Good Morning! You wanted more rain, right? According to the National Weather Service (which might just be a guy holding a coat hanger on the roof at this point), we’re looking at rain until the sun goes down. So plan on that classic 10 p.m. walk for some fresh air.
But until then, let’s dive into some news.
Students Under Attack: Over the last few days, the Trump Administration has been quietly revoking student visas from dozens of students around the country—including five here at UW. Previously, if a visa had been revoked, students have been allowed to stay and complete their studies, but the Department of Homeland Security ordered the students to leave the country immediately. The Seattle Times wrote: “Some students have been targeted over pro-Palestinian activism. Others have been left wondering how they ran afoul of the government.” No student should have to worry about passing a blind litmus test with a President’s bruised ego in order to finish their degree.
It pays to install two of your own Supreme Court Justices. Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump could continue to deport Venezuelan migrants using a wartime powers act—for now—on a technicality. Trump has tried to argue that the Alien Enemies Act allows him to literally send migrants to a massive, brutal El Salvadorian prison. And so far, none of the Supreme Court justices have addressed the constitutionality of that. Instead, they overturned a lower court’s decision to block the deportations because the lawyer filed this case in the wrong court. (Apparently, the case should have been filed in Texas, not DC.) Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson all dissented, but Jackson threw some extra shade: “At least when the court went off base in the past, it left a record so posterity could see how it went wrong,” she wrote, citing the 1944 decision by the court upholding the internment of Japanese Americans during WW II. “But make no mistake: We are just as wrong now as we have been in the past, with similarly devastating consequences.”
Bait and Switch: In January 2023, the Biden admin launched an app called CBP One, which allowed migrants to make appointments at the border to make a claim for asylum status. It was meant to increase the likelihood that people would choose legal entry methods, and more than 900,000 people used the app to enter the US in 2023 and 2024. But yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security revoked the “legal” status of all migrants in the United States who were allowed to enter the country using the CBP One app, encouraging anyone who used it to “self-deport.” “It’s time for you to abandon the United States,” the Department of Homeland Security wrote to one Honduran family that entered the US last year. Sounds about right.
Trouble in Paradise: Elon is having a meltdown about Trump’s sweeping tariffs, which makes sense, considering two of his massive Tesla plants are based in China. He spent the weekend lashing out at one of Trump’s advisors, Peter Navarro, on social media (“A PhD in Econ from Harvard is a bad thing, not a good thing,” Musk wrote) and according to the Washington Post, also made direct appeals to Trump to, well, stop stoking a trade war. You made your bed, bud.
A Little Bounce: The stock market did show a glimmer of hope this morning, as suggestions of negotiations floated in the air—in case there was any question that the stock market is just horoscopes for rich people. I wouldn’t look at your 401k just yet, though.
No AI for Genocide: Last week, in a very public display of badassery, Microsoft software engineer Ibtihal Aboussad disrupted the company’s 50th-anniversary celebration—which was being livestreamed out of the company’s campus in Redmond, WA—during a presentation about AI Companions by Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman. Aboussad threw a keffiyeh on stage before shouting: “You claim that you care about using AI for good, but Microsoft sells AI weapons to the Israeli military…Fifty-thousand people have died and Microsoft powers this genocide in our region.” Another employee, Vaniya Agrawal, interrupted a later part of the event, and Aboussad followed the demonstration with a company-wide email detailing the company’s involvement with the Israeli military. According to the advocacy group No Azure for Apartheid, Aboussad and Agrawal were both fired by the company yesterday “for willful misconduct, disobedience or willful neglect of duty.” And for the icing on top, the company wanted to make sure the protesters knew that their feelings were hurt: “It is also concerning that you have not apologized to the company,” they wrote, “and in fact you have shown no remorse for the effect that your actions have had and will have.” Aboussad’s response: “What do we have to apologize for?”
ICYMI: Earlier this year, an investigation by the Associated Press found that Microsoft and OpenAI products were used to track and target people in Gaza. “This is the first confirmation we have gotten that commercial AI models are directly being used in warfare,” a former OpenAI engineer told the AP. “The implications are enormous for the role of tech in enabling this type of unethical and unlawful warfare going forward.”
Dire News: From the company that brought you wooly mice: We now have three real, living dire wolf pups, back from extinction after some 12,000 years. One of the researchers told Rolling Stone: “We’re sitting there in a vet clinic, exhausted from all these overnight feeds, and then suddenly: howls. And you remember, holy shit, that’s the first fucking time in 12,000 years that this species has howled.” My Jurassic Park senses are tingling, but I also really wanna pet that wolf.
Looking for one million taxpayer dollars? SPD Captain Eric Greening’s got it. That’s how much the City of Seattle paid out in a settlement to him, PubliCola reported yesterday. Greening sued the City and (now former) Chief Adrian Diaz last year, claiming that the chief had demoted him after he reported discriminatory practices in the department. Last year, KUOW reported that eight officers had sued for alleged discrimination at the department, and according to PubliCola, over the last two city budget cycles, the city has put aside a total of $21 million to defend the city and pay out judgments in lawsuits. In case you’re wondering where your money’s going.
D2 Race Filling Up: Union shop steward and City of Seattle building inspector Jamie Fackler announced his run for Tammy Morales’s former city council seat in The Stranger this morning. He’s a housing guy—supports the Seattle Social Housing Developer, wants to facilitate more multi-family construction, and wants to use union labor to do it.
Seattle Says Hands Off: Tens of thousands of people showed up at Seattle’s Hands Off rally on Saturday, and we have the video to prove it. Don’t let the other (Sinclair-owned) media outlets tell you it was “hundreds.”
Just something to think about:
Good for Microsoft. Correct me if I’m wrong, but Microsoft isn’t selling AI weaponry specifically to Israel. Israel is simply buying a contractual arraignment to use the cloud computing power of Azure and its AI features, which Hamas could do as well.
Regarding “It pays to install two of your own Supreme Court Justices.” I’m reading “Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson all dissented,…” This gives the impression that the vote was 6-3, no?
Trump appointed three Supreme Court justices.
@2: That seemed odd to me as well. Kudos to Amy Coney Barrett for having a sense of direction.
ACB is
not Yet
Bought.
The Onion or Needling headline almost writes itself: “Manager of Employee Fired for Protesting Wishes Employee Had Shown Similar Passion for Job.”
If either of the 2 Microsoft workers are here on a work visa deal, I’m sure they will be tossed out of the country before Memorial day. Keffiyeh and all.
@1 ya how was Microsoft supposed to know Israel would use their AI tech to bomb civilians in Gaza instead of, like, making Ghiblified images for social media
“But make no mistake:
We are just as wrong now as
we have been in the past, with
similarly devastating consequences.”
— Ketanji Brown Jackson, Associate
Justice, United States Supreme Court
and (hopefully!), Our Next Chief Justice
Those pups are not Dire Wolves. This is just a PR stunt, using CRISPR to insert a handful of genes into regular wolves to claim they ‘resurrected’ an extinct species. Pure bullshit.
They may be cute as fuck, but they are not Dire Wolves.
‘Evelyn A Modified Dog’
Frank Zappa
SCOTUS just made another ruling in favor of the Trump administration – 16,000 probationary employees that Trump fired will not be immediately reinstated.
Draining the swamp. Yes, this is exactly what I voted for.
Regarding the “dire” wolf cubs: Not really https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/04/08/dire-puppies/
Actual Dire Wolf or not, the question begs to be asked: can I pet that dog?
@12, By MAGA type’s definition of draining the swamp, firing probationary employees would not be draining anything.
When they talk about the swamp they refer to senior career civil servants of the administrative state that tell their political-appointee-masters, regardless of administration, “You can’t do that,” because it violates some law, court precedent, or Code of Federal Regulation. They are the ones that go to Congress, some Inspector General (are their any left?), or file a whistleblower suit, if the political appointee insists on doing the President’s bidding, laws, courts, and regulations be damned.
The probationary employees are the bottom of the totem poll. They empty the trash bins at Mt. Rainier, take and process Social Security applications, process V.A. Medical eligibility and claims, etc. Front-line worker bees.
So, for just for the sake of argument, assuming their is a swamp to be drained, DOGE is targeting everything but the swamp.
@15 – How did those career “civil servants” start out? As probies. ‘Nuff said.
I consider myself MAGA faithful and this looks a whole lot like swamp draining to me.
“Everything is a conspiracy when you don’t know how anything works”.
bless you for trying, @15.
@16. Congrats, acknowledging that you’re in a cult is a good first step.
@16 – Caution. There’s now a schism starting between the MAGA faithful and the Donald faithful.
@9 kristofarian: +1 Spot on, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Associate Justice, United States Supreme Court! Amen to her hopefully becoming Chief Justice. Hopefully during my lifetime.
@18 CDizzle: Unfortunately, he’s proud of his cult. Baby Doofus’s head is so far up his butt he can’t see how far downhill he and his fellow MAGA lemmings are already falling. All he knows anymore is ‘Heil, Shitler!’—even if he ends up buried six feet under in his own feces. Some easily duped idiots are beyond hope.
@19 Phoebe in Wallingford: Would this schism between MAGA faithful and the Donald faithful have anything to do with KKKorporate billionaire loyalists suddenly losing a fat chunk of their retirement savings in plunging stocks? Did they really think the draconian cuts, trade wars, and idiotic tariffs wouldn’t negatively impact them, too?
Actor / comedian / singer Eddie Murphy, as Billy Ray Valentine in Trading Places (1983) summed it up best:
“You know, it occurred to me that the best way to hurt rich people is to turn them into poor people.”
But I’ll be gosh darned if the insanely rich and corrupt are already shooting themselves in the foot, in their desperate race to the bottom—out of sheer pettiness and greed. Now they’re infighting against each other, like sewer rats in a trap. All for that last NYSE dollar.
@20: Exactly. The chorus of discontent is led by Elon himself, the WSJ, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Chuck Grassley, Ron Johnson — it’s growing.
I’ve read articles that put the percentage of grey wolf dna in those ‘dire wolves’ at anywhere from 99.5% to 99.9%
Suffice it to say that dire wolves are not back from extinction anyway.
Humans are nowhere near smart enough to be messing with this kind of technology.
Delete Microsoft
Really can’t wait until Werewolf Babies are brought back from the dead
@21, None of those people have any power to change his mind because they have either surrendered their constitutional duties to the executive branch and/or need a presidential pardon to save their own ass when we get to the truth and reconciliation phase, assuming they had the guts to do it in the first place (we wouldn’t be here if they did). I have no doubt they’re all freaking out for allowing a gameshow host to destroy the economy and our country’s standing on the global stage but the damage is already done. Whether they speak up or go down with the ship, they’re fucked.