Weather: Happy Earth Day! Today’s forecast: sunny with a high near 60. It’s perfect weather for pretending we’re not hurtling toward climate collapse. So get out there, hug a tree, recycle your plastic, and try not to think about how Exxon knew in the ’70s.
Born Into Freedom, Dad Denied It: Dr. Noor Abdalla and political prisoner Mahmoud Khalil welcomed their first child yesterday. Khalil had requested a two-week furlough from his detention in Louisiana to be present for the birth. Per the cruelty of the Trump regime, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official named “Mellissa” denied Khalil’s request.
Religious Freedom Means Never Having to Learn Anything: The culture war circus is back at the Supreme Court, where Justices are weighing whether books with LGBTQ+ characters in public schools trample on religious freedom. A school board in Montgomery County, Maryland okayed five storybooks to promote tolerance—scandalous!—but some parents claim that just seeing queer people in print violates their religious beliefs. They’re arguing that a) parents should control what their kids learn and b) the Constitution guarantees them the right to not be mildly uncomfortable in a pluralistic society. With a bench stacked by Trump and dominated by justices molded in Catholic schools, odds are good that the Court will carve out some religious opt-out.
Venezuela Fires Back at Bukele’s Prisoner Swap Scheme: Venezuela’s attorney general, Tarek William Saab, went scorched earth on El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, branding him a “neo-Nazi” and “serial human rights violator” after Bukele proposed a prisoner swap with Nicolás Maduro. Bukele offered to trade 252 Venezuelans deported by Trump to his US-backed concentration camp, CECOT, for an equal number of political prisoners held in Venezuela—also naming out activists and journalists swept up in last year’s crackdowns. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” Bukele posted on X to Maduro. Saab hit back on state TV, calling the offer “cynical,” accusing Bukele of narcissism, and demanding details on who’s detained, their legal status, and medical conditions.
Trans Athlete Ban Fails, Barely: In yet another attempt to legislate bigotry under the guise of “protecting sports.” The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA), the state’s high school sports governing body, almost passed a rule banning trans girls from girls’ sports. The WIAA came just one vote shy of greenlighting this retrograde policy. And just for kicks, they also floated a separate “open” division—because what’s more inclusive than institutionalized exile? That gem of social engineering lost in a blowout, 13 votes for and 40 against. Let this be your latest reminder: trans bigotry isn’t just a DC export, it’s alive, well, and still trying to run drills in your local gym.
Now let’s pass it to Hannah Murphy Winter for a blurb cameo:
Good news! On Friday evening, the US District Court for the Western District of Washington ruled that, whether you’re an insurance company or a healthcare provider, you can’t deny gender-affirming top surgery to trans kids and then turn around and provide it to cis kids. In a ruling against Premera Blue Cross, the judge found that it was a violation of the discrimination clause of the ACA. “The court determined in no uncertain terms that Premera Blue Cross’s policy categorically denying safe, evidence-based, and effective health care…is discriminatory and unlawful,” said Lambda Legal’s Omar Gonzalez-Pagan. “In fact, the court could not have been clearer. As it wrote in the ruling: ‘The Court need not choose between the divergent interpretations of the term ‘sex’ because, under either view, Premera’s medical policy facially discriminates on the basis of sex.” Someone tell Seattle Children’s that…
ICYMI: Despite the aforementioned good news, our Vivian McCall wrote a follow-up about Seattle Children’s Hospital deciding to still yank gender-affirming surgery for patients under 19. The decision led to more than 550 health professionals and advocacy groups calling them out for breaking the law and promoting harmful, outdated views, while vowing to take legal action. But, in true “we don’t give a damn” fashion, the hospital’s gone radio silent, leaving trans youth and their families twisting in the wind.
Seattle’s War on Tents (and People in Them): The Seattle Times reports that the City is absolutely crushing it—if “it” means shattering records for homeless encampment sweeps because nothing says progress like forcing people into a perpetual state of fear and displacement. But hey, as long as your Golden Retriever has a poop-free patch of grass in the park, who cares if people are overdosing and dying in the street? A little dehumanization is a small price to pay for vibes, right?
Ferguson Signs 35 Bills, Still No Wealth Tax: Gov. Bob Ferguson signed 35 bills into law yesterday, proving once again that bureaucracy can move fast, at least if it’s got caffeine and a legislative majority. From blocking out-of-state National Guardsmen from playing Weekend Warrior on our turf, to making sure pets aren’t left behind when the climate crisis comes knocking, to making sure your local casino is only moderately shady, it’s a buffet of, “Hey, that actually makes sense.” Somewhere in there, they even found time to fight a burrowing shrimp, because in Washington, we fight fascism, crustaceans, and any attempt to pass a wealth tax with equal gusto.
Special Election, Today! Let’s keep it a buck, you probably thought that ballot that showed up in your mailbox this month was either junk mail or a coupon for a Domino’s 2-for-1 (what disgusting pizza, btw). And even if you did crack it open, chances are you had no idea we were voting today, let alone on what. But don’t worry, we’ve got your back: our SECB guide breaks down why you should vote NO on the fingerprint renewal measure, because handing over your biometric data to the government in this dystopian hellscape? Yeah, hard pass. Just make sure you drop your ballot in a box by 8 pm or slap a stamp on it before midnight, or it’s just another piece of paper lost to the surveillance state.
Our EIC in Action: If you’ve got a pulse and a brain, swing by Town Hall Seattle tonight at 7:30 pm. Our editor-in-chief will be moderating a conversation for Earth Day. You’ll hear from local leaders fighting the good fight on climate and equity, and meet some grassroots folks actually doing the work!
And to mark the occasion, I’ll leave you with this wonderfully appropriate song by the late, great Marvin Gaye:
Addressing the concerns of an unfair advantage and safety on the playfield and court isn’t bigotry.
Does
‘the Constitution
guarantee (parents of and)
school-age kiddos the right to not
be mildly uncomfortable in a pluralistic society’?
so Fragile the
Reich wing is ~ till It
comes to the Punishment
Phase – then, torture & Death’re
Always on the Table. for those they Despise
which’s Anyone looking
not Quite like
them.
fear and loathing
there’s Terror
everywhere
“…who cares if people are overdosing and dying in the street?”
Not the Stranger, that’s for sure. The Stranger stopped reporting on deaths of homeless persons years ago. Specifically, right after commenter hbb noted homeless persons had died primarily from drug overdoses, rather than from exposure; the Stranger had wrongly implied the latter. (https://www.thestranger.com/slog-am/2022/06/09/74853880/slog-am-17-unhoused-people-died-since-april-in-king-county-the-county-proposes-gun-return-and-jan-6-hearings-start-today/comments/30)
well then
thank God tS’s
advocating for all that Vast
Wealth to be Taxxed Accordingly
“A little dehumanization is a small price to pay for vibes, right?”
We schweep All Nite
We schweep all day
Our billionaires got
no price they’ll pay
Tax the rich
Beat the poor
Turn around
No poor no more
They’re all 15 blocks away
Even yacht builders
Gotta Eat
bud.
@2 this is a really funny argument from the same people who demanded trigger warnings, routinely shut down speech that did not like through violent actions, needed safe spaces to protect them from speech and continue to insist themselves that speech they disagree with is violence. Are they honestly surprised the tactics they endorsed are now being used against them?
“Seattle’s War on Tents (and People in Them):”
“Seattle’s War on the Seizure of Public Property for Private Use.”
Fixed it.
Kinda crazy that the Stranger’s the editorial team acts like it’s perpetually 2021 while the world passes them by. Incredible to have not gotten the memo that WOKE lost in 2024 (and earlier), and continues to lose hearts, minds and elections. When their loyal readers collectively ask: “is the hole deep enough”? The Stranger will always reply, “no, keep digging”! Until we hit full fascism, perhaps?
“the right to not be mildly uncomfortable in a pluralistic society”
What about the right not to be shown split infinitives?
Everyone knows that public parks are meant to be favelas for the virtuous poor and not places to walk a golden retriever, that most bourgeois of dogs.
@1:
That’s an absolute crock of shit, and I suspect you know it. “Unfair advantage” could literally apply to ANY athlete who possesses superior strength, speed, agility, endurance, reach, weight, or any other metric you care to name, regardless of whether they’re cis or trans. That is the entire POINT of athletic competition: to determine which individual athlete or group of athletes collectively possess such attributes as determined by who scores the larger number of points, who crosses the finish line first, or who generally out-performs the other. I mean, if this was REALLY your position I’d expect you to raise holy hell whenever a F2M trans athlete beats the pants off a cis-male athlete cough! Patricio Manuel! Chris Mosier! cough!, but unsurprisingly you-all are absolutely silent on the subject, because it completely blows out of the water your stupid, bigoted insistence that trans athletes can’t be allowed to compete against cisgender athletes because of this so-called “unfair advantage”.
Finally, The Stranger and I agree on something: Domino’s has America’s worst pizza.
@1 Yeah.. we totally shouldn’t let people born with unfair advantages use them to play sports. https://www.biography.com/athletes/michael-phelp-perfect-body-swimming
@10: A physiological advantage is why there are differences in men and women’s sports teams in the first place.
Why do so many of these return commenters return to read the SLOG when they know what the point of view is going to be from the writers? I mean it is such a small audience and they keep manifesting and returning in ever greater numbers. Perhaps it is like their small minds to want to gang up and beat up on the smaller segments of our population, like the good old fascists that they are? “Hey I found a lib over here all by themselves… I’m callin’ all my brothers and sisters from last night’s cross burning to beat the crap out of this one, hoooo-waaaa!” Dweeeeebeeee you count here. The only time I ever see you get passionate or uppety is when you have an opportunity to comment on bashing trans kids and taking their rights away. Otherwise, you chime in on a loddy-daaa kind of BS opinion that appears to walk right on the line of really owning up to the fucker that you are. You are a scared feeble fascist, eat shit and get mauled by a wild pack of stinky javelinas.
@10: There’s also safety if that’s a concern (or not) you’d like to address.
It’s disappointing that WIAA voted to continue to deny women and girls the right to fair competition in athletic events. But girls will get that right back eventually, when they sue for discrimination under title IX.
Gender affirming care is not effective health care. Trans activist and attorney Chase Strangio was clear in testimony before the Supreme Court that gender affirming care does not reduce suicidality. It’s not safe health care either, owing to the damage done to one’s reproductive system.
I’m glad to see Mayor Harrell has kept up the homeless sweeps. However, the homelessness situation will not improve until we implement involuntary hospitalization to provide mental health care and drug treatment.
You only have to hold out a little longer on the wealth tax Fergie. Good job so far. Also, you aren’t going to allow Washingtonians to be forced out of their homes due to property tax increases, are you?
Our Mail-in ballots do not require a stamp.
https://youtu.be/kln_bIndDJg
Big mood supertramp logical song
LOL at “…the homelessness situation will not improve until we implement involuntary hospitalization to provide mental health care and drug treatment.”
That shit would cost money, son. Yet I’ve noticed you don’t like raisin’ taxes.
“because handing over your biometric data to the government in this dystopian hellscape? Yeah, hard pass.”
Regardless of whether or not Prop 1 passes, the Feds (most notably the FBI) will still get that data as WSP will step back into its primary role for King County (just like they do currently for every other county). And bonus, a no vote will also necessitate additional funding for jurisdictions like SPD as they once again need to stand up their own systems for collecting and sharing this data.
Unless your argument is based on aversion to property tax, a no vote will in no way impact any federal agency.
For those interested, the Seattle Times has an excellent article on AFIS – https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/king-county-voters-will-decide-on-fingerprint-id-system-used-to-solve-crimes/
@19 – we are spending plenty on tiny house villages. Close them and use the funding for involuntary treatment. Easy peasy.
@21: It couldn’t be further from easy-peasy.
https://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/Homelessness/THV-Code-of-Conduct-2021.pdf
https://www.hca.wa.gov/assets/program/fact-sheet-involuntary-treatment-act.pdf
@22: From your first URL:
“DRUGS AND ALCOHOL
“1. No alcohol, drugs (including marijuana) are allowed in any public spaces within the Village, or
the surrounding area.
“2. No open containers of alcohol are allowed in any of public spaces within the Village. Possession
of an open container of alcohol will be sufficient proof of public drinking.”
Have we any proof this has ever been enforced?
Tiny home villages are run like, Lord of the Flies. Tell me again how well that worked out.
@23: do we have any proof it hasn’t been?
my points are:
1. WBB is a Trumpist ding dong.
2. Homelessness is complicated.
3. Involuntary Commitment of drug users and the mentally ill is complicated.
@25: You’re the one claiming the policy is relevant. If it’s not enforced, then it’s not relevant. Burden of proof rests upon you here.
WBB doesn’t have any idea how much drug treatment costs.
How come females in male sports isn’t an issue? Riddle me that.
@14: Recent changes in the editorial and writing staff have led to readers’ hope of a re-appraisal by the Stranger of the Stranger’s long-held political positions. Said positions have since been rejected repeatedly by Seattle’s voters, providing another incentive for the Stranger’s re-appraisal. Each of these events, and especially both of them together, could easily explain the increase in commenters here.
The Stranger’s writers do not consider themselves to be liberals. They consider themselves to be progressives, well to the left of liberals. Anyone looking for liberals at the Stranger should check the comments, not the headline posts.