City Council Votes Yes on Surveillance State: I begin today’s news not with the weather, which is omnipresent, but with Seattle’s surveillance state, which also feels omnipresent, especially after our current city council voted 7-2 to expand SPD’s surveillance cameras. News Editor Vivian McCall will have more later today. Stay tuned.
Trump Wants to Watch Us, Too: The US Department of Justice sent a letter to Secretary of State Steve Hobbs “asking” Washington to hand over its voter database, including full names, addresses, birthdates, and driver’s license or partial Social Security numbers. Washington has 14 days to comply. The letter says the information must be sent via encrypted email to voting.section@usdoj.gov and also states, “Should further clarification be required, please contact Maureen Riordan at maureen.riordan2@usdoj.gov.” I have some questions, Maureen! For one, why do you hate democracy? Let’s all email Maureen with our questions!
May They Never Know Peace: Last night, protestors crashed Trump’s fancy steak dinner at a DC restaurant by yelling “Free DC! Free Palestine! Trump is the Hitler of our time!” I personally would’ve loved to hear them go a little harder on the Epstein material—after all, in his whackadoo rotted brain, comparisons to Hitler are complimentary—but maybe next time.
Trump confronted by protestors in a DC restaurant…
— The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social) September 9, 2025 at 5:43 PM
Now You’ve Pissed Off Poland: NATO shot down Russian drones that reportedly entered Poland’s airspace early this morning. The verdict’s still out on whether it was intentional or some kind of whoopsie on Russia’s part, but Poland’s prime minister Donald Tusk said Poland is at its “closest to open conflict since World War Two.” FUN!
Don’t Worry, Trump’s on It:
it took the president more than 12 hours to come up with this
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) September 10, 2025 at 8:19 AM
Speaking of Trump: His emergency order in DC expires tonight after Congress failed to extend it, but don’t get too excited. The National Guard and all those feds who are gardening and picking up litter will stay put for now, and AP says, “it’s not clear when that might end.”
That’s a WayNO From Me, Dog: lol I’m hilarious. Anyway, Waymo, the driverless car service, has arrived in the Pacific Northwest. Right now, the cars are not driverless—there are humans inside “making sure Waymo cars can adapt to area roadways, including in wet weather and across hilly terrain.” Waymo has not announced when they will fully launch the service, and, as GeekWire points out, “it will depend on when Washington state establishes regulations permitting such operations.”
Did a Bottle of Booze Write This? Yesterday, the Seattle Times published an op-ed that criticized the Washington Traffic Safety Commission’s new proposals to crack down on impaired driving. One idea being floated: Lowering the BAC limit from 0.08 to 0.05. It’s not a bad idea! We did a very scientific test! More importantly, after lowering the BAC in Utah, Utah reported a 20% decline in fatal crashes. But the Times’ op-ed worries that the new limit would penalize “moderate social drinkers while delivering only modest safety gains.” Whatever you say, bottle of Skyy Vodka.
We’re Goin’ to the Playoffs! The Storm beat the Golden State Valkyries and secured a spot in the WNBA playoffs! LFG!!!!! The first round starts Sunday.
In Other Exciting Sports News: Rough & Tumble announced they’re opening a second location! The women’s sports bar, founded by Jen Barnes, is set to take over the former Columbia City Ale House space in October. MORE KNIGHT’S CHEESE CURDS FOR THE PEOPLE!
OMG OMG OMG: Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star Frankie Taylor Paul is the next Bachelorette??? This is the perfect distracting disaster, and I can’t fucking wait.
And With That: I will leave you with a neighborhood crow update. Those birds are still biting my dog’s butt!!!
Who would ever guess that among the symptoms metastatic progressivism would be a self imposed race to outmatch Sulla with proscriptions? And though well and fun it may feel with each new category of people targeted by fatwa, there is one important difference between Sulla and the Luigi Left – he was in charge.
Those of you who are openly crowing about Mr. Kirk’s murder will surely be sad and sober very shortly, with what is coming.
@49: He was also a victim. The two things are not mutually exclusive.
He was more than comfortable with people losing their lives, including children, to gun violence and expressed that frequently. He felt their deaths were worth it in support of the 2nd Amendment.
I do not. Including his.
He didn’t believe in empathy and felt it caused a lot of harm.
He was an awful human being that didn’t care that others died because of policies he supported but he shouldn’t be dead.
I hope that clarifies my original comment for you.
@50: What exactly do you think is coming? People are shot and killed every single day in this country. There were lawmakers assassinated in their own homes only a few months ago, children in a church a week ago, teens in a high school today.
But THIS man’s death is a bridge too far for you? This man who felt deaths by gun violence were a reasonable exchange for his political position regarding the 2nd amendment?
So what exactly “is coming” kossack? And why hasn’t it come sooner?
Why did he and so many others have to die?
51: May I request further clarification from you? You said:
“He was more than comfortable with people losing their lives, including children, to gun violence and expressed that frequently. He felt their deaths were worth it in support of the 2nd Amendment.”
No, he was not more than comfortable with people losing their lives. But you are more than comfortable with extrapolating his position on the second amendment to equate being conformable with people losing their lives.
And you have the righteousness to pontificate “Why did he and so many others have to die?” (@50)
Maybe just the end of the day and this isn’t the real you…
@46 And here I was worried my subtle sarcasm might throw you.
But no, you addressed the outrage against those long dead.
@53: Charlie Kirk (2023): “I think it’s worth it to have a cost of unfortunately some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the 2nd Amendment. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.”
His words Cooli. And now he too is dead as part of what he felt was a prudent and rational deal.
It is neither.
It is a tragic irony.
“@50: What exactly do you think is coming? ”
I’m not @50, but what is coming is major civil unrest, the likes of which naive white-guilt Seattle liberals are totally unprepared for.
None of yall read “Black Twitter”, and it shows.
They fucking hate you
@56: Babe, you are not and never have been the voice of reason.
Oh and pretty sure Black Twitter hates you too. Xoxo
@58 – “Oh and pretty sure Black Twitter hates you too.”
That’s very obvious. You don’t have to be redundant and repeat what I wrote in a slightly different way.
@53, 57, etc
If Kirk had access to a patented Zenith T-4360 time freezing, reversal and mogrification device and were given the opportunity to freeze that bullet a moment before it struck him, and reverse time to go back and recant his positions on gun control in exchange for the opportunity to live out a full life, do you think he would?
@60 – I don’t respond to stupid nonsense, except to write that I don’t respond to stupid nonsense.
@59. Micropenis energy
Email sent to Maureen. Go Storm!
@62 – “Muh Dik!”
I’m seeing this comment @18, and assuming BabyGotBack follows through and disappears from these comment threads for good (and he’s not just hiding until the Epstein saga blows over), I’m going to claim my satirical comment yesterday as the last Slog comment in his oeuvre:
https://www.thestranger.com/slog-am-pm/2025/09/09/80233866/slog-am-trump-and-epsteins-wonderful-secret-is-back-city-hall-will-vote-on-more-surveillance-80000-acres-are-burning-in-washington-stat/comments/1
I think I now reserve my deepest contempt for barth who, in addition to feeding the trolls, appears committed to presenting a portrait of the mean-spirited, pathetic progressive who has nothing constructive or redeeming to contribute. I mean, that is one sick comment @36. At this point the most uplifting thing barth could do is to follow BrokeBackBaby’s lead.
55: An acknowledgment of a constitutional position on the 2nd amendment that gun deaths will inevitably occur as opposed to a complete ban, let’s say, is simply a logical assumption and is a far cry from “comfortable with people losing their lives”.
I think anyway. Have a beer.
was Kirk an ‘as ye
sow, so Too shall ye Reap’
sorta ‘Republican Jesus’ “Christian”?
ten’ll
getchya
Twenty he
put it to paper
or Electrons
As others have mentioned, Charlie Kirk himself had been very clear on this point:
“I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational. Nobody talks like this. They live in a complete alternate universe.”
[…]
“…having an armed citizenry comes with a price, and that is part of liberty.”
(https://www.newsweek.com/charlie-kirk-says-gun-deaths-worth-it-2nd-amendment-1793113)
Like @51, I disagree completely with Kirk’s statements on the necessity of gun deaths. His violent and unjust death was not part of any “prudent deal,” it was not “rational,” it will not protect anyone else’s liberty. It is every bit the utterly pointless tragedy every other innocent person’s shooting death is. As noted @55, Kirk’s clear expression of his wrongheaded beliefs make his death a tragedy full of irony, but a tragedy it remains.
@52 Given the reference to Sulla, the dictator who ended the Roman Republic in a bloody coup, I expect @50 means “what is coming” is that the current administration will use Kirk’s murder to justify an escalation in police state tactics, similar to how the Nazis used the Reichstag fire as pretext for the complete consolidation of power in the hands of the chancellor, and the suspension of the German constitution.
@66: Except that’s not what he said. He said that it was a prudent and rational deal.
And that is monstrous.
Again I will point out Kirk being an awful man doesn’t negate him being the victim of a terrible crime. The irony is that he was also the victim of his own monstrous ideology.
‘Charlie Kirk
spent his life‘s work
and all of his energy and time
targeting out-groups while arguing
for a world in which gun massacres would be easy
to enact, plentiful, and inevitable, and he became famous and
wealthy doing it, and we’re now not supposed to mention that because it’s not polite.’
–@A.R. Moxon
@juliusgoat.bsky.social
https://bsky.app/profile/juliusgoat.bsky.social/post/3lyjfvqrrtk2d
not to mention
for the past TWO Years
WE’ve been Arming bibi nutnyahoo
and Bombing the PISS outta Palestinians
does Political Violence
beget Political Violence?
what if it’s Nation States
doing the Murdering?
Or
do They
Somehow
get a Pass?
asking
for all those
who’ve Supported
bibi nutnayhoo and his
Genocidal War on Palestinians
for the LAST TWO FUCKING YEARS
or does That
Shit Happen
in a vacuum?
@61,
It’s a pretty straightforward hypothetical. A morally defensible stance should be sound to it’s advocate both as they’re advocating it, and with the benefit of hindsight. Obviously no sane person in his position would defend such a stance in hindsight, which is what makes it so utterly hypocritical and repugnant. I can understand why you’d be too chickenshit to address it.
@69. Approbare.
70: “The irony is that he was also the victim of his own monstrous ideology.”
If you find his ideology monsterous and say he was the victim of it, how is that different than saying he deserved it?
The Palestinians
killed in Gaza today
matter at least 72 times
more than Charlie Kirk’s death.
https://bsky.app/profile/caitoz.bsky.social/post/3lyjph6dwnk2i
Death toll
in Gaza since dawn
on Wednesday rises to 72
https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/death-toll-gaza-dawn-wednesday-rises-72
Westerners Have
A Moral Responsibility
To Help Curb The Empire’s Abuses
We
have
a responsibility to
oppose the mass murder, tyranny,
theft and abuse which is being imposed up-
on the rest of the world by the nations in which we live.
https://bsky.app/profile/caitoz.bsky.social/post/3lydc7xrddk26
On this day in particular
I would like to express my
sincere condolences to the families
of everyone in Gaza who’ve been massacred
by bombs and bullets every single day for the last
two years with the facilitation of the US government
and cheered on by wealthy Republican pundits
[and right-wing psycophants
right Here at the fucking
Stranger, as well]
https://bsky.app/profile/caitoz.bsky.social/post/3lyjc5v6gns2f
–@Caitlin Johnstone
@caitoz.bsky.social
@73 – I don’t respond to stupid nonsense, except to write that I don’t respond to stupid nonsense.
76: Multiple things can matter at the same time.
@75: “If you find his ideology monsterous and say he was the victim of it, how is that different than saying he deserved it?”
Because nobody deserves it, not even the persons who say it can be justified. Anyone who, like Kirk, says a justification exists for such shootings is simply wrong, full stop.
As you’ve repeatedly shown, you’re in flat-out denial about what Kirk had clearly said. I hope you now will acknowledge both what he clearly said, and how completely wrong it was — and is.
Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.
Deuteronomy 32:35
Blame the cats. They got me up at this hour.
@78 Multiple things CAN matter at the same time which is why we shouldn’t allow Charlie Kirks death to overshadow the fact that our president is a literal child molester and fucked actual children on an island with his creepy best friend. Thanks for the reminder.
I feel the same level of empathy toward Charlie Kirk that I felt toward The Grizzly Man who spent his entire life literally poking bears and then got eaten by fucking bears.
@82
Charlie
(NO relation
to Charlie Manson)
would’ve Loved your
reaction to his recent Demise:
Charlie
thought
“Empathy”
most Scornful
79
Because nobody deserves it, not even the persons who say it can be justified. .
Just wondering if this includes ideologies you agree with. You don’t seem to be bothered by either random killings of civilians or targeted assassinations, at least in the name of Zionism..
@84 — Fawking BINGO:
my Bet’s on Conditional
Assassinations being
TOTES Justified:
BUT HAMAS!
BUT HAMAS!
BUT HAMAS!
PLUS:
we just
GOTTA Keep
bibi tF Outta Prison!@84 — Fawking BINGO:
my Bet’s on Conditional
Assassinations* being
TOTES Justified:
BUT HAMAS!
BUT HAMAS!
BUT HAMAS!
PLUS:
we just
GOTTA Keep
bibi tF Outta Prison!
eagerly await those
imminent Justifications.
*not to fucking Mention
random killings of civilians.
@85
wow!
a double
Double?
oops.
@84: I wasn’t aware Utah Valley University was in a combat zone, and/or had leaders of a U.S.-designated terrorist group hiding in it.
Thanks for that information, and, I simply must say, you always really inform Slog with your original and fascinating insights!
(Have you anything on how sheeps’ bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes? Asking for a royal friend.)
@87
well-Deflected,
Wormtongue!
livin’ Down
to your
Name
yet again.
how’s that
Ceasefire
comin’?