Look, I’d love to assure you that we’re not living in hell. But let’s be honest, can anyone really tell the difference at this point?
Flooding the Zone: Trump’s attacks on the less than 1% of transgender people in the U.S. continue unabated. Yesterday, he signed an executive order ending gender-affirming care for youth. For a deeper dive into how harmful this order is, check out this piece by The Stranger’s Vivian McCall. The language in this order is wild, friends. My partner can’t get over their claim that there are “countless children begging to grasp the horrifying tragedy that they will never be able to nurture their children through breastfeeding.” You know, a totally common childhood dream! Court challenges have already begun, with more expected to follow. This is a good time to remember that “flooding the zone” is literally Stephen Miller’s strategy on domestic policy. The point is to overwhelm us with extreme actions, so we’re spread too thin to respond to everything.
Fork in the Road: Trump continues his agenda to destabilize and dismantle the federal workforce. On Tuesday, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management emailed over 2 million federal employees, giving them the option to resign by February 6. The email warned that most agencies would be downsized, with many workers furloughed or reclassified to “at-will” status—essentially making them easy to fire! The message, with its echoes of McCarthyism, emphasized that remaining employees must be “reliable, loyal, and trustworthy” to the Trump administration—a plan that was clearly stated in Project 2025. The text of the email was strikingly similar to the one Elon Musk sent to Twitter (now X) employees when he took over the platform. And, as we all know, look how well that has turned out!
Crypto Capitol: This morning, Trump Media, the parent company of Truth Social, announced its expansion into financial services. The new fintech venture, branded Truth.fi, will focus on investments in Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and more. Donald Trump indirectly owns 114,750,000 shares of the company, held in a revocable trust. Truth.fi follows the launch of Trump’s grifty shitcoin, a cryptocurrency with no utility, that debuted just in time to cash in before the Inauguration and resulted in on-paper gains of billions. From Trump-branded boots to “God Loves America” Bibles, to memecoins—scammers gonna scam. If only Trump’s dad had told him he loved him.
This Family Fight Beats Yours: Caroline Kennedy, the only surviving child of President John F. Kennedy, aired the famous family’s dirty laundry in a searing letter to select Senators. She called her cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr. a “predator,” unfit to be the nation’s health secretary. Thanks to Caroline, we can add to the growing list of Kennedy-related images. We already had driving with a whale skull on car and dumping a dead bear into Central Park; now we have “he put baby chickens and mice in the blender.” Totally not serial killer vibes, right? Lawmakers will question Kennedy at his confirmation hearings today and tomorrow, but given that they passed Pete Hegeseth, there’s little reason to believe Kennedy won’t squeak by—even with his pro-choice, anti-vaxx, HIV-denialist leanings.
Weather: Our streak of 40-degree days continues, and as the late, great Stringer Bell would say “Ain’t nobody got nothing to say about a 40-degree day.” It’ll be partly cloudy throughout the day, with a high of 45 and a low of around 35 degrees. It’ll be dry for the next two days but expect rain to return on Friday and last through the weekend.
Top Cop Shuffle: Seattle’s police chief carousel keeps spinning, and today, Sue Rahr officially grabs her complimentary tote bag and steps off. Rahr temporarily replaced the embattled Adrian Diaz who has a pending $10 million discrimination lawsuit against the city. Up next: Shon Barnes, straight from the bustling crime capital of… Madison, Wisconsin. He’ll officially start tomorrow. New face, same machine. Nothing changes.
Tacoma Police Chief Out: SPD isn’t the only police department experiencing upheaval at the top. Tacoma’s police chief Avery Moore is out, wrapping up a two-year stint with a resignation letter full of warm fuzzies and a track record that includes a $1,000 international phone bill scandal. City leaders act surprised, but the police union says he’s been MIA for two months. Another chief down, another long search ahead, and the same myriad problems waiting for the next one.
Closing the Clergy Loophole: Washington lawmakers are once again trying to close the loophole that lets clergy keep child abuse confessions secret, but the Catholic Church is digging in, crying “religious freedom” while kids stay at risk. The bill would finally make priests mandatory reporters, but opponents claim forcing them to choose between the law and excommunication is unconstitutional. Same fight, different year—meanwhile, children keep paying the price.
Starbucks CEO Rolling in it: In yet another sign that we’re living through a new gilded age, Starbucks’ new CEO Brian Nikol raked in a jaw-dropping $96 million in just four months because, you know, union-busting and ensuring no one can use the bathroom in one of your stores without making a purchase is really hard work. Meanwhile, part of his deal ensures he stays cozy in Southern California, commuting to Seattle on the company dime, all while planning layoffs to “reduce complexity.” Nothing says leadership like cashing in while cutting jobs. It must be that premium roast hypocrisy.
Council Clash Over Stadium Housing: In case you missed it last week, Seattle’s City Council brawled over a plan to allow housing near the stadiums, with Council President Sara Nelson fast-tracking a proposal critics say is a handout to billionaire Chris Hansen. Supporters call it an economic boost, while opponents, including the Port of Seattle, argue it threatens industrial jobs and public safety. The meeting hit peak chaos when Councilmember Bob Kettle lost his temper over a vague suggestion he wasn’t thinking for himself. Yes, nothing says “independent leadership” like a full-scale public meltdown.
Candidate for King County D5 Seat: Steffanie Fain, a trustee at Harborview Medical Center, announced her candidacy for King County Council District 5 on Tuesday. She is aiming to replace Dave Upthegrove, who vacated the seat after becoming Public Lands Commissioner. Fain’s website says her campaign will focus on public safety, homelessness, and affordability, with a core principle of “compassionate accountability.” While she is running to permanently fill the seat, King County Executive Dow Constantine recently selected three finalists to serve the remainder of Upthegrove’s term.
Alright, if your brain needs a little palate cleanser might I recommend Great Migrations: A People on the Move? It’s a brand-new, four-part documentary series from the one and only Henry Louis Gates Jr., the same guy who brought us Finding Your Roots (which, by the way, makes you feel terrible about not knowing the name of your great-grandparents).
@40 “divide the side you claim to support.”
Conservative Democrats (so-called moderates) are not my side. I oppose most of their neoliberal and neoconservative programs. I vote for them during presidentials only because I don’t have a choice but I’ll do everything to break up the 2 party system. Don’t expect me to not oppose policies I am dead set against because I will. If they don’t want the vote of the left they should tell us but be aware it doesn’t come for free.
“we’re all supposed to naively believe that you are what you purport to be”
and who the fuck are you? I don’t care to be honest.
@47 fair enough but at least I had a voice. Not sure what you really gain by sitting on the sidelines letting someone make the decisions for you.
Phoebe from Wallingford on Jan 21:
“The two genders order is most refreshing to common sense and science. Doesn’t negate gender affirming care and isn’t transphobic. Indeed, the origin of trans is going from one gender to the other.”
Feebs, have you eaten your hat yet? If not, one can be provided.
@51 “at least I had a voice”
With regard to Presidential general elections I disagree with this too. I (and presumably you) live in WA which is reliably Blue. Our delegates were going to Kamala no matter what. But, given the national popular vote is irrelevant to the outcome, withholding my vote contributed to Kamala embarrassingly losing that too, which made my voice heard symbolically without costing anyone anything.
@54 so you voted for everything but president then? If that makes you feel better I guess. I don’t think Kamala or the Dems are losing sleep on that though.
@54 I vote third party for President to try to get them eligible for federal funds. And I’m very confident the Dems are losing sleep over their first popular vote loss in two decades
I think the election proved that we have a childish electorate: The paste eaters who voted for trump, the toddlers who threw tantrums because Harris wasn’t exactly everything they wanted in a candidate, and the sullen teens who are too cool to vote because they “don’t do politics”
We always get the president we deserve. When we act like children, we get a manchild.
https://youtu.be/5JdS-sSKsBc?feature=shared
You all give voters too much credit. Nobody won or lost because of Gaza or Israel or any other international news. He won because he promised poor dumb people cheaper food and to get rid of the scary trans people and they all believed him. He’s the jock that promised to put chocolate milk in the drinking fountain if he became class president and over half the country was like “Fuck yeah!”
yeah but
our chocolate
milk cow’s got bovine
spongiform encephalopathy
and Inspections ‘cost too much!’
so we’re getting what we
‘deserve’ long and hard
and OBV we do NOT
deserve our little
Democracy
specially after
Selling It OUT from
under the Electorate.
thanks
for Clarifying.
@32
Lie #1: “As far as “…efforts to squash criticism after a colossal failure…”, the absolute refusals here by the Stranger and supportive commenters to criticize Sawant certainly qualify.”
No commenter has refused to criticize Sawant
Lie #2 : “As @29 notes, there’s been a dragging of the goalposts from pre-election”
There has been no shifting of goal posts. Gaza was discussed a lot more when there was a chance to influence the campaign as one could expect
Lie #3: “All Gaza All The Time, now to healthcare and the economy, “
Tensorna himself has more comments about Gaza than anybody else and the economy was discussed a number of times before the election
Lie #4: “by the crowd formerly known by their ad hominem, “Genocide Joe”.”
The only reference to “genocide Joe” in the comments before the election were made by CapnBlinky, ASaxman5537, dvs99, and Budhamat. None of whom are part of “the crowd”
@ab — not 100%:
I called jBiden genocide
joe numerously but it didn’t
seem to Make any Difference
at All to joe’s inexplicable passion
for OUR aiding & abetting bibi’s ‘little’
‘Genocide~Lite’ as The Wormtongue always INSISTS*
*ain’t it
Grande, wormmy
just pullin’ the Shite
outta one’s arsehole
and stating it as FACT?
it’s
quite
Freeing
isn’t it? who Knew!?
A. well
You did.
“No
commenter
has refused to
criticize Sawant”
oops!
wormmy
DEMANDED
I call out Kshama
for fucking MONTHS
but I just let him stew in
his own bile rather than giving
him the Satisfaction he so Cravenly
craved. fuck Him
and his pedantic
DEMANDS for
Purity, also.
now
Obv. he’ll
claim you Entire
Comment is nothing
but LIES! but that’s just
Wormtongue ‘doing The Worm’
pay it no
Nevermind:
he’s got Nothing
but Time to lie his way
to having The Very Last Word.
@58 then Dems are stupid for not also promising chocolate milk water fountains, and the best prom venue ever, if that’s what the public wanted. There’s no way you can spin this where it isn’t the people whose job is to win elections’ fault they lost the election. Not to mention “cheaper food” is a legitimate concern that predictably should have been better addressed.
Oh and THANK YOU Hannah!
for NOT putting djt’s
Horrific visage
atop derr
Schlogg
tho that Hippo
is, in fact, an
Adequate
reminder.
@60: As kristo’ himself just admitted @62, he refused to criticize Sawant when given the chance. @61, he admitted to using “Genocide Joe” here. So, at least two of my statements which you have called “Lies” were, in fact, completely true.
So, ‘bob, are you ignorant, illiterate, or are you yourself a liar?
wowzer
derr Wormtongue
calling another Schlogger
a Liar.
omg
wormmy
peeps with
any Sense’ve
blocked out All
memories of your
vapid vile vituperations
for that I cannot
blame ab but
Youself.
now
go back & fucking
COUNT how many times*
you the Wormtongue DEMANDED
I state Unequivocally & INSTANTANEOUSLY:
call out Kshama!
OR YOU’LL
STOMP
YOUR
foot!
tho it was Entertaining
af, I Must apologize
to tS for Allowing
it to continue &
his incessant
Whinging
so Nasty
to wit-
ness.
horrific
to witness.
apologies
*twenty-five?
thirty!?
Fifty.
@62: OK, that’s an interesting way to say, “tensor’s been laughing at my inability to criticize Sawant,” but given your proven abilities with the words, that’s probably about as close as you’ll get to describing what really happened. (Enjoy your bile.)
@67: You’re the one who helpfully provided evidence the statements ‘bob had called “Lies,” were actually true. Thank you for that; it saved me the searches.
And, I happen to think that anyone who helped to elect Trump should be criticized for it, yes. Have you a problem with that? If so, what?
@61 I used 3 different search engines and found only the commenters I listed. Rats!
Anyhow, you are hardly the ‘crowd’ tensorna claimed to be addressing. Typical misrepresentation on his part.
@68 “anyone who helped to elect Trump should be criticized”
That would be you for pushing pro-genocide policies that were immensely unpopular among Democrats and independents
@69: “Anyhow, you are hardly the ‘crowd’ tensorna claimed to be addressing. Typical misrepresentation on his part.”
Wow, that was pathetically weak, even by your feeble standards. You’re really claiming your clear and unequivocal statement, “No commenter has refused to criticize Sawant”, magically doesn’t apply to kristo’ because you can read my mind? And your assertion of your magic mind-reading ability is evidence of “misrepresentation” by someone other than yourself? Sad.
“That would be you for pushing pro-genocide policies…”
You don’t actually own the term, “genocide,” no matter how many times you implicitly claim that you do.
“…immensely unpopular among Democrats and independents…”
You know who voted in the August 2024 Congressional primary elections in Washington State? “Democrats and independents.” And what did the Stranger’s conclude, based upon how those Democrats and independents voted? “Gaza Isn’t Driving Votes.”
Evidence from the Democratic Convention didn’t exactly support your claim, either:
‘“There were more reporters than protesters,” observed Bennett Weiss. He was there selling Gaza-related buttons, including one that, he said, describes himself: “Self-Ambivalent Jew Against Zionism.”
…
‘As the smaller-than-expected group assembled in Union Park near the United Center, hundreds of signs reading “Victory to the Palestinian Resistance” were left stacked and unused. (They were the work of the “Freedom Road Socialist Organization.”) The protesters had their street puppets and their giant bloody hands. They denounced “Killer Kamala” along with Genocide Joe.
…
‘Only 100 people attended a protest march on the DNC by the “Poor People’s Army,” and that was after they delayed the start by 90 minutes. With Green Party candidate Jill Stein in attendance, their announced intention was to make “citizen’s arrests” of Democrats attending the convention and to charge them with “crimes against humanity.”’
https://archive.ph/Ix73g
(Thanks to commenter HW3, https://www.thestranger.com/news/2024/08/19/79655571/not-another-bomb-rally-pressures-democrats-to-listen-to-their-base-on-palestine/comments/61)
Little doubt you have a poll, bought and paid for by an anti-Israel group, which supports your claim, right?
@70 Your claim was that the anti-genocide ‘crowd’ in these pages (not anywhere else) abundantly used ‘genocide joe’. I think it’s fair to say that it is a misrepresentation since we are talking about one person among other people who don’t fit your description. Same for criticizing Sawant.
Given your rhetoric for the last year, I can say that you pushed genocide without claiming to own the term.
“Gaza Isn’t Driving Votes.”
which turned out to be false since Gaza is the first item among those who voted for Biden and didn’t vote in 2024 according to a YouGov poll.
It is a YouGov poll so make yourself look stupid again by claiming that it isn’t valid because you don’t like the organization who paid for it without you ever being able to point at problems with the methodology..
@71: “Your claim was that the anti-genocide ‘crowd’ in these pages (not anywhere else) abundantly used ‘genocide Joe’.”
Quote(s), please.
“…we are talking about one person among other people who don’t fit your description. Same for criticizing Sawant.”
You stated as fact, “No commenter has refused to criticize Sawant”. As we have seen, that statement is totally false.
You also stated as fact, “The only reference to “genocide Joe” in the comments before the election were made by CapnBlinky, ASaxman5537, dvs99, and Budhamat.” I’m sorry if your dog ate your Google, but finding quotes from both the Stranger’s writers, and supportive commenters, name-calling Biden as “Genocide Joe,” is not difficult:
“Obviously, Genocide Joe and the flop insurrectionist won their respective primaries…”
(https://www.thestranger.com/slog-am/2024/03/14/79427222/slog-am-nonbinary-teen-nex-benedicts-death-ruled-a-suicide-bernie-sanders-introduces-four-day-work-week-bill-and-frank-chopp-will-not-seek)
“As the primary numbers come in for Genocide Joe and Traitor Trump, the numbers are pathetic.”
xina on May 22, 2024 at 9:25 AM
“Genocide Joe has earned his moniker now.”
CDizzle on May 16, 2024
So, only half your claims I was lying turned out to be based entirely on completely false statements you made. (Why so low?)
Let’s talk about the methodology of YouGov’s polls for the deceptively-named IMEU. I don’t know if this is the one you were referring to, but from their “Biden 2020 Voters Who Did Not Vote for Harris” poll (https://static1.squarespace.com/static/667c26da581c496ab9d4df6e/t/6787dae0e14e6a3c881d40da/1736956640764/IMEU_Jan_2025_Biden-non_Harris_toplines.pdf), literally the first fact listed is, “Online sample of 604 voters fielded from December 20 to January 07, 2025.”
From the Gallup Poll organization, 1997: “The current US adult population in the continental United States is 187 million. The typical sample size for a Gallup poll which is designed to represent this general population is 1,000 national adults.” (https://www.janda.org/c10/Lectures/topic05/GallupFAQ.htm)
So, the IMEU poll’s sample size is about half of what it would have needed to be. In 1997.
There’s also the little detail of the entire sample size being “on-line”. By age group, the most reliable voters are senior citizens. Compared to other age groups, do you believe they are more likely, or less likely, to be “on-line”?
And, of course, there’s the matter of the actual poll questions, e.g. “How much do you [agree or disagree] with the following statement: The $18 billion in weapons the U.S. provided to Israel over the last year, funded by taxpayer dollars, would be better spent lowering costs and supporting Americans dealing with inflation and struggling to afford basics like housing and healthcare.” Given the inherently deceptive nature of the IMEU, I’m actually amazed they didn’t load that one any harder.
So, a poll of the type you keep citing asked a non-representative, too-small sample of voters a bunch of loaded questions. And — waddaya know! — that poll’s results contradicted how real voters had behaved in real elections.
In the immortal words of Homer Simpson, “Now who’s stupid?”
@60: Just returned here to note you took a page from the classic Stalinist playbook, falsely accusing critics of wrongdoing of that very wrongdoing, whilst carefully not mentioning the actual wrongdoers: ‘The only reference to “genocide Joe” in the comments before the election were made by CapnBlinky, ASaxman5537, dvs99, and Budhamat [sic].’
These commenters, of course, all cited the phrase to criticize others’ uses of it; they did not use it in earnest themselves. Yet, you somehow couldn’t find even the headline posts at the Stranger which used it in earnest, or kristo’s multiple enthusiastic uses of it. Your dedication to attacking critics and stifling dissent would have made the great 20th Century totalitarians proud.
But hey — at least, as a left-winger aping Stalin, your actions didn’t directly support Horseshoe Theory! (For once…)