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.
The 4 climbers were rappelling down off Early Winters Spires – the spectacular, jagged peak you see from Washington Pass overlook. Sheriff on the news was speculating they anchored to an old piton, and it failed. RIP; not a fun way to go.
There’s no cell service up there, not that it would have helped after a 400′ fall…
Swimming in piss and shit is the perfect metaphor for working in the Trump admin
King County has too many wealthy people.
“We’re one of a relatively small number of counties where 401(k) holders are in the majority.”
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/what-new-401k-data-tells-us-about-king-county/
We need a 401(k) tax that redistributes those savings to poor people, so we have equal retirement distribution.
@2, FTW!
I wonder which easily preventable disease RFK Jrs poor grandchildren will die of first… measles or something they got from bathing in human shit.
Urban creeks all over America have been used as Combined Sewer Overflow for decades, if not centuries. It’s gross. Seattle’s been fixing this with big stormwater retention/detention facilities, slowly and steadily.
The worst Kennedy and his grandkids are probably fine as long as there hadn’t been a huge storm recently, they didn’t swallow shit and took a shower later.
Lake Washington is just as gross because of the goose shit. Matthews Beach is closed every summer for fecal bacteria.
I wonder if the bacteria will “resolve” RFK Jr like the bacteria “resolved” the alien invasion in “War of the Worlds”.
Rest assured RFK is fully vaccinated and so are his grandkids. He’s a charlatan, not an idiot.
re: “Can’t Wait to Vote” & “Mr. Sandman”: TS is cucking hard for the DNC today.
@3 You should be wearing a good bulletproof vest when you propose this at the town hall. Of course, that won’t help you with rifle fire.
“…the Trump administration
welcomed white Afrikaners “escaping”
a non-existant genocide in South Africa… “
omg!
the Absolute
BEST Hill for the
Wormtongue to Die on!
if anyone (claims to or)
KNOWs Genocide when
he Sees it’s our dear wormmy,
fierce Defender of the Language
who’ll fight This fight like NO One’s
Business! I pity Cadet Bonespurs when
the Wormtongue grabs ahold of this FLAGRANT
ABUSE of our Precious and oft-Misused English Language!
sic ’em,
wormmy.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/seattle-public-schools-sued-by-family-of-garfield-student-killed-in-shooting/
@11: As usual, you get it backwards. I know a non-existent genocide when I see one, and thus I agree with the Stranger that no genocide of white persons is underway in South Africa.
Glad to read my opposition to the Stranger’s (and your) flagrant abuse of the word “genocide” elsewhere has been so effective, that you leap to complain about me when I had yet even to comment in this thread.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/24/politics/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-aoc-israel-gaza-genocide-cnntv
“a non-existant genocide in South Africa”
No the new rule is, if you deny that any particular situation amounts to genocide, it means the situation is definitely a genocide and you support the genocide. 😉 You monsters! 😆
@13: kristofarian referenced “Wormtongue” – so that must be you?
Remember when Republicans were Very Upset that Biden had purportedly botched the Afghanistan withdrawal and there were so many of our Afghan allies who were left behind to the tender mercies of the Taliban? Yeah, those are the people they’re planning on deporting now. I guess it never was about a moral principle of supporting those who supported us. It was just about bashing Biden. Who’d a thunk it?!
@14: Hey Garb’, looks like you’re a thread late and a year short on your AOC news. You might want to try something more recent, which also demonstrates the utter fanaticism required for the ‘Progressive’ left to abuse the word “genocide” for Gaza:
‘But the biggest, most dismaying indication of the widening gap between Ocasio-Cortez and the democratic socialist movement might have been the way she chose to handle the issue of Gaza in her speech [at the Democratic convention].
‘Her only reference to Gaza was a line in which she credited Harris with “working tirelessly to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and bring the hostages home.” The moment was quickly clipped and posted to TikTok by the Harris campaign—a clear attempt to use one of the most popular young, left-wing politicians in the country to win over younger, left-leaning voters concerned about Gaza. “💙 @Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,” the campaign account commented.’
After multiple paragraphs spent calling AOC a liar, the writer goes on to lecture her (and everyone else) on the correct primary ideological position, to which the modern American “Progressive” left must always absolutely and unquestioningly adhere:
“But Gaza is not just any cause. It is a red-line, defining issue of our time, and Ocasio-Cortez has found herself on the wrong side of it.”
(https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/aoc-dnc-speech-gaza/)
@16: You are correct. Long ago, kristo’ completely exhausted his lifetime allotment of creativity when he called me by the (for him) oh-so-inventive name of “tentsores.” Once his lone brilliant burst of literary ability had swiftly passed, he returned to the most adult novel of ideas he shall ever read, The Lord of the Rings, and cravenly filched IP from an actual writer. (He still doesn’t understand how much of a compliment he’s paying me with this, so I shan’t explain that where he can read it.)
While it’s happening to a group that isn’t particularly popular, it isn’t really fair to call the problem non-“existant” (think you meant existent)–it isn’t disputed that literally thousands of Afrikaners have been murdered on their farms since 1990.
@19 Still not a “genocide” and more than Gaza is, by definition.
@20 Could you forgive the people subject to having their land and homes expropriated on the basis of race, and many of their families murdered every year, for feeling they may be on the cusp of genocide?
It is chiling to hear of fatal climbing accidents, more chilling when you have personally climbed the route. The descent gully of Early Winter Spire is full of old anchors and webbing, the gully itself littered with loose rocks, rubble, and sharp terraces. When I descended the rope kept getting snagged, forcing us to occasionally to climb unprotected to recover the snag. Pretty awful.
@21: “Could you forgive the people … for feeling they may be on the cusp of genocide?”
I forgive them, but they’re wrong. Genocide is a question of objective fact, not a question of subjective feeling. 😉
It’s heavily disputed that the murders are part of a concerted effort to systematically kill white farmers in south africa. Living in a country with a high murder rate is not genocide.
It may not rise to the level of Israel’s slaughtering a full 2% of the Gaza population, but at the end of the day, of the many things one might criticise Trump for, let’s not include rescuing a minority group from racial revenge and punishment.
@21: They’re not being attacked because of their race, but because they have land and homes to expropriate; obviously, white persons without those items haven’t been forcibly relieved of them. Expropriating land and homes by force, while completely unjust and terrifying, does not fall under the definition of genocide in the UN Convention against Genocide.
Back in my undergraduate days, anti-apartheid activism was a staple of many an American university campus, including my own. The United States pursued very aggressive policies against South Africa’s system of racial inequality. Now that South Africa seems sliding towards the definition of ‘failed state,’ I believe it’s time for Americans to re-evaluate why our policies haven not created a shining example of equality in government there. Of course, like all other progress, change in policy will likely have to wait for post-Trump America, but we really should start a national dialog on how we can best aid post-apartheid South Africa to become the place we’d envisioned back then. More-favorable trade status? More direct financial aid? More student visas? I really believe we owe such consideration to post-apartheid South Africa and its citizens.
Trump’s immigration policy is destroying more lives than it’s saving and white people in south africa are one of the most privileged minority groups in the world.
I don’t think genocide is required for asylum; I believe it is more relevant to refugee status. South Africa’s situation is similar to cartel violence, and many from Mexico are in the US seeking asylum due to being a target of the cartels.
Tensor is one of those sick puppies who would be justifying the holocaust decades later.
@28: Don’t add confusion to the confusion. Genocidal victimhood would be sufficient but not necessary for both refugee status and asylum! 😃
@29: Not every bad thing that happens to someone is a genocide. 😛 Well, except maybe in progressive discourse, where “genocide” has been redefined to mean “anything bad my out-group does.” 😅
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/in-private-some-israeli-officers-admit-that-gaza-is-on-the-brink-of-starvation/
How’s that for not-genocide
The rock climbers are from Bellevue and Renton and not Redmond. Typical TS reporting, but what can you expect from an already low bar of integrity.
I mean, it’s so profoundly sick and pitiful when the actions on the ground in Gaza are so beyond depraved and inhumane that anything Hamas did on 10/7 has been paid back 100 times over and then some. Smotrich and Ben Gvir have called for the literal total destruction and ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the actions of the military there have checked off every war crime in the book, from mass graves to shooting air workers in the head with their hands bound and blindfolded. And now they dare to compare this canard of South African farmers to that situation. It is racist, motivated by emnity, and antisemitic as it completely shits on the Jewish people as a whole to give a psychotic and vocally violent and hateful minority pure control over the agenda to protect the fuckbrain shithead Bibi who enabled and allowed it to happen under his watch.
All common sense and humanity goes to shit so long as you can do a mental gymnastics floor routine because in this case Gaza falls in the outgroup. But all things being equal, the character and willful ignorance tensor displays shows that he would do the same as any genocide or even holocaust apologist so long as his opponents fell in the outgroup. It’s fucking sick and frankly insane that there is no goalpost too far moved or standard lowered for him to continuously and psychotically grasp at straws to make it okay. May god have mercy on your slimy little grinch heart that pumps shit instead of blood through your rancid veins. Just plain evil.
@33: So, it’s firmly within the Progressive philosophy to use “genocide” to describe Gaza, even though AOC and Bernie Sanders do not?
Are AOC and Bernie therefore also apologists for genocide?
Or are AOC and Bernie the real exemplars of Progressive philosophy, and only fringe entities use “genocide,” such as a “canpus group hijacked by Hamas sympathizers,” as you had averred as long ago as (checks notes) yesterday?
Newhalem has a pay phone?
@33, “Anything Hamas did on 10/7 has been paid back 100 times over and then some.”
Wars against an attacker aren’t about retribution. They are about taking away an adversaries capacity or will to attack you again.
In the Gaza case, its hitting Hamas, and the resources they need to keep making war against the Israel.
The rockets they launched on Israel (over 10,000) were all made from diverted civilian goods and civil infrastructure.
The current allegation is that Hamas diverts even food and medicine imports to sell in Gaza’s black markets so they can continue to pay the jihadist mercenaries they hire from around the world. They are abolishing any distinction between war and humanitarian materials, to the detriment of Gazans.
There are reports from Aljezzera quoting furious Gazans as stating that humanitarian aid coming into Gaza gets diverted underground to Hamas.
What will help Gazans? Ending the war. The faster Hamas, the IDF, or both lose the capacity or will to continue, the faster Gazans get out of the crossfire and the faster cross border trade can resume
International courts don’t protect non-combats. One side losing, so the conflict ends, protects them.
Jesus you guys are singing the same tune for two years while the situation just worsens. Again, apologists for genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, the works. Trash and scum. Wormtongue filth.
@35,
That’s freaking nuts. I would honestly assume most any pay phones left in America are goofy art installations, and if they’re live at all connect to like looped transcendental music or whatever.
@33: “shooting aid workers in the head with their hands bound and blindfolded.”
lol, what. You are working yourself frothy over a shooting that did not, in fact, actually happen! 😂 Come on now dude! 🤣🤣🤣
Whoa whoa whoa, the IDF murdered hundreds of aid workers, sure, but none of them were blindfolded. Get your facts straight @33!
This is what the genocide apologists have devolved to.
@40: lol, the Israelis have “murdered” precisely zero aid workers. 😂😂😂
the
psychopathy
runs deep in tS’s
far right commentariat
& they’re not uncomfortable
with that at all – the reptilican brainstem:
why this Planet
cannot have
nice things.
@42: As Garb’ reminded us, such a long, long time ago (by which we mean, “yesterday”):
“If you want to espouse the tenets of progressivism in good faith, turn to Bernie Sanders and AOC,”
(https://www.thestranger.com/slog-am/2025/05/12/80053638/slog-am-the-2025-city-elections-begin-trump-wants-a-new-jet-and-hegseth-is-still-an-idiot/comments/17)
Bernie Sanders and AOC do not use the term “genocide” to describe the situation in Gaza. Is that because “the psychopathy runs deep” in Bernie Sanders and AOC? Do you know? I keep trying to get an answer out of Garb’, but no luck so far. Maybe you could ask Garb’?
@41 Over 400 aid workers have been killed by Israel in Gaza since October 2023, mostly UNRWA staff. If you know less than nothing on the subject, please just don’t comment.
@44: each of those 400 deaths was a tragedy, but none of them was a murder. 🥲
ai siksokbotts’re
Experts when it
comes to An-
nihilations
you can tell
by the E-
mojis
justifying
Genocide’s
just a Sidehustle.
@25 Afrikaaners are not a minority group
@45 I guess you could pretend you were hairsplitting about the word “murder”, as if Israel killing them by simple negligent homicide would be much better, or if there weren’t indisputably deliberate murders like the March 23 Rafah paramedic massacre, but it’s obvious you just didn’t know and when you confidently burbled the “precise number” you were embarrassingly wrong. Take the L!
@47 You’re insanely wrong. 5-6% of the South African population. That’s a…minority.
@48: There’s no “hairsplitting” about murder; hence our laws differentiate between homicide and manslaughter. The difference lies in the intent of the actor.
The death of white farmers in South Africa does not, all by itself, constitute genocide. The deaths of civilians in the war zone of Gaza does not, all by itself, constitute genocide. Proving genocide in each case requires far more evidence than has ever even been mentioned here.
“… indisputably deliberate murders like the March 23 Rafah paramedic massacre…”
Your calling it “indisputable” doesn’t make it so. Israelis have experience of attacks from Palestinians disguised as paramedics, and that context is extremely important in judging events such as the one you mentioned.