Seattle Police Arrest About 30 Pro-Palestine Protesters at UW: A group called Students United for Palestinian Equity and Return UW (SUPER UW) occupied a campus building to protest the university’s ties to Boeing, which contracts with the Israeli military and has supplied bombs dropped on Gaza. The company also donated $10 million for the school’s new Interdisciplinary Engineering Building occupied by protesters last night. SUPER UW demanded the university cut all financial ties with Boeing, stop repressing pro-Palestinian activism on campus, and turn the building into a “community-controlled space with pro-people education.” The protesters hung a banner from the building with Shaban al-Dalou’s name, a teenage engineering student killed in an airstrike on Gaza. A university spokesperson told CNN the student protesters blocked the building’s entrances and exits with furniture and allegedly set dumpsters on fire. Police arrived in riot gear and arrested the protesters on charges of trespassing, property destruction, and disorderly conduct. We’ll have more on this soon—keep your eyes on Slog.
Israel Vows to “Conquer” Gaza: Israel approved plans to expand military operations in Gaza and stay there for who knows how long. The military will mobilize tens of thousands of reservists. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that more than 2 million Palestinians “will be moved.” The country has already restricted Palestinians from 70 percent of Gaza. Israel has blocked aid for two months, and the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) says Gaza is at “extreme risk of famine.”
Sexist Pig: According to a KING 5 investigation, state records show Tacoma’s Deputy Police Chief Paul Junger was fired in March for gender discrimination and for creating a hostile workplace. The claims are supported by an outside investigation. In October, the department placed Junger on administrative leave. In February, his boss, Chief Avery Moore, resigned. Then, 12 days after the new Chief Patti Jackson was sworn in, she fired Junger.
Seattle Author Wins Pulitzer Prize: Tessa Hulls won the Pulitzer for memoir or autobiography for Feeding Ghosts, a graphic novel about family history and trauma. The story begins with her grandmother, Sun Yi, a journalist who escaped communist China in a false-bottom boat. In Hong Kong, Sun Yi wrote a best-selling memoir. Then she had a mental breakdown. Hulls spent 10 years on the book.
ICYMI: On Sunday, Seattle Police told a bunch of naked people at a nude beach to put their clothes on. When a trans woman wouldn’t, they told her not to come back to the beach for a week. The department hasn’t explained why it’s cracking down on a legal activity in Seattle. Read more here.
Trump Targets Funding for “Woke” Seattle Housing: President Trump’s initial budget proposal would cut funding for the Department of Housing and Urban Development by nearly 44 percent. Those cuts may include a Seattle program meant to help lower-income homeowners in communities of color cover the cost of developing more housing on their properties, according to The Seattle Times. HUD awarded the city $5 million for that program and another, but now it’s at risk because Trump thinks grants like this are way too woke.
Trump Says He’s Reopening, Enlarging, and Rebuilding Alcatraz: Why reopen a prison that closed in 1963? “Well I guess I was supposed to be a movie maker,” the President said at a press conference. “We’re talking—we started with the movie making [unintelligible]. It represents something very strong, very powerful in terms of law and order. Our country needs law and order. Alcatraz is, uh, I would say (his eyebrows shoot up) the ultimate, right? Alcatraz, Sing Sing and Alcatraz (smiling, laughing), the movies. But it’s right now a museum, believe it or not.” The plan could cost hundreds of millions.
Another Day, Another Tariff: President Trump announced on Truth Social a 100 percent tariff “on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands.” This plan is supposed to fix the “DYING” American movie industry. Nobody seems to know what this means or how it would work. The White House says no final decisions have been made. It’s all Jon Voight’s fault.
Huh? The Trump administration asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit aimed at restricting access to the abortion pill mifepristone. It’s a little surprising that Trump, who has bragged about his Supreme Court appointees overturning Roe v. Wade, has taken a similar position to the Biden administration on this case. Don’t have to hand it to him. The administration didn’t say anything of substance about the case in its filing. Mary Ziegler, a University of California law professor and abortion expert, told the New York Times that they’re probably “just buying time to figure out what to do about mifepristone.”
Nice Try Trial, Diddy: Sean “Diddy” Combs’s federal sex trafficking trial began in Manhattan yesterday with Judge Arun Subramanian asking potential jurors what they knew about the accusations against the hip-hop mogul. Of course, they’d heard about it. Who hasn’t? According to a New York Times reporter, they’d seen the case on TV at the gym, heard the “water-cooler talk” at work, and had seen a comedian joke about it on Instagram. None of this would be a problem, said Judge Subramanian, if they understood that only the evidence presented in the courtroom mattered to their decision. The trial should last eight weeks. Opening statements are scheduled for next Monday. Combs has pleaded not guilty.
Mark Carney Comes to the Carnival: A week after anti-Trump sentiment won his party the Canadian elections, Prime Minister Carney is meeting with Trump at the White House today. It’s a (modern) low point in our relationship with Canada and Canadians, who are rightly pissed that Trump started a trade war and keeps saying he’ll make their country the 51st state. According to Politico, the White House is not rolling out the red carpet for what was our closest ally, a relationship now “over,” Carney said during his campaign. The meeting is “really just to check a box,” one White House official said.
Second Time’s the Charm? Friedrich Merz was expected to “sail through” the vote to become Germany’s Chancellor, but suffered a historic defeat in the first round of voting. He needed 316 votes, but only got 310. In a second round, the veteran conservative politician won with 326 votes. The ballot is secret, so just who defected from Merz’s camp may never be known, the AP reports.
@45: “I’ll readily admit Trump supports Israel clearing all Palestinians from Gaza,”
That took only a few days! You’re improving.
But only if you can pound away at one of your favorite lies, that there is no difference between the two parties.
“Neither President or their parties give a single solitary fuck about any Palestinian.”
Biden/Harris cared enough to want Palestinians to remain in Gaza after the war. Trump wants them all expelled. There’s your difference. The magical world, where American voters obsess like you do over a tiny territory infested with terrorists, simply does not exist, and no amount of your bitching about the Democrats will change that.
Still, maybe we can eventually get you along to the whole cause-and-effect thing regarding Trump’s election and Israel’s decision to conquer Gaza. (Hopefully Gaza will still have some Palestinians in it by then.)
@45: “In that video there is an Israeli government official explicitly saying as much”
Not true. The video shows Israeli President Herzog saying that President Biden did not demand an immediate Israeli ceasefire. But I mean…even the International Court of Justice didn’t demand an immediate Israeli ceasefire? 😛
You seem to have conflated the notion that “Biden didn’t demand an immediate, unilateral ceasefire from Israel” with the notion that “Biden agreed to let Israel do whatever it wanted.” But those two notions aren’t the same thing! 🤣 One them is true and the other one is false! 😆 Your own video shows you the difference! 😜
The Trump Administrations stance on the mifepristone lawsuit has absolutely nothing to do with abortion.
It’s about forum shopping.
“Rather, echoing the argument that the Biden administration made shortly before Mr. Trump took office, the court filing asserts that the case does not meet the legal standard to be heard in the federal district court in which it was filed.”
Trump doesn’t like that a District Court Judge based in Seattle can rule his attempt to overturn birthright citizenship is unconstitutional. So he is cynically using the same argument here against this District Court Judge in Texas, hoping to establish a precedent.
I think this Texas judge is the same one who overturned numerous Obama and Biden policies.
@49″We have no agency over Hamas and condemn their actions in the highest terms.”
Who the fuck is “we?”
It ain’t the lefties on SLOG. It ain’t SUPER. The lefties couldn’t wait to run out into the streets shouting “From the River to the Sea” after 10/7. SUPER just issued a “manifesto” praising Hamas…. (hahahahah… jeez, that is so fucking pretentious….”oh, we wrote a manifesto!” Congrats… so did the Unabomber).
There wasn’t and hasn’t been any condemning going on from the far lefties because they don’t condemn any of Hamas’ actions, they 100% support them.
–
@53. You appear to be lacking in intelligence and reading comprehension. May I recommend The Little Engine That Could?
@50 “a tiny territory infested with terrorists”
Wow you really said “infested.” You and thumpus don’t even try to hide the fact you don’t consider Palestinians to be human beings.
@55: yes, the correct progressive formulation is “graced with terrorists.” 😂🤣😂🤣
Sounds like this protest just got escalated to felony malicious mischief. UW saying over $1M in damage done to building including some expensive equipment.
https://x.com/chrisdaniels_tv/status/1919877810413318611?s=46&t=kOVzxj1J1zTCbS0ClWZq4g
Malicious Mischief in the First Degree:
This is a Class B felony, meaning it carries the most severe penalties. It involves property damage exceeding $5,000 or other serious actions like tampering with public safety equipment. The maximum penalty is 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine.
@56 when the guy who constantly cries antisemitism apparently doesn’t know the sordid history of using “infested” to describe people…
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/07/29/trump-baltimore-infest-tweet-cummings-racist-227485/
@58: ha ha ha, “rat-infested” is racist speech now, according to your link? 😂 Gosh, you better go warn Martin Luther King:
“In this America millions of people find themselves living in rat-infested, vermin-filled slums.”
-Martin Luther King, Stanford University, April 14, 1967
@55, @58: For those users of language who do not let Trump completely define our words for us, “infested” need not refer to living creatures of any kind, as this recent use by an actual writer nicely demonstrates:
“Bad behavior, bad ideas and bad policies are infesting themselves in public life, the economy and markets — to the surprise of many ardent supporters of Trump.”
—Mike O’Sullivan, Forbes.com, 25 Apr. 2025
But if you want Trump’s usage of a word to define it for you completely, none of the rest of us can stop you, now can we? All we can do is refuse to follow your example.
(What did George Orwell write about allowing political leaders to define our words for us?)
Look at you guys trying so hard to pretend your whole Israel stance isn’t primarily motivated by anti-Arab bigotry
Slog is infested with arguments about something the participants have no influence over whatsoever. Enjoy!
@61: lol OK antizionist! 😆🤣😆🤣
did someone
say Antizionist?
put Me on that
List too and to Hell
with the terrorizers of
Gaza aka fucking Hamas.
apologies. for. not. Condemning.
them. with. every. single.
fucking. post.
no, I don’t.
fuck you.
and Terrorists.
of BOTH Sides.
@47, We had roughly 42,000 dead in Gaza (that doesn’t count IDF and Israeli civilian deaths in the conflict) 1 year in.
That’s 3,500 per month. It was pretty evenly spaced over the 12 months. So a higher-intensity conflict that ended in three months could have had 4 times the higher deaths per month, and a six month conflict 2 times the death rate per month. But that isn’t what happens.
The higher the intensity the combat doesn’t correlate 1 for 1 with higher casualties. I’ll spare you the technical details and physics of the bombs and artillery that kill 70% of the casualties on the battlefield (meaning soldiers with rifles and grenades are the smallest part of the killing).
The enemy infrastructure and personnel get hit more severely than the non-combatants and non-combatant infrastructure the more you intensify the violence against military targets, even ones shielded by non-combatants (a feature of Hamas).
Let’s say the intensified conflict is delivering 5,000 non-combatant deaths a month but ends the conflict in six months, that is 12,000 less casualties than 3,500 a month for 12 months.
Nukes you suggest in your hypothetical would not work. Once at or below ground level the blast radius and blast pressure of a nuke is exponentially reduced. For example, a 1 megaton blast (500 times that of Hiroshima) has to get with 500 meters of a U.S. missile silo, when air-burst at optimal height for effectiveness, to take out the silo. Israel nukes are believed to be no more than 300 kilotons because the largest aircraft they have to carry them are jet fighters, that if loaded with a device that large would carry nothing else. Most of them are much smaller so they can fit on missiles with much lower payload capacity. The nuke is most effective as a counter-value (cities and the people in them that get employed to manufacture weapons and birth new troops) rather than counter-force weapon (missile silos, military bases).
More importantly, exponentially more radio active fallout is created by ground, or below ground bursts, to irradiate Israel, Jordan, Egypt and parts of Saudi Arabia. Israel would be irradiating themselves. Israel would use nukes as a last resort, only if the Arabs got on the same page and threw human wave attacks at them until they ran out of bullets, conventional bombs, and artillery. Israel nukes make it so their adversaries will have to sacrifice the metro areas of Cairo, Riyadh, Damascus, Baghdad, Beirut, and every other major metro if they drive Israel into the sea (which is well within their capability because of their overwhelming population advantage). Israel goes nuclear only if they have Arabs swarming all over their territory. It’s the last thing Israel does before they die.
@65: Your numbers are wrong. In particular, the monthly casualty rate has not been constant. The actual rate is significantly right-skewed, owing to Israel’s initial surprise on October 7, followed by Israel’s early reliance on air power and artillery over infantry operations during the war’s first weeks.
The casualty rate subsequently declined owing to several factors: first as infantry operations increased in prominence relative to indirect fires in the Israeli scheme of maneuver, second as increasing numbers of civilians reached the designated humanitarian zones, and third as Hamas’s combat units were attrited in both numbers and effectiveness.
You’re perhaps “directionally correct” to suggest that a more intensive but shorter campaign might have resulted in fewer casualties, but reality is never quite so simple. I’ve argued many times here that Israel is either unwilling or unable to sustain a large enough ground force for long enough to deliver a decisive result in Gaza. I’m not sure the kind of clean, mechanical universe you posit is even available to the Israelis, even assuming you had your numbers right in the first place. What we’ve seen so far might have been the best they could do, unfortunately! 😅
We’ll see what happens with the current mobilization. It doesn’t look any bigger than previous mobilizations, which weren’t nearly enough. I don’t know, maybe against a weakened Hamas, and maybe with the need to invest so much in the north against Hizbollah, maybe this time they’ll be able to clear and hold. But I doubt it. I think they’ll come in too small and too briefly, just like before. Oh well, at least it keeps the grass short! 😁
@61: Look, if big long fancy (i.e. two-syllable) words are simply beyond your comprehension, then you’ll just have to stop reading my comments.
Back to the original point, just because you want an America where tens of millions of Americans agree with you on Gaza (or anything else), doesn’t mean you’ll get it, no matter how many false equivalences you make between our country’s two major political parties. Obsessive focus on Gaza, combined with such false equivalencies, helped get us more Trump, who wants all Palestinians expelled from Gaza. That’s very different from what Biden/Harris wanted, and again, no amount of your bitching about the latter will alter that difference in the slightest.
Let’s keep it Simple, Simon:
Gaza must be Freed from Hamas
Israel Must be Freed from Nutyahoo
Ukraine Must be Freed from Russia
America Must be Freed from trumpf.
oh, and it wouldn’t Hurt
if Schlogg were Freed
from its Reich
Wing Trolls.
@67
the Wormtongue
at, possibly, it’s
Finest:
“Look,
if [MY!] big long
fancy (i.e. two-syllable)
words are simply beyond your comprehension…”
The
Biggest
Brain in ANY room?
just Ask it.
@46
“Let me know when you [the Wormtongue]
[aka Tentsores] learn to make an argument
in good faith by actually reading an entire
paragraph to digest its meaning, rather
than cherrypicking in bad faith to avoid
any actual discussion, especially when
the point you conveniently gloss over
what addresses the next point you
make.
Until then, you are not
worth anyone’s time.”
worrmy’s
really got a
Way with Words,
doesn’t he? a More
Manipulativee Liar
you’ll likely never
ever Meet. Very
Well Put, CD.
Bravissimo.
Thank you, Swiftress dear. Your point is well taken.
Back to the original issue – the mob that stormed the UW building in a supposed protest, and their stupid, completely unrealistic demand that the University cut ties with Boeing: If one wants to bring attention to the deplorable situation in Gaza, that is noble and appropriate. But leave it at that. One wins no friends and wins no hearts by destroying state-owned property. The Boeing aspect of it dilutes the core message and sparks fear and mistrust in a region that is, like it or not, heavily dependent on the aerospace industry and the US military.
This incident, and ones like it, play into the hands of the right wing in this country, and we have enough of that already.
@71: “One wins no friends and wins no hearts by destroying state-owned property.”
This is not the first time SUPER UW has occupied a building on the UW campus, made demands, and then damaged property when those demands were not immediately met. This begins to look less like a matter for UW, and more like a RICO case against SUPER UW. If they want to act like mobsters, then maybe we should treat them like mobsters.
@64, etc.: If you want readers to believe you don’t condone terrorism, then perhaps you should not quote often, extensively — and always approvingly! — from someone who wrote:
“You can disagree with the decisions Hamas made on that day [10/7]. You can say they should have used other means to pursue justice. You can denounce them, hate them, do the whole public ritual necessary for mainstream acceptance in western society.”
So, Johnstone’s claiming your (only-after-called-on-lack-of-it) denunciation of Hamas amounts to nothing more than a performative, “public ritual necessary for mainstream acceptance,” and why should we doubt her? You’ve quoted her many times, and she clearly believes 10/7 was a “means to pursue justice.”
@71 “The Boeing aspect of it dilutes the core message and sparks fear and mistrust in a region that is, like it or not, heavily dependent on the aerospace industry and the US military.”
I would say the fact people prefer maintaining financial comfort over doing anything at all to save lives in Gaza is a devastating indictment of the American public. But I’m also sure you’re correct.
@73: What, exactly, do you propose the good citizens of the Seattle area do, with regard to Boeing, that would constitute, “doing anything at all to save lives in Gaza”? And if your honest answer is, “repeatedly vandalize buildings at the UW,” then please say so.
@74 I propose you sit on a nose-up model 747 and spin. With regard to the good citizens of Seattle, those who happen to be UW administrators should divest from Boeing and the rest should call and email their representatives to demand an arms embargo with Israel.
@68, Who’s army is going to free Gaza from Hamas? Force is the only way they are leaving.
You don’t like the IDF’s use of force, that’s fine. Who’s force are you going to substitute to end Hamas control of Gaza?
It’s an organization whose charter has them dedicated to taking on any Arab or Israeli group that stands in the way of ridding the Holy Land of infidels, even if they have to die trying.
@75: I see you listed them in order, with one far most likely to save lives in Gaza first. 😉
Then, of course, “vandalize buildings at UW” for second, and demand illegal action for third.
I think we’re beginning to see why you’re not getting any traction on this issue…
@75, So we can embargo arms. How well did the global arms embargo leading up to 1947 do in preventing the Nakbah?
As long as Gazans die with arms from elsewhere, you are OK with the deaths apparently.
How did the arms embargo on Hamas that started after 2007 do in preventing 10/7 and the current slaughter of non-combatants caught in the resulting post 10/7 crossfire?
You like the performative over that which will actually save non-combatant Gazans don’t you?
@75: “…UW administrators should divest from Boeing…”
Which will save lives in Gaza how, exactly? What do you imagine for that causal relationship?
@78 just like an addict will get fentanyl somewhere so their dealer doesn’t need to feel bad or responsible or stop selling to them, and arresting dealers is purely “performative” right?
@79 if you think divestment will have no impact you must not be opposed to the BDS movement, unlike all the other Zionist stooges who are up in arms about it?
@80: In fact, I cannot recall having expressed an opinion on BDS, other than perhaps to note it seems to have little (if any) effect. If you’re looking for a poster child for divestment, you should really look elsewhere.
Be that as it may, BDS is about general divestment from Israel; our subject is UW specifically divesting from Boeing. Again, what, exactly, is the causal link between UW divesting from Boeing, and lives saved in Gaza?
Here, I’ll save you the trouble of writing so much. Just fill in the form:
UW divests from Boeing.
???
Gaza!
@80, How we “feel” doesn’t matter. Regardless of where the someone gets the drugs that kill them from doesn’t change the outcome of the drugs.
Ending or bringing the addiction under control is what changes outcomes for people.
So why are you opposed to changing the outcome for Gazans? Why would you feel any different about the death of a non-combatant Gazan depending on where the weapon that killed them was manufactured? Why spend finite bandwidth on something that won’t change a single tragic outcome for a Gazan, when the same bandwidth, employed on something evidence-based, could reduce tragic outcomes for Gazans?
@72 fuck off.
I’ve condemned Hamas
Numerous Times, None of
which’ve been “performative.”
had you a fucking Gram of Credibility
I’d dig thru my comments at toss them in
your odious pie hole, but you Don’t so I Won’t.
let the Reader decide:
https://www.thestranger.com/users/25419161/kristofarian
oh and you can Shove that
“Everything Johnstone writes
YOU AGREE WITH!” up your Arse.
have a
‘nice’
day.
@83: Please take your beef to Johnstone. She explicitly wrote all condemnations of Hamas are nothing more than “…public ritual necessary for mainstream acceptance in western society.” You praised that very post, and urged everyone here to read it.
“I’d dig thru my comments at toss them in
your odious pie hole, but you Don’t so I Won’t.”
That last word should be, “Can’t,” because you already tried at least once, and you completely failed to find a single example of your having “condemned” Hamas.
‘”Everything Johnstone writes
YOU AGREE WITH!” up your Arse.’
So, give us an example of your disagreeing with something she wrote. (See how this works?)
@82 to be clear, can you confirm you believe arresting fentanyl dealers is pointless and performative because the addicts will just get their fix elsewhere?
@85: To be clear, can you confirm you believe a causal relationship exists between UW divesting from Boeing, and saving lives in Gaza?
when the USofA
Leader of the Free World
quits Exporting WMDs and
small ‘arms’ too we set the Ex-
ample the Leader of the Free World
needs for Humanity to Move the Fuck
on from Blowing Each Other the Fuck Up.
granted, it Will fuck up a Lotta Porfolios
but unless we all wanna Die in a
Nukular Hellscape, what other
Choice do we Have?
and, No,
the Socio-
and Psycho-
Paths, Knealists
and batshit Crazy
won’t fucking LIKE it
but they can All
Fuck off to Mars
with MUXXY in a
Fleet of Muxmobile
Cyberpanzer Swistkartruks
and NO,
the Wormtongue,
I do Not have Citations
for your sorry, Creepy ass.
you’ll
just hafta
Imagine them
@75, @80: Any word on how your proposed divestment of UW from Boeing would save lives in Gaza? (Note: NOT just “have an impact” on, um, whatever?)
Thanks to SUPER’s trashing of the IEB, we know this divestment will not happen, but you do like hypotheticals, right?
@87: “I do Not have Citations”
That’s not news, but thanks for the confirmation.
“you’ll
just hafta
Imagine them”
While I must do nothing, I’m glad to read you’re starting to acknowledge how the evidence needed to support your beliefs is always completely imaginary. Baby steps!
@88
Whilst the Evidence’s
neither imaginary
nor Lackimg”
the ‘power’ of your
Compulsions to
“Prove it!” is.
fuck Off,
Trolly
and go
Back under-
neath your bridge.
*let’s let the Reader decide:
https://www.thestranger.com/users/25419161/kristofarian
@89: Again, your not being able to cite even so much as one single example of what you claimed to have written is neither news, nor anyone’s problem. Your repeatedly asking readers to sift through literally thousands of comments doesn’t lift any of the burden of proof from you. (Neither will repeating your verbal abuses, all of which became tedious a very long time ago.)