Good Morning! We’re looking at the kind of spring weather that out-of-towners don’t believe exists here: Highs in the mid 60s, partly cloudy, small chance of rain. I’m guessing even Charles Mudede can’t find a way to complain about it today. But before you get out and enjoy this perfect walking weather, let’s do the news.
The GOP Wants Us Pregnant and Barefoot: We already knew that JD Vance and Elon Musk were obsessed with us having more (white) American babies. But it’s also become clear that they’re not willing to increase access to childcare to support that spike in baby-making. Why? Because they want parents (women) at home. According to the New York Times, the White House is workshopping ways to encourage parents to stay home, including “giving more money to families for each child they have, eliminating federal tax credits for daycare, and opening up federal lands for the construction of affordable single-family homes.” This, of course, comes at the expense of programs that do support actual working parents. Which will still be the majority of parents. Because it’s not the 1950s, and we’re in late-stage capitalism over here.
More Light Rail! The Two Line just got three and a half miles longer. Over the weekend, we got two new light rail stations, at Marymoor Park and downtown Redmond. But the connection between the One and Two lines is still a figment of Dow Constantine’s imagination right now. His best guess is that it’ll open in the summer of 2026.
Library Crisis: You know the Washington Talking Book & Braille Library in South Lake Union? That’s part of the Washington State Library system, and financially, they’re screwed. Trump has already yanked federal funding from library systems around the country, and now, according to the Washington Secretary of State’s Office, the state budget that’s sitting on Governor Ferguson’s desk doesn’t include any of the $6.7 million they asked for. Their office announced this morning that over the past two weeks, they delivered 47 at-risk-of layoff letters to Washington State Library (WSL) employees. The Talking Book & Braille Library, our state’s only accessible library service for people with print disabilities, faces some of the worst cuts—and may have to be closed to the public. Feeling good about not taxing the rich, Ferguson?
Tariff Update: Trump and China have finally gotten tired of their giant game of Uncle, and come to a temporary trade agreement. For the next 90 days, Trump is expected to lower the tariffs on Chinese imports from 145 percent to 30, and China will lower tariffs on American goods to 10 percent from 125. Maybe we’ll start seeing more ships in the port again. The grasshoppers are lonely.
Flying’s About to Get Weird: Newark Airport, one of the busiest airports in the country, has had two radar outages in as many months. And on Sunday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned that the same thing is likely to happen at more US airports as we head into the summer travel season, and said he would make a plan with major airlines to scale back the number of flights going through Newark. This seems like a good time to remind everyone that DOGE cut 400 workers from the FAA this year.
Trump Wants a New Jet: And the royal family of Qatar wants to give it to him. Specifically, they want to give him a $400 million super luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet that will serve as Air Force One during his presidency, and then be donated to his presidential library after his term. If (when) it goes through, it will be the largest gift ever given to the US from a foreign government. Is it legal to accept something so valuable from a foreign power? Pam Bondi and Pete Hegseth say it is, but everyone else is pretty worried. “Even in a presidency defined by grift, this move is shocking,” Robert Weissman, a co-president of Public Citizen, told the New York Times. “It makes clear that US foreign policy under Donald Trump is up for sale.” Need something from Trump? Give him something shiny.
A New Kind of “Refugee”: Remember how Trump wiped out our entire refugee program and then doubled down by defying a court order to help resettle the 12,000 refugees who had flights booked to the US when the ban went into place? Well this morning, 49 white South Africans will land in DC as the first wave of Trump’s brand new Afrikaner refugee program. Just to make sure we’re all on the same page: Afrikaners are about 7 percent of the population in South Africa, but they own three quarters of the private land in the country; and they were the beneficiaries of a half-century long Apartheid system that allowed the white minority to dominate the country. Unsurprisingly, aid groups, immigrant rights activists, and the South African government have all called the initiative an absolute mockery of our refugee system (which it is). But the Trump administration just loves themselves a little “reverse racism.” So they’ll be throwing these white folks a little party on the tarmac later today.
Hostage to Be Released: Hamas announced yesterday that it’s going to release the last living American hostage in Gaza. The hostage, Edan Alexander, is an Israeli-American dual citizen who moved to Israel to serve in the military after high school, and he was captured from his military post during the October 7 attacks. This will be the first hostage release since Israel shattered the ceasefire in March. Trump will be in the Middle East on Tuesday, and Hamas hopes it’ll kickstart a new ceasefire before Israel makes good on its plans to seize the entire Gaza Strip. Israel, predictably, has no plans to stop bombarding Gaza during negotiations. More than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza.
Time to Ring in the 2025 Election: The filing deadline was on Friday, which means our city election season has officially begun! This year, we’ll be voting for mayor, city attorney, and city council districts 2, 8, and 9. This election has everything you’d expect from a Seattle showdown, from progressive challengers to shitty ballot initiatives from Brian Heywood. Check back in throughout the week—we’ll give you the full rundown of the candidates, the initiatives, and the races we’re really excited about.
Republicans Are Still Trying to Cut Medicaid: They released a proposal late on Sunday that would take coverage away from 8.6 million Americans and hike the costs for millions more. It requires people to pay more fees, adds more paperwork, and includes a work requirement for childless adults. The GOP has never seen a poverty tax it doesn’t love.
Watch Your Fingers: Igloo had to recall 130,000 coolers because they were taking off people’s fingertips. Apparently the tow handle can pinch your hand against the cooler, and it’s literally resulted in several amputations. No matter how many times I read that, I’m still not sure how that’s possible. But if you bought an Igloo cooler between January 2019 and January 2025, do your poor fingers a favor and ask Igloo for a free replacement handle.
Hegseth Still an Idiot: Some of the passwords that Defense Secretary Pete “Wanna Join My Group Chat” Hegseth used to register for websites were exposed in cyberattacks on those sites and are readily available on the internet. If he was using normal, secure channels to discuss war plans, that’d be NBD—he’d just be getting a lot of spam calls on his personal phone. But because he’s failed to use the safeguards that are built into our NATIONAL SECURITY SYSTEMS, there’s no telling what people can get access to.
Usually I want to give you something to ease into your Monday, it doesn’t feel like that kind of day. So here’s “Boss” by Little Simz, to get your energy up.
It’s an incredibly low bar, but it seems Trump is doing more to reign in Israel than Biden ever did. Should prompt some introspection among Democrats.
*rein
The Qatari plane story is even worse than it at first appears. If it goes through, it would be given to Trump’s presidential library foundation when he leaves office. If it just went to the library itself, it’d still be owned by the US government. When it goes to the foundation, it goes direct to Trump. This is a straight-up violation of the Emoluments Clause, but I have no expectation that congress or the Supreme Court are going to do anything about it.
Ah yes Qatar, primary funder of Hamas (with Bibi’s blessing), casually gifting a jumbo jet to Trump instead of doing something to end the travesty on the ground there. Congress has to vote to approve of this gift and will likely not have a plurality to do so. It’s such shamefully blatant corruption and is an impeachable offense. The rule of law must have teeth or we will lose all control of our government to foreign bribery (which is basically what DOGE is). Man what a disease of incompetence this country has.
God I Hope we
can Make it til 6/14 to
stage the biggest protest
the Planet’s ever seen but ICE’ll
likely have Half of us renditioned
off to Guatemala or fucking Greenland.
Qatarians’re gonna have every convo*
bugged on ‘Missing’ the name of
Cacet Bonespurs’ new 747. they
say the Golden-plated Toilets
won’t have any holding tanks
(too $pendy) so I do Hope
thedjt won’t get Sucked
out over the nes Gulf
of America, but it’d
be poetic justice
if he Did.
*available at all
trumpfspots
https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahus-reportedly-warned-twice-that-qatari-cash-was-funding-hamas-military-wing/
Source for claims @4.
“Trump has already yanked federal funding from library systems around the country … The Talking Book & Braille Library, our state’s only accessible library service for people with print disabilities, faces some of the worst cuts—and may have to be closed to the public.”
So, perhaps the Stranger should have spent more time last year trying to defeat Trump, and less time yelling at liberals that predictable civilian casualties in a terrorist-infested speck of territory was “Genocide, Joe”?
@7. Hey bro, maybe YOU should have spent any and all of your posts attacking Trump instead of always ignoring the problem to attack Progressives. Your posturing fools nobody, and above all yoi are an accessory to genocide from deflecting from real actual criticism to pain all Progressives as extremists who support Hamas instead of demand that their tax dollars are spent responsibly in line with international law. Take your clownshoes bullshit to the dump where it belongs.
@8 thank you. CD.
they guy’s a Jerk with
nothing better to do than
End Progressivism on Earth.
oh and to Derail derr Schlogg.
Error in NY Times link for jet. Here’s the fixed:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/11/us/politics/trump-qatar-jet-gift-air-force-one.html
It really is one hell of a luxurious jet.
(Also missing a Continued reading link)
@7: As if local opinion babble affects national elections and politics.
@7 — see: @9.
@11 — see: @9.
apologies!
@7 Perhaps the Democrats shouldn’t have been covering up that the President was barely coherent and wandering around the White House with potato salad in his hair, and then maybe tried conducting a speed primary instead of pushing a wildly unpopular candidate when they couldn’t hide Biden’s state anymore?
@8: “…to pain [sic] all Progressives as extremists who support Hamas…”
En route to occupying and vandalizing the UW’s Interdisciplinary Engineering Building, SUPER UW published a manifesto, the very first paragraph of which explicitly praised Hamas’ 10/7 attacks. The Stranger’s response to SUPER’s praise of Hamas’ terrorism? First ignore it completely, and after getting called for ignoring it, take SUPER’s praise for Hamas out of context, and “explain” it was really about praising other student groups. (https://www.thestranger.com/news/2025/05/07/80045377/uw-cries-antisemitism-in-wake-of-pro-palestine-protest/comments/13)
So, you might want to direct that particular criticism at SUPER and the Stranger.
To me it seems every media outlet is burying the lede in the story about Qatar giving Trump a new AF1. Yes of course it violates the Emoluments Clause and shows the deep corruption of Trump.
But there is more.
Air Force One is not just a means of transportation. It’s a flying Command and Control Center for the entire US Military. It has the functionality of the White House Situation Room and the Pentagon’s National Military Command Center.
Why the hell would we trust any other government to provide us with those centers? Would we allow the Qatari’s to enter the Pentagon in order to remodel the NMCC?
This seems like a huge national security breach waiting to happen.
But then again, with a drunkard as Secretary of Defense national security breaches are at least a daily event with these bozos.
Who the flying fuck is SUPER UW but some two-bit college organization, dumbass? If you want to espouse the tenets of progressivism in good faith, turn to Bernie Sanders and AOC, not your cherrypicked example of a canpus group hijacked by Hamas sympathizers. Pathetic worm.
@7,
Hey, what about Kshama Sawant, how do you feel about her? Would I be correct in thinking that you believe she should have been given a more active role in the Democrats Presidential campaign?
Yes I am having some issues typing today. It happens to all of us.
@16 Which is worse, the shit sandwich or the garnish of broken glass? Among other things, the plane will have to get stripped down to the figurative studs to make sure it’s not full of surveillance devices. So the entire interior will end up being replaced anyway. Oh, and all the fancy electronics that are what actually make AF1 expensive will have to go in, so we won’t save any money or time vs. the one already under construction.
Adding on to that, we’ll all be on the hook to take all of that stuff back out when it’s given “back” to Trump.
Trump even lost Laura Loomer over the jet. She tweeted:
I love President Trump.
I would take a bullet for him.
But, I have to call a spade a spade.
We cannot accept a $400 million “gift” from jihadists in suits.
The Qataris fund the same Iranian proxies in Hamas and Hezbollah who have murdered US Service Members. The same proxies that have worked with the Mexican cartels to get jihadists across our border.
This is really going to be such a stain on the admin if this is true.
And I say that as someone who would take a bullet for Trump.
I’m so disappointed.
https://x.com/LauraLoomer/status/1921615017138618439
@14: You could have had a smart and qualified woman (who wasn’t wildly unpopular btw, just cuz you didn’t like her,) but you didn’t want that either so here we are. Just like the people who voted for Trump these are the consequences of your actions babe. Sorry.
For those confused by recent tariff events:
Trump caved and got zero in return.
No manufacturing moved back to USA.
30% tariff is still a huge tax on Americans.
90-day pause still creates tremendous uncertainty.
Trump lost all negotiating leverage.
Trump got owned by China. Trump is a moron.
@8, “Progressives …. demand that their tax dollars are spent responsibly in line with international law.”
How many wars has that ended? How many non-combatants has that gotten out of the crossfire? If some other group of taxpayers pays for the weapons, but not U.S. tax money, how are the non-combatants better off? If they aren’t better off, how is your tax dollars being spent on something you are in agreement with doing anything but making you feel better, even as the carnage continues?
@9
‘to Derail the convo
and make it about
the Wormtongue’
and his War on
Progressivism?
Mission
Accomplished.
@21
Great Comment,
dwebee!
@22 She wasn’t unpopular? Far be it from me to criticize the “smart and qualified” (with essentially zero accomplishments) candidate, but remind me who won what they sometimes call the “popular vote” in 2024?
To paraphrase a Norm Macdonald line originally about Hillary, Americans hated Kamala so much they elected someone they hated even more.
@5 kristofarian, @8 CDizzle, and @22 Lissa, and @23 Swiftress: +4 Agreed. Kudos for being so spot on, and thank you all for beating me to it. I have nothing more to add. You covered this global nightmare perfectly.
I don’t know which demographic group in these Fascist Divided States of women and girls to feel sorrier for—-women and adolescent girls, age 15-45 in their reproductive years, or little girls from birth to puberty who have yet to start their monthly menstrual cycles.
This benighted country has pissed so many of our former allies off that I won’t be surprised if we don’t make it into 2026 without Mu$k and his Mein Trumpf starting WWIII. And all gun$ will be pointed at U$.
Fuck you, Mu$k, Trumpf, and MAGA loyalist dumbfucks! It’s time for you to be on the receiving end of your abuse of power and lack of accountability.
@2 You had it right the first time.
@26 necrophiliac: Wow–educated and well qualified women really do scare you, don’t we?
Did your mother make you sit in the corner when you were little, before sending you to bed without dessert while everybody at the table laughed? Did you get caught peeing on the kitchen floor?
I didn’t vote for this shit, but like the Toyota ad of yore: “YOU—asked for it, you GOT it!”
And you and every one of your MAGA ilk deserve the very worst of the needless federal butthurt crashing down on what WAS a great country, with a thriving democracy of safety nets, scientific research, affordable healthcare that has worked for MILLIONS, constitutional rights, body autonomy, and environmental protection, until now.
@26 necrophiliac: By the way, it wasn’t a “popular vote”. Elon Mu$k, who isn’t even a citizen of the very country he is out to destroy, illegally bought the White Trash House. His Mein Trumpf is Mu$k’$ billionaire coddling $ock puppet. I wouldn’t be feeling too proud or cocky about this right now if I were you.
@28 Haha, maybe so!
@29 I’ll just pass over the bizarre fantasies about my childhood and say, when you nominate bad candidates who lose to someone like Donald Trump, it should prompt a little soul-searching!
@30 I’m not sure what definition of “winning the popular vote” there could be other than “the person who got more votes”, and that’s kind of how it played out. Also, whatever else Musk’s flaws may be, he is, in fact, an American citizen. Let me know if you need any further corrections…
@17: “Who the flying fuck is SUPER UW but some two-bit college organization, dumbass?”
Another excellent question for the Stranger, which has now supported SUPER UW through SUPER’s occupation and vandalization of two UW buildings. The first building SUPER occupied and vandalized was the HUB, including defacing of student artworks displayed there, and threatening of student journalists sent to cover the event. Perhaps you could ask the Stranger why this particular “two-bit college organization” receives such complete and lasting support from Seattle’s progressive alt-weekly? I mean, you’d think an arts and entertainment weekly might’ve had something critical to say about integrity of art, and stood in solidarity with threatened journalists, but apparently those are no longer “progressive” values in Seattle.
@32 Anything but the defacement of student art! The suffering of Gaza pales in comparison…
Technically winning the popular vote means getting >50%, not just more votes than the other candidate, but the common interpretation of the term has changed because multiple candidates have won the presidency with a seven-figure deficit.
@27 “women and adolescent girls, age 15-45 in their reproductive years, or little girls from birth to puberty who have yet to start their monthly menstrual cycles.”
Thank you for giving a very cogent and concise definition of the word woman. If only more Democrats could admit this out loud, without fear of retribution.
@34 No, I think your “technical” definition is conflating majority vote and popular vote. By any definition you care to look up, popular vote refers to the recipient of the most votes.
Governments around the world providing fertility incentives is nothing new, but it’s usually accompanied by an increase in social services like childcare. In addition to childcare, raising an infant outside of daycare is better and there should be a credit for that.
@1 and @2 With that guy, I think you had it right the first time.
@18: Here’s the most recent thread where the Stranger fawned all over Sawant and her hatred of the Democrats. Nothing in there about her stumping for Trump, though; even though the Stranger reminds us on the daily how Trump Is Bad, having actively worked to elect him does not elicit a whisper of criticism from the Stranger. Enjoy this great example of the Stranger’s Progressive advocacy journalism! (https://www.thestranger.com/news/2025/05/09/80049644/the-ethics-code-showdown)
@33: “Anything but the defacement of student art! The suffering of Gaza pales in comparison…”
Wait — you’re saying vandalizing buildings on the UW campus in Seattle did absolutely nothing to alleviate the suffering of Gaza?!? How can that possibly be!?! Progressives here at the Stranger insisted they were totally related!!!
@22 “You could have had a smart and qualified woman (who wasn’t wildly unpopular btw, just cuz you didn’t like her,)”
Jill Stein?
Remember when women were demonized as welfare queens for having kids and utilizing public funds and services to that end? Now they want us to breed to increase our manpower for their twisted war plans. Or perhaps there is racial component to the double standard, like these laughably ‘oppressed’ South African refugees yearning to be free of a non-apartheid society. What a crock of shit.
35, this is the most ridiculous attempt at a definition of woman I’ve ever seen, and to be clear she wasn’t answering your stupid question when she said that. Do you think women turn into hobbits when they can’t get pregnant anymore?
@39,
Random question that I might regret asking, but am genuinely curious to know the answer to…
If mother Sawant had miscarried and the evil, megalomaniacal villain Kshama Sawant had never had the chance to unleash her tyrannical, communist scourge onto the earth, who do you think would occupy the White House today?
thirteen12 @40, very well said. And to add to Jill Stein’s bona fides, she’s also a Vladimir Putin dinner guest:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/guess-who-came-dinner-flynn-putin-n742696
And let us not listen to Ms. Stein’s adult children who pleaded with her not to run and be a spoiler in 2024. What a bunch of ingrates. And on Mother’s Day no less!
@1 You got the President you wanted. Live with it.
@40 HAHAHA. Jill fucking Stein? Holy shit… that’s hilarious.
@42: It wasn’t a purposeful omission and referenced a quote about women of child-bearing age, which doesn’t negate his point about defining womanhood.
47, The “it” in question was not an attempt to define the word woman — Auntie was expressing concern for the fate of young girls and women/girls of childbearing age — and it completely negates his point when he cosigned on a definition of womanhood that ends at age 45. If you can’t define a woman (which in scientific terms is way more complicated than you people want it to be, let alone the social/philosophical sense), then you have no business being indignant about anyone else’s.
God, I hope we can make it until 6/14, to stage the biggest protest the planet’s ever seen but ice. Will likely have half of us renditioned off to Guatemala or fucking Greenland. Qataris are going to have every convo. Bugged on missing the name of Cacet Bone Spurs new 747, they say the golden-plated toilets won’t have any holding tanks. Too spendy. So I do hope the DJT won’t get sucked out over the NES Gulf of America, but it would be nice poetic justice if he did available at all Trump spots.
@49
ah, There you are!
a couple things:
ice is spelled
ICE & new
isn’t spel-
led NES
you’ve Im-
proved,
crysto!