Good morninggggg. After a full week and a day of vacation I’m back. The time away dulled my memory of how truly terrible it is to wake up and write Slog AM. But, you know, it is what it is. C’est comme ça.
Now the weather: The weather gods promise rain today, with a high of 53 degrees. We’re talking lots of rain. Seattle Weather Blog predicted today would be the “Wettest day of the year.” Nice.
Parking fines increasing: Seattle Municipal Court plans to increase parking fines next year from a range of between $29 to $53 depending on the fine, to between $43 to $78. A huge chunk of fines will increase from $47 to $69. Normally I’d say, nice, but this is not nice.
Shake up at Seattle Police Department: As the City prepares to potentially announce a new police chief before the end of the year, Seattle Police Department Interim Chief Sue Rahr has made some changes to leadership at the department. Deputy Chief Eric Barden announced his plans to retire, and Rahr will elevate Assistant Chief Yvonne Underwood to acting deputy chief and Capt. Lori Aagard to acting assistant chief over professional standards. Underwood’s most recently handled use-of-force investigations and made some pretty good calls in that role. Recently, her analysis helped sustain findings against a detective who shot at a stolen car.
Meanwhile, the choice for SPD’s permanent chief continues to happen mostly behind closed doors. As KUOW pointed out, the last time Mayor Bruce Harrell picked a chief of police, he announced three finalists before making his final selection in former Chief of Police Adrian Diaz. He also held public forums to discuss the potential finalists and what people wanted to see in a new chief. Harrell’s done none of that this time around.
But, Harrell may be considering Shon Barnes, the police chief in Madison, Wisconsin. All eyes were on Barnes this week when a shooting Monday killed at least three people, including the gunman, and left more wounded. That story got out through Jason Rantz, a Seattle conservative radio host and the Seattle Police Officer’s Guild’s (SPOG) go-to person to leak stories to. It seems the cops’ union may already want to undermine Barnes, by leaking his name and some of the controversy that followed him. In Madison, Barnes was accused of asking an officer about her sexual orientation in an exit interview, and mishandling police accountability cases.
On that shooting: On Monday, a shooter walked into Abundant Life Christian School and shot and killed two people, a student and a teacher, before turning the gun on themselves. Barnes identified the shooter as 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow, a student at the school who went by the name Samantha, according to Wisconsin Public Radio. The shooting injured at least six other people, leaving two students with life threatening injuries, as of 8:30 pm Monday. An unverified manifesto, supposedly belonging to the shooter, has circulated online. However, law enforcement officials have not confirmed that Rupnow actually wrote it.
The apps: Seattle rose to the number two spot for singles using dating apps, right under Washington DC, according to FYI Guy. A higher percentage of people using the apps are men, both single and married.
Bus stops close at 12th and Jackson: King County Metro has suspended service to 12th Avenue and Jackson Street, citing concerns for passenger and driver safety, according to KOMO. Affected bus routes include 1, 7, 9, 14, 36, 60 and 106, and King County Metro has listed alternative stops for these routes.
Official vs unofficial felonies: A New York judge upheld Trump’s convictions on multiple felony charges Monday, despite the U.S. Supreme Court saying earlier this year that presidents had almost total immunity to do crimes while in office. The judge reasoned that when Trump tried to secretly arrange and cover up a payment to his former lawyer/fixer Michael Cohen in 2017, he wasn’t performing his official presidential duties. He called it logical to assume when a president is falsifying business records to cover up payments to keep the public in the dark, a president is probably acting unofficially.
Drone spotting: The US Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the Department of Defense, and the Federal Aviation Administration all say that these drones people keep spotting across the US all appear to be totally normal. The agencies reported receiving more than 5,000 tips about drone sightings in the last few weeks. Of the tips the agencies have been able to investigate, most involve either “lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and stars.” None so far have presented a national security or public safety risk.
Fundraiser for Luigi Mangione hits six figures: A fundraiser for Mangione—who law enforcement officials charged with the fatal shooting of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson—has raised more than $120,000, according to the Guardian. The fundraiser had to be held on GiveSendGo, because GoFundMe refused to host the campaign, despite it being specifically for Mangione’s legal defense.
Ok that’s it for today: Honestly, that wasn’t that bad, I was being a baby at the start of the Slog. I guess its nice to wake up informed about the world around me. It is what it is.
The most apathetic staffer has done her Slog AM duty for the week.
The Stranger thinks parking fine increases are bad? God this space has gone to shit.
@2: “space?” snicker
“King County Metro has suspended service to 12th Avenue and Jackson Street, citing concerns for passenger and driver safety”
I’m sure the usual suspects will be along shortly to remind us that public safety is not an issue and crime is at an all time low.
@2
It’s odd that they didn’t include their standard bit about how the increased fines will disproportionately impact low income and other marginalized people.
@4: ain’t no one that’s been through that intersection in the last 2 years thinks that. night of the living dead down there.
i miss 7 stars peppers.
Again: PLEASE DO NOT POST PHOTOGRAPHS OF THAT MOTHERFUCKER. No one needs see his fat clown face.
@4 12th and Jackson is 12th and Jackson, not the entire metro area.
Nobody said that public safety wasn’t an issue because it is always an issue but in spite a small bump in crime that has already largely subsided seattle’s crime rate is at a 40 year low, like most of the nation despite what compulsive law and order types say:
Is Seattle ‘dying’? Crime rates tell a different story
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/is-seattle-dying-not-if-you-look-crime-rates-from-the-80s-and-90s/
“The
time away
dulled my memory
of how truly terrible it is
to wake up and write Slog AM.”
really?
what about
us poor Commentariots*?
(so would Not writ-
ing it be more or
less Terrible?)
moving on
“He [the Judge] called it logical to assume when a [felonious] president [Dipshit] is falsifying business records to cover up payments [keep quiet, Pussy!] to keep the public in the dark, a president is probably acting unofficially.”
hand that one over to our
resident ‘logician’ & he’ll
find enough Holes innit
to fill the Albert Hall.
he’s just that
freakin’ Good.
*whilst searching for confirmation
for an alternative spelling I
stumbled over This from
the New York Magazine:
[it’s 🛴 to a fucking Tee]
America Already Has a Centrist Party.
It’s Called the Democrats.
If your only source of information about American politics in 2018 were the GOP’s campaign ads, you would think that the Democratic Party was a radical left-wing organization, whose principal constituents were anarchists, misandrists, literal terrorists, and acolytes of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro.
In other words: The GOP’s message-makers [we see you🛴, d13r, wormmy et al!] are working round-the-clock to collapse the distinctions between the Democratic Party and the most radical activists at the far-left fringes of its big tent (while also, of course, caricaturing the latter).
And it isn’t hard to understand why they’ve pursued this gambit: The GOP’s donor-driven governing agenda is deeply unpopular, and thus, the party’s primary source of mass appeal is traditionalist, white America’s fear and loathing of the radical left, and the alienating demographic and cultural changes that they’re supposedly fomenting.
–by Eric Levitz
oodles:
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/tribalism-exhausted-majority-centrism-david-brooks-democratic-party.html
@4 — gotta Wonder
if you used your
Pole for that
Vault
[so Glad you’ve
Recovered,
Ashley!
derr Schlogg
can be quite
Cathartic].
I am with @2 on this one. Parking enforcement fines should be double, with all the fees going to more enforcement, associated admin., and courts.
Likewise with moving violations. Double them amd restrict the funding to more enforcement. Reestablish the SPD traffic unit.
I am with Ashley on GoFundMe throwing Mangione’s legal defense fund under the bus.
In a democracy, supposedly committed to rule of law, this guy is entitled to the best legal defense that his supporters can buy.
I think he’s guilty as hell, and should be convicted, but he is entitled to a vigorous defense to prove me, or a juror like me, that the State of NY is full of shit.
@7 Max Solomon: +1 For the WIN!!!
@8/9 Thanks for being you and proving my point.
@8: Even if we take that stale data from five years ago as accurate, nobody who’s lived here since the 80’s like me can say that the ID was worse back then.
@13
and
thank You for
inching/yarding
Us ever-Closer to
that Fascist Abyss.
@14 you can largely thank Harrell’s DSA-pandering downtown sweeps plan for that:
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/seattle-reduced-disorder-downtown-but-it-didnt-go-far/
@11
“In a democracy,
supposedly committed
to rule of law, this guy is
entitled to the best legal de-
fense that his supporters can buy.”
and Thee Best Defense one’s
Billionaire Supporters might Pur-
chase is ‘our’ (formerly-) Supreme Court.
‘Citizens United’ has made
a Mockery of our little
‘Experiment in
Democracy.’
END it
& Free
America
From it’s
Billionaires.
@16 – Or even 3rd Ave or Pioneer Square. No congregations of Fentanyl stupors back then. More despair now than crime I back then perhaps.
I wrote CM Morales office about 12th and Jackson dozens of times, with absolutely no response. She had no business being on the council. I know council members can’t fix everything, but she didn’t even try.
@18 I think you’re right that it’s more visible despair than actual crime on 3rd and in Pioneer Square. Unfortunately certain current City leaders struggle to distinguish the two, and therefore to craft appropriate interventions.
Most of Seattle’s streets are (3) lanes wide with (2) lanes used for parking and only (1) lane for moving the damn cars, bikes, scooters, and everyone else. And yet whiner drivers complain incessantly about not enough parking and now they want to whine about parking fine increases.
Agree with @2… come on Ashley, take transit, get rid of your damn car, that will save you a bundle and introduce you to the best parts of Seattle.
@18 I don’t know that there was actually less crime back in the day. I remember being told 35 years ago to stay away from 1st Ave in downtown after dark.
@16 Who could have predicted?! Oh, right. Everyone who wanted a holistic solution instead of just targeting a few blocks.
@11. Exactly who are Mangione’s supporters, and what is being supported by sending him cash for a legal defense? I genuinely do not understand the sentiment.
@19: That’s terrible. At least you should have gotten a “Thank you for your input…” generic response.
@16 right because before Harrol was elected mayor everything was just perfect downtown. One of the reasons Harrol was elected. Mayor is because the shit hole downtown had become due to progressive pandering of addicts and criminals.
You failed to mention the holistic solution the progressives wanted is free subsidized housing for anyone who wants it with no barriers or rules around drug use or antisocial behavior and massive tax increases on the rest of the population to pay for it. Good luck getting that done.
To be fair the holistic solution is more effective than the conservative approach of doing nothing, complaining endlessly, and blaming progressives anyway
@23, Me either.
However, if someone wants to give money to anyone’s legal defense, GoFundMe shouldn’t stand in the way, no matter how heinous the alleged conduct of the Accused.
Supporting the best legal defense possible, for even the most heinous of alleged crimes, or criminal, is a virtue.
Most of Seattle’s streets are (3) lanes wide with (2) lanes used for parking and only (1) lane for moving the damn cars, bikes, scooters, and everyone else. And yet whiner drivers complain incessantly about not enough parking and now they want to whine about parking fine increases.
Agree with @2… come on Ashley, take transit, get rid of your damn car, that will save you a bundle and introduce you to the best parts of Seattle.
@25 right, Harrell and most of the current Council were elected on the back of strong support from the business community. So they went to great effort to clear out the downtown shopping and tourist areas which pushed the homeless and drug and crime problems into the CID. Business groups like the DSA–and apparently you–are happy, CID residents not so much. The least we can do is be honest about why places like 12th and Jackson are so uniquely nightmarish now.
@26 I guess so except for the fact the holistic solution has never actually been accomplished in all of recorded history and there is no way you would ever get taxpayers to voluntarily agree to that plan. Other than that it’s perfect. Pretty much any government that has made progress on this issue has done so with a combination of services and rules/consequences. You are never going to succeed without both and right now we have neither because no one wants to fund programs that enable these behaviors and make no progress and progressives think asking those who are accepting this assistance to do their part is too much.
“Most of Seattle’s streets are (3) lanes wide with (2) lanes used for parking and only (1) lane for moving the damn cars, bikes, scooters, and everyone else.”
big auto & big oil
sold us a bill of goods
bought up all the tracks
& saddled us up with This
‘externalizing’ all their Costs
as per usual
plus we have a
dying Biosphere
tho we’re Drilllin’ as
fuckin’ Fast as we can.
Why does this
make no
Sense?
are we
Truly
This
Idio-
tic?
they named the
Wrong Planet
Uranus~god
I miss Pluto.
@29 Harrell and the current council were elected by strong support from everyone not just the business community. You can and TS can keep repeating that voters were somehow tricked by the DSA all you want but its simply not true. Even Morales barely beat Woo at the time. If you think downtown is clear then you obviously haven’t been down there lately. It’s better for sure but its not exactly some wonderland.
@32 aside from the obvious absurdity of claiming that a candidate in a contested election had “strong support from everyone” it’s well known that Seattle elections typically break down to a business candidate and a labor candidate, and that election was no different with MLK Labor and others having endorsed Gonzalez.
But that beside the point which is that, as even Seattle Times, recognized, Harrell made a conscious decision to focus efforts on clearing downtown shopping and tourist areas which resulted in the problems being pushed into the CID. Anyone not happy with the situation at 12th and Jackson should direct their ire to him and, to some extent, the current Council.
@33 no more absurd than claiming a candidate is the “business” candidate or is somehow beholden to the business community because they supported them. Bruce Harrell won with nearly 60% of the votes in that election. It wasn’t even close and to do that he would have had to won votes from those in labor and other constituencies. Sure Harrell is making an effort to clean up downtown but don’t pretend the CID was junkie free before those efforts started. If it’s gotten worse lately where is the CM to say something and represent her community to help? Oh yeah she is busy pouting in her million dollar home because no one wanted to vote for her legislation.
@34 why are you working so hard to deflect any responsibility for current City conditions from the current mayor? He’s not gonna give you a job in his administration.
@35 and why are you working so hard to assign 100% of the blame to him?. Do I wish he has done more at this point? Yes but I realize that 10 years of progressive policies have left the city budget drastically out of whack, drained resources and have created such a mess it may take 10 years to correct. He probably won reelection next year so let’s see where he’s at as he nears the end of term 2.
Dollar for dollar, most crimes are still committed
while wearing a white collar.
@37
yet they’re
not as Sexy
as the Violence
we getta see Splat-
ered all over the teevee
a Cop Show re
White Collar Crime?
sorry, bub — we Ain’t got the Time.
no
one
gives af
@38
Speaking of KOMO et al
&/or Sinclair Broad-casting
and our Lust for the Ultraviolence
from
the Eagles’
‘Dirty Laundry’
“We got the bubble-headed bleach-
blonde who comes on at five
She can tell you about the plane
crash with a gleam in her eye
It’s interesting when people
die, give us dirty laundry
Can we film the operation?
Is the head dead yet?
You know the boys in the
newsroom got a running bet
Get the widow on the set,
we need dirty laundry
dirty little secrets, dirty little lies
We got our dirty little
fingers in everybody’s pie
Love to cut you down to
size, we love dirty laundry
We can do the innuendo,
we can dance and sing
When it’s said and done,
we haven’t told you a thing
We all know that crap is king,
give us dirty laundry.”
–lyrics by Don Henley
is Seattle
Dead
yet!?
‘news’
at Eleven!
I don’t get all the hate for Harrell. I think he’s done as good a job as any Mayor since Royer.
OTOH, I don’t think we can lay all of the blame for the city’s problems on the past council. We had that little thing called a pandemic, and that would have messed any city’s budget up, but especially a city that depends on a dumb taxation strategy, has a housing shortage, and wanted to help people through a very rough time.
But now that this pandemic is over, it’s time to clean things up and move on.
@40 don’t forget that we went through 50 years of neoliberal policies that deeply cut social programs and redistributed wealth upward so that local communities were left to deal with the populations left behind. Massive upticks in homelessness and marginalized population can be seen everywhere these neoliberal policies were applied so it has little to do this or that city council irrespective of political leaning. Interestingly the same people who applauded drowning the welfare state in the proverbial bathtub and the policies responsible for the rise in massive inequality are the same people who accuse progressives for the mess they themselves created.
“Interestingly
the same people who
applauded drowning the
welfare state in the proverbial bath-
tub and the policies responsible for the rise
in massive inequality are the same people who
accuse progressives for the mess they themselves
created.” –@averavebob, Brilliantly
well cuz
they figure
we’ll Never
Ever notice
& that’s a
Fucking
BINGO
ab.
@41, 42
Yep. that Proves
it: “averagebob” IS
in Fact, “working for Putin.”
looks like you
were Correct,
cressona. /s
If Metro closed the stop because of safety concerns, then it’s been really unsafe for a very long time, because in my decades of using Metro as my primary form of transportation, never could they accomplish even the most obviously-needed changes quickly. The folks here who now earnestly pretend 12th & Jackson wasn’t dangerous before Harrell’s mayoral election merely show us their extreme biases and/or ignorance.