Morning! Apparently we have a possibility of rain/snow today? I’d really love it if we could just fully embrace Spring at this point. High near 43 degrees, but wind chill might make it feel closer to 35 or 25 degrees. No snow accumulation expected, but wear something cozy.
Biden hints at possible ceasefire in Gaza: While mouthing an ice cream cone alongside Seth Meyers, Biden told reporters he hoped to have a cease fire in Gaza by next Monday, according to the Associated Press. The deal depends on whether Hamas agrees to release some hostages. Hamas political leaders called Biden’s announcement “premature.”
This is surreal that he announced this while eating ice cream. pic.twitter.com/E3vnGRilQL
— jeremy scahill (@jeremyscahill) February 27, 2024
The announcement of a possible deal comes just ahead of today’s Michigan presidential primary, where Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) has mounted a campaign for people to vote “uncommitted” to show Biden where he’s bleeding ahead of the 2024 General Election. Michigan has the highest share of Arab Americans in the US, with about 200,000 concentrated in Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit. Michigan is a key swing state for Biden. In 2020, he only won it by less than 200,000 votes. Michigan went for Trump in 2016.
Our lawmakers make enemies of us all: Democratic State Senators Kevin Van De Wege and Mark Mullet deserve to be booed out of any room they enter after killing rent stabilization yesterday. The senators refused to return Rich’s calls for comment, choosing not to defend their decision. The renters of Sequim and Issaquah deserve better than these two.
Speak out tonight on Seattle’s police surveillance plan: The Seattle Police Department plans to hold a second public hearing tonight on its proposal for three new police surveillance technologies, including ShotSpotter. The Mayor’s office says the technologies could help police respond better to serious crime, but most of the evidence shows they’re likely a waste of money and that ShotSpotter could actually worsen police response times. People can give public comment tonight, or they can use the City’s comment forms. Seattle Solidarity Budget also put together this handy study guide with links showing where to comment.
Federal Trade Commission moves to block Albertsons-Kroger merger: The FTC has said the merger could hurt consumers by raising prices, as well as hurt workers, according to the Seattle Times. The deal could hurt Washingtonians in particular, because our grocery store options are basically just Albertsons (Safeway) and Kroger (Fred Meyer and QFC.) I do love this Seattle Times man-on-the-street article asking people what they think of the potential merger, but I think business reporter Paul Roberts missed an opportunity by not asking people a grocery store “Fuck, Marry, Kill” question.
Seattle-headquartered Expedia plans to cut 1,500 job this year: The company plans to inform least some employees by as early as next week, according to the Seattle Times. The announcement comes just weeks after the company’s CEO told employees about spy cameras in the company’s bathrooms on its Seattle campus. I’ve heard some employees voice frustration over the way the company has handled the aftermath of this invasion of privacy, and Expedia may see some lawsuits, especially if it fires a bunch of people. Also, another argument for WFH life, no spy cameras in your bathrooms hopefully.
Asylum-seekers staying in hotels run low on funds: More than 200 migrants seeking asylum in the US have crowded into hotels in Seattle as they await the outcomes of their immigration cases, according to KUOW. However, they’re running out of money, and asylum-seekers must wait five months before they can apply for a work permit. The whole thing sounds like a mess for people already bouncing from place-to-place in a new country.
ADHD medication shortage might be DEA’s fault: The DEA’s shutdown of Ascent Pharmaceuticals, a drug manufacturer that produced 12% of the country’s generic Adderall in 2022, may have exacerbated the country’s ADHD medication shortage. The DEA claims Ascent’s shoddy record keeping led to the shutdown, but Ascent says its paperwork is in order and it has sued to restart operations, according to New York Magazine. As an Adderall-taker, I’m annoyed.
Widow donates $1 billion to New York medical school: Albert Einstein College of Medicine became tuition-free this week after a widow donated a fortune to the school, according to NPR. That’s nice of her, but what about all the other students who had to pay for their school? Won’t they be angry now? Shouldn’t all future students have to pay off their debt just like the students who came before them? In other news, I’m still salty about the lack of student loan debt forgiveness.
Tennessee plans to ban rainbows in classrooms: Ok, technically it’s a proposed ban on displaying Pride flags. The GOP-led Tennessee State House passed the proposal yesterday to ban the LGBTQ+ symbol in schools, and the law now heads to the state Senate. Dumb.
Not a music suggest, but this video literally always lifts my heart. Watch a little cartoon bird with vestigial wings live its dream of flying as it plummets to its likely death.
[Eds note: Lol what the fuck, Ashley? If you’re looking for a song, here’s one I’ve been listening to a lot lately]:
do you know how much student debt Biden has managed to forgive in 3 years? billions and billions. another 1.2 billion last week.
no other generation of student loan borrowers has had any debt forgiveness whatsoever, and your problem is that its piecemeal, with apparently no recognition that it’s because republicans are horrible people.
“The senators refused to return Rich’s calls for comment, choosing not to defend their decision.”
To be fair, I probably wouldn’t return a call from Rich either – and I support rent control.
Leave it to Tennessee lawmakers to propose a ban on something in the Bible, namely the rainbow (Genesis chapter 9).
Caption: “The Dems want to price out their voting base like a bunch of dummies.”
Image: Unidentified persons, at an unidentified location (presumably somewhere in Seattle) holding signs reading, in part, “Councilmember Kshama Sawant”.
The very same CM Sawant who absolutely hated the Democrats, constantly called them corporate whores, and, in 2016, campaigned against Hillary Clinton in swing states, to the ultimate benefit of Trump.
Why does the Stranger hate these unidentified voters so much, it smears them with the very worst insult in Sawant’s huge vocabulary of insults?
@1 theres a lot wrong with republicans but opposing student debt forgiveness is not part of the list. When Biden does stuff like that the debt hasn’t gone away it just has been distributed to the rest of the taxpayers. How is that fair?
Tlaib riling up her base to vote against Biden is really cutting off your nose to spite your face. This is a person who was the only rep to vote against the measure to condemn Hamas using sexual violence in their attack. She is a terrible person and should be on a short list of reasons when the Dems are wondering why Biden lost in Nov.
Dark Brandon does stuff.
Whiny little babies who have no idea what you need to do to get multinational agreements and achieve lasting peace don’t. they can waste time voting I’mNotHere all they want, but President Biden DOES STUFF.
And it’s not his fault the IDF didn’t use the planeloads of highly accurate bombs but instead used the old style civilian-killing ones. We’re not the boss of them.
@6:
After decades of drilling into high school students the idea that a college degree was absolutely necessary for their future job prospects, then massively increasing tuition at every four-year institution in the country (300% over the last 40 years, adjusting for inflation), it’s all the kids fault for not having been taught Advanced Contract Law. And we won’t even get into the fact that 90% of private student loan applications require a creditworthy co-signer (read: a parent with a steady job) in order to qualify.
Why aren’t you dragging on the parents, who presumably should know more about these things and yet still saddle their offspring with decades of debt, often before many of them have even had a steady job, rather than the kids, who are told they absolutely MUST go to college, and then are literally taught nothing about the student loan process or its ramifications?
Perceived injustices are as problematic to a politician as the real ones are. I don’t know how much the Arab bloc in Dearborn will change the outcome of the presidential election. Frankly, and please forgive me for writing this, many Americans don’t give a hoot what Arabs think about anything until it’s time to fill ‘er up and gasoline is $6 or $7 a gallon. Some are pissed at how they treat women. Some are pissed forever over 9/11. Others wonder why there isn’t more of an outcry amongst Arabs over Jihadists and their unspeakably horrible tactics – a death cult on the march to either convert the world to a brutal form of Islam or to viciously murder everyone who doesn’t comply.
So, that’s Michigan. A swing state. Both Rust Belt and rural. Outside the urban areas, it’s as ruby red as it get. Joe won in 2020 by about 150,000 votes out of about 5.5M cast. So, concern, yes…especially since we have to worry about the stupid Electoral College which, apparently, is here to stay without a Constitutional Convention, which everyone is fearful of. But Joe, you need to haul ass on this border thing and do everything you can do without the help of Congress. The undocumented, 26yo Venezuelan had a post-arrival criminal record. He was interviewed by ICE in El Paso and released pending a hearing, lived in NYC, then in Athens, GA where he decided to randomly kill, allegedly, a well-liked, 22yo white nursing student at Uga. That’s going to be enough for Joe to lose Georgia, too, if people blame him for the suspect Ibarra’s presence in this country. Biden, as most of us know, only won Georgia by about 12,000 votes out of nearly 5M cast.
Those senators may tout “Democratic,” but Sequim and Issaquah are about as Republican as you can get in western Washington. Lots of National Review and Washington Times subscriptions. Many real estate people and landlords in Sequim and Issaquah. Don’t be surprised they aren’t returning your calls. My assumption is they are too busy with Count DeMonet.
Kroger-Albertson thing would have been bad for everyone except stockholders, executives, and M&A lawyers, right? Does anyone remember having a choice of grocery stores when they all had their own flavor, service, and price points? You could choose between a high-end store that carries everything, the store with great prices but dirty floors, or your neighborhood independent who had a man or woman behind the counter who knew you. They say they need this to compete with Wal-Mart, Costco, and Amazon. I say they’re trying to find a way to charge $17.50 for a loaf of Orowheat.
Expedia. How weird. Sorry for those losing their jobs. If we are to believe BLS, it’s a pretty good time to be looking for work. Wait. That’s an oxymoron. Haven’t used Expedia since the early days of internet travel planning back when it had its Microsoft connection. Thought it was great then, but competitors won me over with better prices.
We may have to clamp down on reasons for seeking asylum. I wish we could do that with a kind heart, but the asylum claim is being abused big time.
Tuition-free med school in the Bronx. Now that’s a mitzvah.
Still can’t deal with Tennessee. Why anyone with an IQ over 100 still lives there is a mystery. Well-to-do politicians telling people making $8/hr (and there’s a ton of them) that “we’re doin’ the Lord’s work here, y’all. We’ll see ya’ll in church!” And the working class there eating that shit up. Whey-un is Jo’l O-stain aw-un?
@4: baby, bathwater.
‘That’s nice of her,
but what about all the
other students who had to
pay for their school? Won’t they
be angry now? Shouldn’t all future
students have to pay off their debt just
like the students who came before them?’
‘Zactly.
dittos too
on Vaccinations
in
fact
Science
too. make
it EQUAL for
ALL or notatall.
Education
NEEDS to
be FREE:
bring Back
the American
fucking Dream
Invest In the Citizenry
NOT in Billionaires’ Portfolios.
“Kiwi!” is wonderful. Thanks for reminding me of it.
Two thumbs up on the bird video. It has been that kind of day.
@1 and @11 Max Solomon, @3 pat L, @8 Will in Seattle, @9 COMTE, @10 Bauhaus I, @12 kristofarian, @13 Ralph Haygood, and @14 hyoung: +9 Agreed. Well said. I am currently feeling too overwhelmed to add anything more right now. Bless you all for beating me to it.