Good Morning! It keeps being shiny outside. It’ll be a little warmer today than yesterday, squarely in the mid-60s. It’s supposed to be this beautiful all week, but spring is fickle, and she can take it away at any moment. Enjoy it while you can.
Alright, let’s dive into the news.
The Wealth Tax Makes a Comeback: But just a little one, as a treat. The state legislature has until Sunday to come up with a budget that balances our multi-billion dollar shortfall without giving Governor Ferguson the scaries. Ferg has refused to sign a budget that has a full and proper wealth tax, but he’s said he’s willing to do a “test,” and Dems are taking him up on it: a $100 million tax (rather than $4 billion) to see if it can hold up to a legal challenge. It’s not the wealth tax we deserve, but it’d be a start. There’s already a $1.5 million campaign from T-Mobile, Costco, Alaska Airlines, and Microsoft to fight new progressive tax structures, so it’s not unreasonable to think a challenge is coming. But this is a chance to prove that it can hold up.
RFK Won’t Say Gay: Speaking of budgets, this is one I’d like to personally kick in the dick. According to a leaked HHS budget draft, the department plans to get rid of services for LGBTQ youth who call 988, the national suicide and crisis hotline. LGBTQ youth are four times more likely to attempt suicide, and right now, the hotline has counselors who are trained to work with queer kids: understanding the stress caused by recent political attacks, the importance of using appropriate pronouns, and the ways in which the youth often face lack of family support and harassment. The queer youth-specific counselors have received 1.3 million calls, texts, or chats since the program launched in 2022, and in February, they received an average of 2,100 contacts per day. The budget isn’t a sure thing: the change would have to be approved by Congress, but if it were, it’d go into effect in October. Remember when the Trump administration said it wanted more babies? Let this be a reminder that they only want to fill America with cis, straight, white babies.
Yesterday was Special Election night, and the (early) results are in. The King County AFIS levy, which renewed funding for our regional fingerprint and palmprint database, has about 60 percent of the vote this morning and looks like it’s going to pass. Why are we worried? There aren’t enough guardrails to keep that information from getting to the Feds—and specifically to immigration enforcement.
Get Your Hand Shaven Noodles While You Can: Shanghai Garden announced that it’s closing at the end of the month. The family-run spot has been in the CID since 1990, and their hand-shaven barleygreen noodles have been a staple comfort food for generations of Seattleites. (The chew! How do they get that chew??) According to Bethany Jean Clement at the Seattle Times, they’re telling a familiar story: prices are up, and business never really recovered after the pandemic. Go show them some love before they close.
Buckling Bridge: Put those on the list of words I never want to hear together. According to SDOT, the Carbon River Bridge is “permanently closed” to all traffic—cutting off Highway 165 to the northwest of Mount Rainier National Park—because its 103-year-old support beams are buckling. If you’re annoyed that getting to Rainier will be tougher this season, I get it. But take a look at these photos of the beams. That is not how you want to die.
BREAKING NEWS: Oreo has announced its newest flavor, and honestly, we’re intrigued.
An Earth Day Surprise: The day before Earth Day, the EPA informed more than 450 employees working on environmental justice and DEI that they will either be fired or reassigned. “This is the first step in a broader effort to ensure that EPA is best positioned to meet its core mission of protecting human health and the environment and Powering the Great American Comeback,” the agency wrote. “It’s a gut punch but long expected,” one employee told the Washington Post. “Announcing a [reduction in force] of the EJ program on the eve of Earth Day is sick and shows exactly who they are.”
Meanwhile, a research team from Dartmouth College estimated that the world’s biggest corporations have caused $28 trillion in climate damage, which, for comparison, is a smidge less than the value of all goods and services that the US produced last year. Unsurprisingly, more than half that figure comes from 10 fossil fuel companies: Saudi Aramco, Gazprom, Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, National Iranian Oil Co., Pemex, Coal India, and the British Coal Corporation. The study could make it easier to hold these companies accountable for their actions, like the tobacco companies have been. Let’s start revving up those lawsuits.
Witch Hunt: Remember how creepy the White House was on Easter? With the laying-on hands and the giant Easter Bunny? Trump’s still leaning in on the Devout Christian Performance. The VA has now directed employees to report any incidents that they perceive as “hostile to Christian views.” The move is aimed at aligning with the Trump administration’s executive order to “end the anti-Christian weaponization of government,” according to an internal email. They even made a very special email address for it: Anti-ChristianBiasReporting@va.gov. Obviously, any personal religious practice is already protected by the First Amendment. This is just making sure we all know which religion they care about.
Durbin Stepping Down: Illinois Senator Dick Durbin announced that he wouldn’t be running for a fifth term next year, putting more pressure on the party to get its act together when it was already looking like a difficult path to reclaiming a majority. “I truly love the job of being a United States senator,” said the 80-year-old. “But in my heart I know it’s time to pass the torch.” It’s time for some new blood!
Wildfire in New Jersey: So far, more than 18 square miles have burned in the Jersey Pine Barrens, and it’s expected to burn for days before it’s contained.The AP reports that wildfires are actually common in the area (we see you, East Coast). Importantly, the fire is near an alpaca farm, and the owners report that all of the animals are safe.
As a Wednesday Treat: Lorde announced that she would be performing a surprise show in NYC’s Washington Square Park at 7pm, and people showed the fuck up. Because we all need this. So here’s some of the show.
rfkjr just declared
Sugar to be a
‘poisonous’
substance.
whilst totally Insane
he does have
Promise
should we happen
to Live thru this
dystopian
dynasty.
@1 other than all
the Plagues he’ll
be Bringing
back. glee-
fully.
It could be $100 million or $4 billion, it doesn’t matter. A wealth tax is still a stupid idea. The chief evidence being that many “progressive” European countries abandoned their wealth tax after they forced all the wealthy people to leave. Otherwise known as killing the golden goose.
Why should the Federal Government operate a suicide hotline at all? Shouldn’t that be the responsibility of the States? I’m pretty sure you won’t find any mention of suicide hotlines in the Constitution.
SDOT is permanently closing a state bridge huh? Maybe. Or maybe the Stranger has piss poor editors. Or no editors at all.
I love to see staffing reductions at EPA, ESPECIALLY on Earth Day.
Why would taxpayers want to sue the oil companies when it will only increase the cost of our gasoline? Americans benefit greatly from the freedom of mobility provided by gasoline powered vehicles. We aren’t looking to give up those benefits for vague threats of Climate Apocalypse that never seems to materialize.
Meanwhile in the UK, Britons can be imprisoned for hostile to Islamic views on social media. Free speech is endangered worldwide.
@4 the group and affiliated party who spent the last few years performing being concerned with protecting free speech (that almost always includes the descriptor “hostile to”, strangely enough) is currently trying to withold funding from schools and libraries who don’t ban the books they tell them to and deporting/imprisoning legal immigrants who protest or organize workplaces. I’ve learned to ignore certain calls for the protection of free speech due to their apparent insincerity.
“The King County AFIS levy, which renewed funding for our regional fingerprint and palmprint database, has about 60 percent of the vote this morning and looks like it’s going to pass.”
The Stranger’s self-directed slide into political irrelevance continues. This issue provides a textbook example of exactly how to accomplish such a feat:
“Why are we worried? There aren’t enough guardrails to keep that information from getting to the Feds—and specifically to immigration enforcement.”
As has already been explained multiple times in other comment threads, this data will be collected by local law enforcement anyway; a County-wide system costs less, and works better, than duplication of effort by local law enforcement agencies across the county (including the SPD). It also ensures this data is shared in a timely and accurate manner, so criminals moving across invisible lines on the map are more likely to get caught.
@3 (WereBackBaby) has a comment like an iceberg. The first paragraph is true, but lies upon an underwater foundation of pure garbage formed by subsuquent paragraphs.
@5: Multiple free speech and related issues can be evaluated independently and don’t preclude taking action on one another. What you deem insincere is sincere to someone else.
I’m confused on the Lorde video. I thought she was a singer? From the video it looks like she is dancing and not singing. I LOVE Lorde, but more for her singing I think. Her dancing is cool, but if you get too close you might lose an eye.
Dweeeebeeee, hate speech is hate speech. Those laws are very direct and to the point of detering inciteful hate speech. it’s not an arbitrary topic. Hate speech towards any religion is evil. I say religion is bullshit, but I won’t hate a person for being religious until that person becomes a dick and pushes the moral semantics implied through their religion on other people. Unfortunately most religions call for that to happen. So I really don’t appreciate religions. I don’t really like white people a whole lot too, especially dumb white people like yourself, but I let you run a line and then I hilight that line to demonstrate that you are a hate filled fascist in a vanilla scented pink business suit. You’re like a witch that lives in a candy house, just waiting to throw the future in the oven and eat it up for yourself and your bullshit world view.
@3 The federal government partially funds 988 which is the national suicide prevention hotline. Do you have a problem with this too? or only the gay specific one?
@7 – your reading comprehension needs some help. The first paragraph was not intended to underlie subsequent paragraphs because they are all disparate opinions.
It would have been simpler and more accurate to say that we agree on one topic and do not agree on the others.
Anyway, glad to see we can find some common ground. Wealth taxes suck, amirite?
@9: Imprison people for speech? Before everyone calls you a fascist, I’m giving you the opportunity to correct yourself.
@3:
Yeah, yeah, we get it – you’ll happily drown yourself in the metaphorical sinking boat we all have to share, if only it means “pwning teh libs”. Your insane impulse towards flagrant and willful self-destruction for the mere sake of spiting someone else is duly noted.
And do the words, “…unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–” ring any bells? Granted, those are found in the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution, but given the DOI has long been upheld as one of the foundational documents upon which our system of government is supposed to be based, it stands to reason that the federal government DOES in fact have at least a moral obligation, if not an outright statutory one, to ensure those “unalienable rights”, which include the right to be free from harassment, persecution and inequality, are protected. Unless of course you want to take the position that these for some reason don’t fall under the umbrella of the rights enumerated above.
@4/8:
Your “freedom of speech” argument would be laughable if not for the mountain of evidence showing how little people like you actually care about it and how far you’re willing to go to suppress it in others. “Free speech” to you means, as @5 points out, ONLY speech of which you approve and nothing more. It’s hypocrisy of the highest order, it doesn’t fool anyone, and it only serves to demonstrate to the rest of us what terrible people you and your ilk are.
@9: “I don’t really like white people a whole lot too”
If anything, your candor about your own racism is noteworthy.
@13: What I care about is unknown to you until I mention it. Until then, you’re just projecting.
@10 – the blurb was specifically about the 988 hotline, so it should be apparent that is what I was talking about. No, I don’t think the Feds should fund 988. That should be a State function.
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Dweeeebeee I’m content just to read that you don’t note that I called you a fascist. Let the record stand that you admit you are a hater. And I’m sure the law will apply to those that repeatedly engage in inciteful hate speech for them to be jailed. They probably get a lot of warnings.
Okay byeeeeee 🙂
@13 – operating a suicide prevention hotline does nothing to ensure that people are free from harassment, persecution or inequality.
Sorry, public health is being administered by a brain-eating worm now. Its priorities differ from those of the previous leadership.
@16: That clause was immediately recognized as woefully insufficient by us New Yorkers, who promptly demanded — and received — a promise that the First Congress would start amending the new Constitution, specifically to include a Bill of Rights. With that promise in hand, New York State voted to ratify, and indeed the First Congress of the United States did exactly as we had required.
(https://history.nycourts.gov/about_period/federal-constitution/#:~:text=In%201787%2C%20the%20draft%20federal,&%20Steamboats%2C%201777%2D1846.)
Typical of you, to cite one of the weakest clauses as the strongest point for your argument.
@3. My god you’re dumb.
@3 See Article I, Section 8, Clause 1, after referred to as the General Welfare clause. It’s the constitutional basis for all federally administered public health programs. You’re welcome.
@12 Absolutely imprison people for inciting violence with their speech. And libel. And harassment.
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/uk-far-right-activist-tommy-robinson-jailed-for-18-months-6895251
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/07/britain-first-leaders-convicted-of-anti-muslim-hate-crimes
“T-Mobile, Costco, Alaska Airlines, and Microsoft to fight new progressive tax structures…..” I don’t shop at Costco and all my equipment runs on Linux rather than Windoze. I can write Alaska & T-Mobile. But they really need to hear from the 99.9% of us.
Chocolate covered pretzels are only fit to eat in a chocolate emergency.
“…..like the tobacco companies have been. Let’s start revving up those lawsuits.” You know, THIS is one thing Trump is right about: Giving away your strategy to the enemy before you are ready to attack. This is one of the reasons the Republicans are willing to fire 60% of government workers: because THEY’RE the ones with the expertise to carry out those lawsuits. Why can’t liberal people just say the environment is going to hell & we all ought to donate money to organizations which have the expertise to lobby and litigate for environmental change. Why, like Jayapal & Sawant helping to elect Trump by badmouthing Hillary at the most crucial moment of the presidential campaign, do we have to hand a defense to the Right on a silver platter. And it’s not just a defense, but like stacking the Judiciary, it’s a fortress for the next generation or longer!!
@3, a wealth tax is very difficult to implement. But it is certainly NOT stupid, exp at this moment when marginal income taxes have been so low and maniacs like Trump, Musk, Bezos, et al have accumulated unconscionable wealth. The only hope we have at this moment is that their political meddling will come to an end via the ‘A fool and his money are soon parted’ syndrome.
@3, ” I’m pretty sure you won’t find any mention of suicide hotlines in the Constitution.” Actually, it’s in the Preamble of the US Constitution, which (the Preamble) comes before anything else: “”We the People of the United States, in order to……promote the general Welfare…..””” But why, oh why, oh why would you be against preventing suicide in ANY venue? A suicide hotline needs only be one person, on one phone, to which is directed any one of a hundred numbers. And that person simply redirects the request to a dedicated service working for the Fed, or the State, or a clinic, or a hospital, or a church, or a fire department, or…….
@3, and…….no, that’s it. No use responding to you any further. Your oil comment says that you need to return to 3rd grade arithmetic to restart your preparation for simple Cost/Benefit Analysis.
@4, The UK…..isn’t that the country that, just before WWII was happy that Hitler was “taking care of” the Jews? Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
@12, Naw, …….Hate speech is hate speech. I have no problem with the people shouting “Death to (fill in the blank)” getting whatever they deserve. If you want to protest Israeli politics or settlements, I have no problem with that. But people DO need to be careful to keep it civil. Doesn’t have to be gentle or quiet. But it needs to be civil.
@22, Aw, you beat me to it by about 20 seconds.
Why is TS worried about the fingerprinting system.
They’re worried because they hate to see criminals face consequences.
“end the anti-Christian weaponization of government”
by impeaching & deporting Trunk & JD Pants & simply deporting fascist richlord Leon Muck
@23/24 – Yes. Libel is a crime, hate speech can be a crime if it incites violence. Nobody should be in jail if their actions and behaviors are civil.
@3 What goose? Those fuckers don’t even pay a state income tax.
Let ’em leave.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/denny-blaine-residents-sue-seattle-over-management-of-nude-beach/
@27
Name calling?
What? Are you in 3rd grade?
In the
WHAT THE
HELL? Department:
from:
The White House
April 23, 2025
Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Modernizes American Workforce Programs for the High-Paying Skilled Trade Jobs of the Future
https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/04/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-modernizes-american-workforce-programs-for-the-high-paying-skilled-trade-jobs-of-the-future/?sfnsn=mo
the
Stopped
Clock Theory
In. Fucking. Action!
Way to Go
djt!
and, NO,
Wormtongue
this. does. not.
mean. I. support.
EVERYTHING. thedjt.
fucking Does.
tho That’s Precisely
How Y0U Love to Frame it.
Bugger
Off.
@31
sayeth
the Jealous
second-grader
ps
Nice*
formatting!
*cuz Imitation
is thee Highest
form of Flattery.
“Those fuckers don’t even pay a state income tax.”
And two-thirds of Washington State’s voters voted against an income tax last time it was on the ballot.
@3 @7 @10 @11 @13 @21 @22 @24 @29
Tariffis’re
Taxes no matter
How you Slice them:
nyt:
On Major Economic Decisions,
Trump Blinks, and Then
Blinks Again
President Trump has said
his punishing tariffs would force
companies to build factories in the United States.
But it is far from clear that
they will have the effects
he predicted.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/23/us/politics/trump-tariffs-economy.html
two comments:
@Elaine
None of this chaos has yet filtered down to Trump’s base. We won’t know how this really plays out until the summer. Trump’s voters don’t care about the S&P, academia, elite law firms, medical research, 401k’s, the Ukraine, or foreign aid.
What they do care about are prices and the many DOGE-gutted government services that aid low-income people, which they’ve learned to rely on.
When those are suddenly affected, they will be very, very angry. The administration’s guaranteed abysmal response, in forecasting and relief, to summer-related weather disasters will only amplify the outrage.
The “blame Biden” trope has exceeded its statute of limitations; the GOP owns this, and no degree of glibness or ducking town halls will extricate them.
I don’t care if the Democrats go the way of the Whigs; this battle should not be about saving the [utterly fucking Feckless*] Democratic party, but if they had any sense (highly debatable), they’d be in every one of these regions, either in person, or through the media, naming names and clearly fixing the blame
–@Stan Continople; brooklyn
@Karen
Republicans play along with tRump due to the fact that they are beholden to the architect’s of Project 2025. It’s not just radical extremists from the Heritage Foundation,
it’s the well heeled radical billionaires that want to dismantle all safety nets for the average American , while eliminating any ladders for rising above middle and lower income citizens.
Grover Norquist makes all republicans sign a pledge to not raise taxes, with the idea of shrinking government to a size where it can be drowned in a bathtub. It’s happening now.
–@Timmy; Chicago
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/23/us/politics/trump-tariffs-economy.html#commentsContainer
Whilst
We glorify
Schweeps Week:
Attacking the Symptoms
Is but a big. Fucking. Distraction
*[Editorializing
all fucking Mine].
@7 Swiftress: Thanks for the warning re @3. That’s why I usually just scroll past anything Baby Doofus spews.
His steady diet of McDonald’s industrial waste, FOX TeeVee, Mu$k’s Mein Trumpf hate rallies, and raindrop’s misinformative cue cards appear to be dumbing him down quite effectively.
He won’t feel a thing going over the side into the abyss. The AI chip is already deeply planted in his empty, feeble brain.
@36 kristofarian: +1 for the WIN!!!!
danke
auntie
Gee!
@38 kristofarian: And danke schoen to you, as well, kris, for being consistently so spot on. 🙂
Likewise,
auntie
Gee!