Durkan is a republican with only 3/4 the calories.

We'd be better off with the City run by cats at this point.

So far tear gas use at the border has reached 29 deployments in 2018, breaking the previous record of 27 deployments in 2013.

However, Trump is way behind the pepper spray record of 151 deployments also set in 2013. Trump is only up to 43 with just a month left to go. I don't think he is going to make it.

Holy shit! 47,000 acres burned and only 8 million in damages? Sounds like a case of externalities not being accounted for.

Jenny Durkan signing the budget in front of a fire truck. Man that is such classic politicking it hurts. When I am mayor, I'll be signing bills in front of homeless encampments. POM 2021!

Maybe it's because they realized tiny houses are a stupid fucking idea, and would inevitably end up a resembling a tiny landfill.

@3, if only we knew who was President in 2013......

~8 A micro-penis tantrum, here? On a blog? Sheesh. You wingnuts.

@8:

Why stop short? Just admit that what you REALLY want is to see piles of bullet-ridden corpses stacked up at the border like so much cord wood, amiright?

Wow. I come here to rant about Durkin and her Big Internet backers (and voice my regular support for Municipally owned broadband), and then I see an invasion of wingnuts wanting more refugee gassing and rubber bullets. Crazy.

Has Charles discontinued writing about the local residential real estate market? I was hopeful he might weigh in on the recent market declines, since he was previously so adamant that what we are seeing now would never, ever happen.

@7 its not whataboutism if they are the exact same action, but two different reactions.

@13.... No. Anytime you try to justify poor behavior by pointing to past acts of others, that is "whataboutism". Xenophobia is stated policy of this Whitehouse. (Recent) Past Presidents never cheer-led the racism behind the xenophobia.

If the reaction to border enforcement is different between Trump and Obama, it is because while Obama did insist upon legal entry, he wasn't wholesale turning away refugees, separating children from families, and calling for the use of deadly force.

And do you wing-nuts not see the contradictory arguments here?
1. Trump's border enforcement is no different than Obama's.
2. The Democrats are for "Open Borders".

Both of those things can't be simultaneously true.
They both however, can be and are incorrect.

@14: All I am saying is that if Trump really wants to erase Obama's legacy completely, he is really going to have to use more pepper spray on these migrants to keep up.

I would like to ask anyone out there, just what is a gender reveal party?

Explosive gender reveal parties should really be reserved for adults coming out about their gender, who can be held legally liable.

Explosives seem so expensive and dangerous.

What these people need is just a bag of dicks.

@17: It is an innocuous little party that a minority of people have to announce the sex of their unborn child (like a second baby shower), but for some reason it makes lonely weirdos on the internet really angry that the concept exists.

It almost never involves explosives, but rather a color coded cake or bag of powder.

47,000 acres of land is a small price to pay for 100, maybe 200 likes.

I am, of course, kidding. I guess we humans have decided it isn’t just enough to extinguish all life on this planet - we have to spike the football in the faces of all other species. We are going out of our way now to show how intent we are on wasting our intelligence. We use our opposable thumbs to lay waste to huge swaths of land as we “do it for the ‘gram” announcing the gender of our thoroughly gratuitous offspring. The world doesn’t need that jackass’s baby. Evolution dictates his recklessness bring an end to his life before he can contribute to the gene pool.

Call it Darwin’s Loophole.

@14 whataboutism is when you use a false equivalency to justify your actions. The USSR used it a lot during the Cold War like comparing Afghanistan to Vietnam.

Pointing out the media reaction to two exact same actions is not whataboutism it just shows the media bias.

Trump's border enforcement is no different than Obama's. - In this case, using tear gas is exactly the same and is not out of the norm.
The Democrats are for "Open Borders". -Some Democrats are... but saying Obama is for open borders (or any realistic Democrat politician) is not.

@26 --

Please show me the media coverage that is reacting to simply the tear gas that is being used on the refugees today, without mentioning the context in which it is happening. The complete closing of the border crossing. The family separation. There specific attention that the Trump Twitter Feed pays to the situation, and the Presidential exhortation for even harsher treatment.

To equate the "non-coverage" or "less-coverage" tear gassing got under the Obama administration vs Trump is your false equivalence. Obama never called immigrants or refugees an invasion force that needed to be repelled. Trump does. And consequentially, tear gassing at the border, under those circumstances, makes the situation more "news worthy". It is newsworthy because the President is quite vocally inserting himself into the story, and hence the increased coverage.

The isolated act of tear gassing at the border under Obama vs under Trump is not what the story is. Because like it or not, context matters.

@27/29 Granted it is getting more media coverage due to Trump.

But title articles this are excessive: "Tear Gas: Border Agents Launch Chemical Weapon Banned on the Battlefield" Its tear gas, its been used at the border before, it has been used on "rioting" college kids after a big game, everyone knows what it is.

@29: These mental gymnastics are pretty impressive, I have to say.

You're just a hypocrite. That's why you need multiple paragraphs of sophistry and non-sequiturs to explain to yourself why it was fine to tear gas migrants five years ago, but not now.

Personally, I would have just gone with giant speakers blasting Cher or something at them all day, but I guess a little tear gas is cheaper and more portable. Maybe a bit more humane too.

@31: Aw, someone's ears are burning!

Seriously though, why so salty and butthurt over something that literally has no effect on you? It's so bizarre.

I don't have any kids, and think gender reveal parties are lame, but being bitter about other people enjoying them is even more lame.

@34: Ah, the old "I was only pretending to be a dumbass" gambit.

@38: Yep, there is that lonely bitterness shining through again.

Wow -- Trumpfy's campaign Chairman Paulie ''Wallnutz'' Manafort got (Immunity or whatever) and STILL lied to special Counsel Robert Mueller re: Russian involvement in the 2016 presidential campaign.

Meanwhile, Trumpfy answered ALL of Mueller's written queries re: said campaign all by Hisself (News!) and even bragged about it (not news). (Gosh -- who knew he could actually Read?!) (although, they could have been pictographic queries...)

So, if El Prezzo and his Campaign Chairman WERE on the same page on this Inquiry, testimonially (and WHY wouldn't they be?), looks like ol' Trumpfy may have indeed fucking Lied to the Special Council (unsurprising News) (but Manafort's known multiple prevarications being known to Meuller is likely to be VERY surprising NEWS to the so-called 'Leader of the Free World'!).

So -- for how much longer can secret Agent 'Cadet Bonespur' Orqange stay atop this minefield/shitshow/Horrorshow of an Administration?

Are you Ready for an el Presidentia Nancy Pelosi, Trumpfbase?

@32 --- Where is my hypocrisy? I am not for anyone using tear gas when it is not needed, including when Obama was president. I am not against using tear gas if it is required for public safety, including while Trump is President.

That said, the situations are different, so of course news coverage is different. Trump sees refugees and immigrants as an invasion force, and has forestalled any legal options, making it more likely that tear gas would be used in the first place.... Obama rarely talked about immigration, and certainly never used the issue to whip up hysteria.

So on the topic of hypocrisy... please point out the right wing outrage of anything Trump has done that has parallels to anything that was done under a Democratic administration... You can start with emails. And remember: the concept of Black Lives Mattering? That started while Obama was President as well.

@32 The main difference is Trump wanting this story to be at the top of the news, while Obama would have wanted to bury it. Once it becomes the top of the news and images of families being gassed are all over America's living rooms, nobody is going to argue that gassing is good, besides Trump and his followers of course. You can't have your cake and eat it is too.

43

"... nobody is going to argue that gassing is good,
besides Trump and his followers of course."

They appear to be on the same page as Nutanyahoo over in Isreal vs. Palestinians-- just shoot 'em. They'll surpass even that Nutandyahoo's snipers when they make 'em Pay for the bullets used to maim and Kill them. Oh, and pay also for the PTSD (from killing other, non-threatening Human Beings).

Who's Jenny Durkan?

Seattle’s economy is booming, construction cranes turn parking lots and run-down buildings into gleaming modern skyscrapers, and skilled workers earn high wages at jobs with small carbon footprints.

Obviously, the only proper response must be, “Seattle sucks and I’m miserable,” and the Stranger brings it.

In addition to not constructing shoot-up shacks with our city as slumlord, Mayor Durkan is not going forward with our idiotic idea of turning our two slow, meandering trollley lines into one big meandering useless trolley line through downtown. Sometimes what isn’t done can be as important as what is. (Now, if she could just get the Showbox un-saved and redeveloped, she would have a trifecta of Not Doing Stupid Things.)

@36:

You literally advocated for tear gassing, pepper spraying, and firing rubber bullets at desperate asylum-seekers; fellow human beings who represent absolutely no existential threat to you or your way of life - why not just admit you wouldn't object to CBP taking it a step further? When the first child dies by their hands - and at this rate it's only a matter of time - will you condemn their actions, even though you were previously perfectly okay with use of supposedly "non-lethal" (which occasionally turn out to be highly lethal) means of suppression?

50

We have the process for asylum already in place (and it is much like @36 describes). The problem here is that Trump refuses to follow or allow the process. When he does give in and follow process, he does so as cruelly, inhumanely, and hatefully as possible (see: family separation, racist/xenophobic rhetoric, ICE, etc).

My question: is it possible to have secure borders and enforced immigration laws in a manner that is respectful and humane?

I nominate German Sausage, blip, and COMTE for the win.
@39: It's more like your own glaring ignorance keeps waxing pathetic, Teddy.
@44 kristofarian: Why do I suddenly see images of your creepy new avatar adorning bible school bus dashboards throughout Trumpland (i.e.: picture an early Tom Hanks 80s film, Bachelor Party) out recklessly joyriding? Yoiks!

@8, @36, and @49 Doofus in Shoreline: Get off that drug already before it thoroughly wipes out your brain.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Emma Lazarus

54

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Well, yeah that's nice and Quaint and all, but WE was here FIfRST. So if we happen to destroy your shithole little country -- in the name of Democracy! -- oh and Corporatocracy -- well, you're just gonna hafta go somewheres else. And we don't care where.

There ain't enough here for any more.

I know, I know, we shouldda thougth of that First.
But I guess we just forgot to...

ἐδάκρυσεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς, edákrysen o Iesoús lit. "

@56 -- ο Ιησούς ήταν ΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΟΣ!