Good morning: A cloudy day will gradually give way to the sun and it may be the last we may see of it til Sunday. Expect a high of 66.
Climbing Accident in North Cascades: Four people were repelling down a steep gully when their equipment failed and they fell 400 feet. Three died from the fall. Hours later the lone survivor, unaware of just how seriously injured he was, walked back to the trailhead, got in his car, drove to Newhalem and called 911 from a pay phone. The Okanogan County Sheriff’s Office has not released the names of the dead climbers, but says they were 36, 47, and 63 years old. Two lived in Redmond, the third in Bellevue.
Trump’s Tariffs on China Hitting Seattle Truck Drivers: Whatever comes of the US and China’s temporary trade agreement, April’s tariffs slowed port traffic and imports won’t be back up for weeks. A problem if your job is hauling goods, truck drivers told The Seattle Times. China accounted for 40 percent of container volume in Seattle and Tacoma last year.
Not So Fresh or Ready: As of May 9, at least 10 people in the US have been hospitalized by a listeria outbreak in ready-to-eat food from California company Fresh & Ready Foods, which sells products in Washington. Symptoms typically start two weeks after eating contaminated food. The mildest cases are like a stomach flu, while the most severe can cause confusion, lack of balance and convulsions. Fresh & Ready has voluntarily recalled select items with use by dates between April 22 and May 19. Here’s a list. If you happen to have any of this stuff, throw it away.
Can barely wait to vote? The Young Democrats at UW are hosting one of the first candidate forums of the political season, writes Capitol Hill Seattle Blog. Tune online at 6:30 pm to hear from the candidates in the Mayoral, City Attorney, and City Council races. Check @youngdemocrats_uw (Instagram) for more details.
ICYMI: Nathalie and I looked into Republican millionaire Brian Heywood’s latest slate of ballot measures, which aren’t great. They’re bad, even: Heywood wants to repeal changes to his Parents’ Bill of Rights, ban trans girls from sports, take public school money and give it to homeschooled kids and kids in private school, and cap property tax increases.
The Lawyerbrarian of Congress: Todd Blanche, the lawyer who defended Trump in his 2024 criminal trial, was appointed the acting librarian of congress. Blanche took over for Randolph Newlen, who took over for Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden last Thursday after Trump fired her for the “concerning,” “woke” habit of supporting DEI and putting “inappropriate” books in the library for children. Strange they’d say that. As Politico writes, the Library of Congress “is not a lending library and researchers have to be at least 16.”
Trump Admin Screws Over Afghan Refugees: The same day the Trump administration welcomed white Afrikaners “escaping” a non-existant genocide in South Africa, it ended deportation protections for Afghans. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem cited “notable improvements” in their home country, which the Taliban still controls and where assassinations, arrests, and human rights abuses continue, a resettlement advocate told The Washington Post. Now the US may deport Afghans while the white Afrikaners skip ahead of thousands of others living in refugee camps around the world. It’s racist policy. As Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau told reporters, Trump made the exception for his ban on asylum-seekers because Afrikaners could be “assimilated easily” into the US.
But: The Episcopal Church’s migration service won’t go along with Trump’s plan to resettle them. Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe cited its commitment to “racial justice and reconciliation” and its historic ties with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, which campaigned against apartheid (“apartness” in Afrikaans) in the 1980s and 1990s.
Mister Sandman, bring me a dream electoral victory (win, win, win, win): The only Iowa Democrat in statewide office, state auditor Rob Sand, is running for Governor next year. Sand, who looks like a giant boy or the Dead Poets Society’s oldest member, jumped into the race after Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, announced she wouldn’t seek reelection. Sand is apparently launching hard. (My partner, who briefly lived in Iowa, received no less than nine messages and four photos from his campaign yesterday). A Democrat could win Iowa (it was, after all, a swing state) but it won’t be easy. The whole Midwest is fixing to be a battlefield next year, writes The New York Times. Republicans are eyeing governor’s mansions currently occupied by Democrats in Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.
The Picture of Health: What better way to celebrate Mother’s Day than to take a dip in human piss and shit? On Sunday, Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr. posted photos of him and his grandchildren swimming in Rock Creek in Washington DC. Rock Creek is not known for its swimming on account of it being banned because of bacterial contamination from the city’s sewers (it’s used to drain excess sewage and storm water during rainfall). It’s unclear if he knew of the dangers, but I’d like to think he capped off the afternoon with an ice-cold glass of raw milk. I’ve heard it really balances the humors and shields the body from lingering miasmas.
Takes One to Know One: Asked about his intention to replace Air Force One with a $400 million luxury jet gifted to him by the Qatari royal family, Trump said only someone “stupid” would turn down such a great offer. Now we know what would have happened if Trump were King of Troy in 1184 BC and a bunch of nice men rolled an enormous wooden horse onto his gatestep. As many have already pointed out, it’s also absurdly, cartoonishly corrupt.
mike_blob dear, Newhalem is a City Light company town. A hamlet, really. You have to be a City Light or North Cascades National Park employee to live there (I think a Whatcom County Sherriff’s Deputy also lives there). Now that I think of it, there might be a payphone by the General Store.
@48: lol, in addition to not being “murder,” the aid worker deaths were also not “simple negligent homicide.” 😂 You’re doing that thing again where progressives redefine words like “murder” and “genocide” to mean “anything my out-group does that I don’t like.” 🤣 It’s not “hairsplitting” on my part to correct you, although I can see how it might make you mad if you’re not used to hearing it. 😘
@48 — yep. & there’s @49,
stepping in Instantly to
protect its siksokbott
🛴🔨.
‘don’t Worry, little
ai — Daddy’s here.’
babyback’s
Gone. let’s
Lose🛴🔨
Too.
Debating the semantics of the words genocide and murder on the internet while babies get blown to pieces. So republican.
so Distracting.
so Wormtongue.
@54: “Debating the semantics of the words genocide and murder”
Sounds like we all agree, then: there has been no genocide and no murder in Gaza. 😛The non-combatant deaths in Gaza have been harms incidental to combat, excusable under the law of armed conflict. I’m glad we’ve finally settled this distracting semantic debate! 😉
SO Wormtongue
@52 “the aid worker deaths were also not “simple negligent homicide.” 😂”
The IDF disagrees.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/20/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-medics.html
@54: Yes, if it’s one thing the Republicans have conclusively demonstrated, it is their fine attention to detail in the meanings and applications of polysyllabic words. No doubt.
Meanwhile, I make no apologies when I defend the real meanings of words. I unambiguously and in all cases deplore the abuse of language, especially when dishonest actors try to twist language for political gain. (See Orwell, G. for details.)
@58. Oh please. You’re the one acting like the Ministry of Truth by gatekeeping and turning a blind eye to any truth you don’t agree with so you don’t have to budge an inch on your posturing or god forbid show any empathy to anyone who is suffering unjustly, you malevolent sociopath.
@59: Hey Garb’, does Bernie’s and AOC’s refusals describe Gaza as “genocide,” mean they’re no longer persons we should reference as prime examples of “Progressive” beliefs in the USA?
@59 — Well-Put, CD.
the Wormtongue is
Genocides’ Biggest
Booster distracting
the Conversation
making it about
ANYThing But
what WE’re
$upoorting
with OUR
TAX $$$.
See? There
he Goes
AGAIN
@60
Right On
fucking Cue.
@59: With all of the suffering and misery in our world, why are you so adamant that Gaza, and Gaza alone, be called a “genocide,” to the point you keep trying (and failing) to gatekeep our dialog here based on it? What’s so special about it? Can’t Gaza just be yet another humanitarian disaster, and we work together to address it? Why can Bernie and AOC be your standard-bearers politically, yet without calling Gaza a “genocide”? What so special about them? Why are they not “malevolent sociopaths” for their refusals to do so?
If you want to convince anyone that you care about this topic, then as @54 mentions, “[d]ebating the semantics of the words genocide and murder on the internet while babies get blown to pieces” is likely not the look you want to present. Yet, you do, endlessly. Why?
@58: “The IDF disagrees.”
Article does not support your contention that the IDF disagrees with me regarding the question of negligent homicide.
Did you once again link the wrong article? 😂 Or is this yet another of your convenient semantic confusions? 😂
@63 true, they admitted they committed homicide as a result of being negligent, but they didn’t say in so many words that it was “negligent homicide.” You win a thousand internet points congrats.
@64: You’re slowly getting there. 😄 In Israel as in the United States, negligent homicide is a crime defined by particular elements. The elements of that crime are absent in the March 23 Rafah shooting. The Rafah shooting was not negligent homicide, QED. 😃
Sorry if it stings. 😂 Not everything your out-group does is a crime. 😘
@65 which element of negligent homicide under Israeli law, in your opinion, is not established when someone’s negligence causes the death of another person? Or which element of Manslaughter in the 2nd under Washington law? Just kidding I know you have no idea.
@66: In the Rafah incident, the missing element of the crime is negligence. 🤣
@2 thirteen12: +1 for the WIN!!! And thank you for beating me to it.
You summed it up beautifully.
@61 kristofarian: Teenieweenie has nothing better to do, other than to ecstatically slurp up the very contaminated
Trumpfist pond water RFK Jr. swims in. He loves spewing shit on cue, no matter how toxic.
@59 CDizzle and @61 kristofarian: +2: Word
@60: Uh-huh….right on schedule. Same batshit time, same batshit channel. Don’t you get tired of reading raindrop’s cue cards over and over?
One suggestion, teenie: You might wanna get a tetanus shot soon.
I know how much you pride yourself with being an avid brownshirt, but forever swimming in shit is a bit over the Trumpf’s butt end, dontcha think?
@6 Max Solomon: Thank you for the reminder of why I don’t swim at public beaches anymore.
Fifty years later, too many people and too much bacteria.