Wow, an entire post about a local reporter who apparently has enough sway to represent an entire political spectrum. I’d say it’s more likely Brandi’s message is actually resonating with more people than the Stranger would like and that’s bad for biz so better to dismiss her and her point of view as “right wing” because everyone around here knows that’s code for the devil. Look forward to the next op ed unveiling Brandi Kruse as the power behind the recall Sawant movement. Lol.

Yep.

I don't think people remember that the heart and soul of Fox News is not Glenn Beck, but O'Reilly. He was a master at mixing in quite reasonable commentary (like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQvSUSz0CEI) but then slipping into extremism, based on bullshit assumptions.

I think Charles has laid out Brandi Kruse's positions quite accurately. The typical Trump Republican is just as crazy as Sawant and her ilk. Both need to STFU and if the chronically homeless addict won't accept help because they'd rather stay high, they need to GTFO.

“Because the goal of this post is to explain what Kruse-ism is, and it has the benefit of not being long.” I’m so here for journalists explaining their value-add. He just tells it like it is.

@4 - You don't like School-Free Drug Zones?

The problem with Auburn's ordinance is not that they do or don't have the right to deal with their homeless population as they decide to, but that they are acting in the knowledge that if they toss all of the campers out of Auburn they'll likely come up to Seattle. Ditto Mercer Island with its anti-camping ordinance and Renton with the law against siting more shelters there. The result is that an entire region's problem (lack of housing, exacerbated by mental illness and drug addiction) becomes concentrated in Seattle.

I hadn't heard of Brandi Kruse until she started appearing on the KUOW Friday show. She's completely full of shit.

@10, You are correct that Seattle doesn't have the resources to tackle this by itself. Of course, the solution to this doesn't have to be for Auburn, Mercer Island, and Renton allow people to sleep in their parks, openly do drugs, and commit thefts with no real penalties. The housing first approach is to get people into housing. Letting them stay in parks or school property doesn't do this, it's kinda the opposite.

Heroin is a hell of a drug.

Took a short jaunt to Redmond over the weekend, hit 4 beautiful parks...zero tents. It was pretty amazing. The suburbs!

"Make the reasonable-sounding claim that individuals have a moral obligation to pull their own weight."

When did taking responsibility become merely "reasonable-sounding?" Is expecting people to get vaccinated only "reasonable-sounding?" How about safely storing firearms or, better yet, handing them into the police to be destroyed? Is it "reasonable-sounding" to expect that 3rd and Pine not be a war zone for drug dealers and a resting place for the mentally ill? Is it "reasonable-sounding" to focus city resources on improving schools, fixing the broken relationship between SPD and the community, and asking that tax dollars be efficiently spent?

I'm trying to understand where folks like Mudede think that our individual and collective reasonable-sounding moral obligations start and stop.

BTW, Kruse is absolutely one of the worst among us. She has no interest in the city or its residents. Our suffering is her gain as exploiting our shared frustration about the condition of our city and its residents is schtick. In that way she is not different than Sawant or Marjorie Taylor Greene. All fear and hate mongering all the time. For people like Kruse, Sawant, and MTG solutions must never be entertained because it would ruin their grift.

This is a bit of an aside, but the concept of the drug "pusher" is a fucking myth. No one needs to get your innocent children "hooked." Drugs sell themselves. I expect Republican types to continue to fall for that conard because they love anything Puritanical but why do west coast liberals buy into that one as well? All that belief in science goes flying out the window as soon as you guys start breeding. Nothing helicopters their kids like Seattleite gen Xers.

Also, no one wants garbage and human shit everywhere, not even homeless. There still needs to be a way to clean a park properly without homeless advocates like Charles freaking out every single time. Both sides need to come together and be more creative, less emotional/more dispassionate. If run properly, a homeless camp can function next to a middle school. Again, with helicopter parenting so en vogue, these kids are under the watch of supervising adults 24/7 anyway...

Wait, is Charles suggesting that local leaders are blameless when it comes to our homelessness crisis?

Those anti camping laws remind me of the concrete vaults where all our nuclear waste is sitting. You can't see the problem anymore, but that concrete will fail eventually, you'll either have a natural disaster or have to spend billions hiding it again in a new vault, and it probably would have been better if we had prevented the production of all this waste in the first place rather than hiding it after the fact.

s i m i l e

Brandi Kruse is an incredibly great reporter. Fact-base, non-bias, and data rich.

@22 Exactly the opposite of what I've seen. Or that anyone can see from her own twitter feed.

This topic is another political football for the right to rant about. No one in their right mind, to coin a phrase, would choose to live on the street--literally--so the canard that homeless folks are bad people who need to take a bath and get a job and vote Republican is patently ridiculous. These displaced people need housing and drug treatment, not scolding from these hideous martinets on the right like Brandi Kruse. Hopefully Nikkita Oliver will get in the Mayor's Office and address this crucial issue, rather than side-stepping it like walking around a transient sleeping in the doorway.