlock-there-was-no-coordination
Aren’t you going to donate to the Democrats now since Trump probably caused someone to have to take a detour to their radiation treatment?
@35, here, Natives literally bought the land and the sign, so they are following western rules and get to write whatever tf they want.
@43: kossack comes off two weeks’ radio silence with an effortpost, and you greet him with this demented nonsense? 😂 get out of here, I hope he laughs at you as hard as I just did!
@45. Glad to help, thanks!
https://youtu.be/ZIxmrvbMeKc?si=2ppUcEJrsF5ap8Yr
Texas Style Deposition
An instant classic
Well, well, well – it looks like “Tensorna” and “Cressona” are back to mirroring each “other.”
Just sayin’.
“Too bad
for everyone
in the world who now
suffers because of Trump, eh?”
–@the Wormtongue,
gleefully, some-
where, above
so sayeth
tS’s Biggest
Cheerleader for
bibi’s Keep-the-Fuck
Outta-Prison Gambit aka
Israel’s ONGOING GENOCIDE
likely THEE Decider
in 2024 when peeps said,
“Fuck This — BOTH Parties’re
supporting this damn “War” on
Palestinians — at least that’s what
the post-Election polls have told us
your Deflection rings
rather Hollow
wormmy
but you Def
get a C+
for Ef-
fort
re: 16 & 18 – This commentary on Native American “rights” has to be one of the low points I’ve encountered on the SLOG’s comment section. The commenter – the one who overuses emojis – seems to have derived their understanding from a source equivalent to TruthSocial or Joe Rogan’s podcast.
Reality check: Zionism is widely and often very publicly denounced in Native American communities, especially by its intellectuals. Support for Zionism also exists in NA communities, where it is very closely correlated to Evangelical Christian identity.
Correct Conclusion: A well-informed person supports decolonization of Native American communities and decolonization of Palestine. Persons who are part of a high-control, authoritarian religious community (or someone with quasi-religious nationalist leanings, like the commenter) can be easily persuaded to support Zionism without examining the potential hypocrisies of that position. The ethnicity of such persons is irrelevant.