Wind Weary: Speedy gusts swept through Western Washington Monday and Tuesday, toppling trees, downing power lines, leaving hundreds of thousands of residents in the dark. Early Tuesday, 150,000 households were without power. By Tuesday night, 61,000 remained powerless—the majority were Puget Sound Energy customers, about 1,000 were Seattle City Light. For now, the wind has died down and the rain seems to have abated.
Market Stalemate: Remember how Pike Place used to have that park at its north end overlooking the Puget Sound? You could go sit in the grass with a hot piroshky and watch jugglers and dancers and tourists eating their own piroshky. The park, known as Victor Steinbrueck Park, has been closed for renovations since 2019. Even though the construction has been done, the grass overlook is locked behind a chainlink fence. Why? A standoff. Its original, iconic totem poles—the sources of their own controversy about indigenous art—are undergoing restoration by the Seattle Parks and Recreation. Parks is down to reopen the Victor Steinbrueck Park without the poles, for now, but the Pike Place Market Historic Commission refuses to let that happen. We just want our piroshky bench back.
Seattle Judge Blocks Trump Refugee Ban: U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead temporarily blocked Donald Trump’s executive order freezing refugee arrivals and federal funding for organizations who serve refugees. Whitehead’s preliminary injunction stops the executive order from taking place nationwide, until the court case ends, or until the injunction is overruled by a higher court. Whitehead said the injunction was warranted because the plaintiffs are likely to show that Trump’s order “has crossed the line from permissible discretionary action to effective nullification of congressional will.” He said Trump’s “authority is not limitless.” This is the second time that a Washington state judge has blocked one of Trump’s immigration orders.
Shooting at Renton Transit Center: A man was shot yesterday afternoon outside of the Renton Transit Center. The gunman allegedly pulled out a gun, shot the victim in the abdomen, and then jumped on a King County Metro bus and traveled one mile north. Police arrested the suspect. The victim is in critical condition.
Wanna See Something Scary? Check out this AI video Trump posted on Truth Social about “Trump Gaza,” which looks like a version of Gaza that’s also a Trump resort and Elon Musk is there eating a lot of bread.
Complete batshit lunacy on the president’s Truth Social account. Yes, he really posted this.
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) February 25, 2025 at 9:11 PM
Bad News at the CDC: Mass firings at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could be bad news for confronting infectious disease threats. Bird flu keeps spreading around the country, there’s a measles outbreak in Texas, tuberculosis is en vogue again in Kansas, meanwhile polio, mpox, and ebola are circulating in other countries and we’ve thinned the ranks of the people who will defend us against these threats. Plus, the threat of more cuts and the impacts of an anti-vax secretary of HHS have made the work culture hell. It’s hard to save lives when your job is a pit of despair and with the sword of Damocles hanging over your head.
Not So Anti-Vax Now, Huh? That measles outbreak in Texas has infected around 124 people, most of them babies and children. One person has died—an unvaccinated child. Nearly all of those infected are unvaccinated or hadn’t finished their vaccines against measles. The threat of the disease is changing anti-vax parents’ tunes—they’re lining up to get their unvaccinated kids vaccinated. “About half of the approximately 100 doses of measles-mumps-rubella vaccine (MMR) given at the health department last week were to kids who were unvaccinated,” according to a Texas public health official. You know what, good for them. I support anyone who can stop being a fucking idiot for a second to save their kids. Now, let’s see if their newfound belief in science and facts will stick.
House Passes Framework for Trumps “Big, Beautiful Bill”: Spoiler alert: It is not beautiful. In fact, it is terrible. The “big beautiful bill” is Trump’s budget, which contains $4.5 trillion in tax cuts and calls on the federal government to reduce its spending by $2 trillion over the next decade. The budget plan narrowly passed yesterday in a 217-215 (vote with all Democrats and a singular Republican voting against it) after conservatives raised hell to try to increase the spending cuts. The plan should smooth the process of passing Trump’s big fiscal plan “by using a process called reconciliation, which allows such bills to steer clear of a filibuster and pass the Senate on a simple-majority vote,” according to the New York Times. The budget will be disastrous. Those $2 trillion in spending cuts will mean the gutting of Medicaid and SNAP benefits among other federal funding priorities.
Bezos makes changes at WaPo opinion page: The Washington Post‘s opinion editor, David Shipley, has resigned after Jeff Bezos announced a new vision for the section. The change comes after Bezos stopped the opinion section from endorsing Kamala Harris for president, ending presidential endorsements at the paper in the process. Bezos only wants opinion pieces that fall under the “two pillars” of “personal liberties and free markets” and anything else will be published “by others.” I’m not totally clear what Bezos’s goal is here, but I can only imagine it as something sinister and bad for democracy.
SCOOP: WaPo Opinion editor David Shipley is out. Jeff Bezos emails staff about a change to Post Opinions: “We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.”
— Ben Mullin (@benmullin.bsky.social) February 26, 2025 at 6:39 AM
Speaking of the Press: Trump announced yesterday that it would start handpicking which media outlets were allowed to participate in the presidential press pool. The pool is a small, rotating group of reporters who cover the president’s day-to-day activities, and for decades, the pool has been chosen by the White House Correspondents’ Association. “No politician should get to decide which journalists get to cover them, let alone the most powerful politician in the country, but President Trump keeps opening new fronts in his war on the press,” Reporters Without Borders said in a statement. “At the end of the day, freedom of the press is about every American’s right to access information about their government and their society, so the White House’s attacks against press freedom are not just directed against journalists, but against every American’s First Amendment rights.”
At least the oligarchs haven’t taken the stars from us yet. They’re trying, of course. For now, though, you can look skyward and know that no one owns space. Do it at the end of this month, and you may be able to see all of the planets lined up at once. Astrologers, is this a good thing or a bad thing?
Sell Your Tesla and Your Tesla Stock: Tesla shares dropped 8 percent Tuesday. It’s market cap is now below $1 trillion, the lowest its been since the November election.
Republicans Cower from Constituents: House Republicans are afraid of holding town halls after crowds of rightfully-angry constituents have flocked to the events and yelled at their lawmakers for being complicit pushovers. Now, party leaders are suggesting only doing tele-town halls or pre-screening attendees for in-person events. Hopefully, Democrat challengers for these seats can seize upon this moment.
Dead Air: After a passenger passed away during a flight from Melbourne to Doha last week, Qatar Airways flight staff decided to put her corpse in the seat next to an Australian couple. They actually asked the the man to move over a seat and put her dead body in what was his seat. He sat next to her body for four hours. “It wasn’t nice,” he said.
A song for your Wednesday: Singer and musician Rhiannon Giddons announced she won’t perform at the Kennedy Center this year after Trump’s takeover of the organization. Here’s her NPR Tiny Desk Concert:
On the item about Bezos’s latest shenanigans at the Washington Post…
I was checking Blueky this morning, and in trending topics I saw Diana Taurasi as well as Jeff Bezos. So I figured:
A. Taurasi must have retired after all.
B. Bezos must be up to something oligarch-y.
So I checked and yeah, correct on both fronts.
Regarding A, I guess this was the rare morning when I hadn’t checked the ESPN home page first.
Regarding B, now that Elon has gone into full James Bond villain mode, I wonder if Bezos is relieved that Elon is taking the heat off him or if he’s jealous.
Speaking of James Bond, come to think of it, just days ago Amazon acquired the rights to the James Bond franchise. So irony of ironies, I guess James Bond is now owned by a James Bond villain, and an American one at that. Perhaps some 007 nerd out there can identify the Bond vilain Bezos most resembles. Sorry, no Lex Luthor crossovers allowed.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_calf
https://youtu.be/35DSdw7dHjs?feature=shared
https://youtu.be/Id6oS3L-D9A?feature=shared
Everybody watch that TruthSocial video Trump posted and pause it at 15-16 seconds.
Bearded men. In neon bikinis. hahaha omg. For someone getting rid of trans rights he should probably watch his videos a little more closely 🙂
“Now, [terrified fascist republican] party leaders
are suggesting only doing tele-town
halls or pre-screening attendees
for in-person events.”
choosing their Voters thru
Gerrymandering musta
made ’em think they
could do the Same
for Constituents
sharpen your
Pitchforks
comrades
you Too
magas
corporate rule is nazi rule and
they’ll toss you under the Bus
or Line you up Against the
wall to be shot in a joseph
goebbels heartbeat and
NO they don’t Care if
you Voted for thedjt.
The Pike Place Market Committee sure seems to hate people who visit the Pike Place Market. Insisting unfettered car use in pedestrian areas. Refusing to open the Victor Steinbrueck Park. Guess they are on a roll!
@5: And don’t forget they canceled a Day of Remembrance event commemorating EO 9066 just over a week ago.
So cool that kids need to die from preventable diseases so their idiot parents can learn a lesson they could have gotten from a high school biology textbook. Really cool country we live in.
Sure, he had to sit next to a corpse for hours, but they comped his meal and drinks.
@5: OMG, unfettered! Pike Place is a city street. I drove down Stewart and through the N part of the market just this morning. 90% of the year, vehicles and peds sharing the space is not an issue. High tourist season, sure; close it off.
Re the “personal liberties and free markets”, it’s simply Bezos cos playing libertarianism.
Which boils down to; Corporations and billionaires (and Trump) can do whatever they want. After all, who is against liberty? Too bad the billionaires have wy more liberty than you do.
@3, 15 seconds is a bit outside Trump’s attention span.
Remember when the Pike Place Market piroshky lady was treated like human garbage by Seattle leftists when she dared to complain about the homelessness / drug addicts and thieves that forced her to close her 3rd Avenue store?
You had me at “Mass Firings at the Centers for Disease Control”. Beautiful, beautiful music plays in my head when I read those words.
The Big Beautiful Bill is about to become our Big Beautiful Reality. I sure hope there are work requirements for Medicaid recipients. Well, whatever recipients are left after the cuts are made.
Sorry you lost your seat on Air Force One, AP. Too bad. So sad.
Republicans should cower from their constituents. The cuts aren’t coming fast enough. The deportations aren’t coming fast enough.
Damn, in my haste I forgot to mention two other wonderful news stories.
A. RFKJ now pushing to end the prescribing of SSRIs and ADHD medication to children.
B. Trump’s plan to sell Immigration Gold Cards to eliminate our national debt.
Amazing stuff. Discuss amongst yourselves.
@3 Pretty sure the Gaza video was intended as a distraction from Republicans moving forward with massive cuts to Medicaid to pay for massive tax cuts for billionaires. Head spinning turn from Repubs who were promising not to touch Medicaid just days ago at town halls, but curious to find out which of Elon’s teenage boyfriends are the “experts” deciding what waste to cut. Was it Big Balls or the racist kid? It’s amazing that a bunch of teenage boys with marginal coding skills are also expert financial analysts who can identify wasteful spending in complex government systems in mere hours. Nothing to see here folks!
Wild to think they are cutting off critical lifelines to their own constituents by gutting medicaid. It’s no exaggeration to say people will die, either for lack of coverage or lack of access when their local hospital closes.
This is not the behavior of a political party that is expecting to face elections any time in the future, though to be fair they’ve treated their own constituents like garbage for decades and people keep voting for a party that’s actively trying to kill them, so who am I to say. Republicans are stupid, horrible people.
What’s stupid (and horrible policy) is ignoring our budget deficit while we spend over one trillion dollars per year in interest payments on our national debt. A bankrupt nation helps nobody.
Republicans have been saying the sky is about to fall over the deficit for decades and it’s never happened. In the past they used it as justification for their intransigence when democrats were in office, so it’s somewhat refreshing to see them acting on their doomsday panic on a Republican’s watch.
I always figured the party establishment were smart enough to not believe the bullshit they feed their voters but apparently they actually think the economy is just a one-dimensional ledger and the government can save money by simply not spending any at all. It’s like thinking you can make your business more profitable by firing all the people who do the work. Stupid, horrible people.
Fyre Festival Five, at Trump Gaza, Fall ’27.
@3,
That’s funny, but it’s not remotely surprising that the damning portion of the video escaped his careful scrutiny. To think that the man is even capable of anything resembling scrutiny or attention to detail in any endeavor is a joke. He lives something like a life that I aspired to as a lazy teenager. Sits around on his ass all day eating fast food and watching TV, but does so without incurring any guilt as he’s comfortable in the knowledge that he’s widely beloved and got an adoring fanbase to justify the behavior and lifestyle.
He does the absolute bare minimum to maintain appearances, showing up at press conferences to provide answers to questions based on whatever info he’s gleaned from those long hours on the couch, making public appearances, even spending time abroad when necessary. But he does even these things while exerting the absolute minimum of effort and solely to enable his larger goal of inevitably plopping his ass back down on the couch and cramming another cheeseburger through his face.
I’d have surely opted to watch Looney Tunes rather than Fox News, but otherwise I think 14 year old me would be supremely envious.
@18
Bingo Mike
I do Worry about
Cadet Bonespur’s war
injuries, and wonder for
how long he’ll be able to
keeping kicking his golfing
balls into the cup, with Severe
damage to his tiny feet & Carcass.
other than that
as a Role Model
the djt’s Wonderful
for the advancement
of Sociopathy. Go
Conolde. GO!
@8 So “high tourist season” at Pike Place Market is only 10% of the year? It’s pretty packed all of December and May to September. That seems more like 50%
@20: Your results may vary. Weekends in July and August (and special events) are my “high tourist season” and appropriate times to shut it to private cars.
Most weekdays its mellow. Weekday mornings and nights its empty. It’s not a 1-size-fits-all situation.
Did the Qatar Airways person die in first class and get stowed back in economy?
@21 the only vehicles that need to be driving down there are delivery vehicles and maybe a disabled drop off zone. It’s not like that street is some major arterial that will disrupt flow to the rest of the city if its shut down. Put some bollards in that will allow for after hours deliveries and call it a day. It’s such a no brainer decision which is why its not surprising that the city continues to fumble around. We are never capable of making a decision even when its obvious. sigh.
@21 Ridiculous.
Your bit dunking on people in Texas who have children dying of measles for being anti-vax is distasteful. We should stand up for science and vaccinations, of course, but doing an “I told you so” routine with red state families scared for their lives is reminiscent of prominent liberals claiming that Texans suffering from power outages from a winter storm a few years ago deserved it for not believing in climate change. (https://x.com/StephenKing/status/1361828447551643651) Class solidarity isn’t gonna happen by trying to own working class Trump voters when they’re dealing with a health crisis.
Frankly this brand of snark has made the slog pretty annoying for awhile so I’ll just turn elsewhere for local news briefs.
Killing it again, Nathalie.
Keep doing what yer doing.
“… prominent liberals claiming that Texans suffering from power outages from a winter storm a few years ago deserved it for not believing in climate change.” –@25
they Needed to be chided for allowing
their pro-rapaciousness lawmakers
to allow a entity like ENRON,
giving them power black-
outs during Texas’ Deep-
Freeze killing Hundreds
whilst Emptying Bank
accounts all Over the
Southwest Proper.
now they’ve got Thedonolde
removing their Medicare
& food and animal safe-
guards, but they Will
Learn or they (and
US) Will All Die.
Not a ‘pretty
picture,’
is it?
@26
fucking
BINGO.
@8 The problem is that even in “low” season and non-peak hours, “sharing the space” at PPM means roughly 90% of pedestrian traffic is crowded onto the narrow sidewalk even when the roadway is empty. (That’s just the way Seattleites are, for reasons I understand but won’t get into now.) The market can’t be made truly walk-friendly without banning nonessential vehicles and — this is key — adding signage that explicitly invites pedestrians to use the road.
how Safe
is our Market
from a mad car driver?
@30 probably about as safe as a tent on a sidewalk. perish the thought.
The Washington Post dies in the cold robotic capitulating grip of bazzzilionaire owner Jeff Bzzzos
Lol, I’d have absolutely consumed the entire liquor supply on that airplane if they stuck a dead person next to me. By 6-8 shots in, i’d prob start to have a decent time with the corpse, most people at the bars I patronize already look the part anyways.
No Screwing
the Dead Guy!
thos it might look
pretty fucking Good
in your PTSD Lawsuit
hell
it wasn’t
You! ’twas all the
Booze they plied you with.
this could Launch
your struggling
Career (NOT
the real guy
he’s suffered
Way Too much.
@15 We get that you are one of the poorly educated bigots that Trump loves so much, but Trump and the republicans are planning on a massive increase in budget deficits and the national debt. Musk isn’t saving any money, just transferring money into contracts with his companies, while starving children and destroying America’s soft power. All the figurehead Trump and Emperor Musk are doing is making America looks weak and pathetic on the world stage.
@35~a little
“Redistribution
of Wealth!” is perfectly
Fine, long as it’s All going
to the Right — in this case Far
Right — people. they bought ‘our’
Judiciary, ‘fair and square!’ & now they
reap the Spoils.
plus
Adios,
democracy!
with a bit of
Assistance From
the ‘democratic’ partay
the Coup was Always coming.