In bringing the infrastructure bill to the floor without the budget, Pelosi flips pressure from conservative Senate Dems to progressive House Dems. What a shining star.
In bringing the infrastructure bill to the floor without the budget, Pelosi flips pressure from conservative Senate Dems to progressive House Dems. What a shining star. Chip Somodevilla / GETTY

Hospital workers are facing "extreme exhaustion and burnout": Dr. Todd Freudenberger at Overlake Medical Center in Bellevue says he's "never seen anything like it," KING 5 reports. The good news is state Department of Health data show cases and hospital admissions have started to decline.

The mandate is kind of working: 8,000 workers in New York City's hospital system were unvaccinated, but 3,000 rushed out to get the jab before the deadline hit yesterday. Hospitals in other parts of the country are seeing similar results, the New York Times reports.

Everett Community College cancels some student debt: The college will use federal emergency relief dollars to cancel $1.2 million in debt for about 3,000 students who attended school during the pandemic. The school "is also using the funding to provide free on-campus housing for the 2021-22 year for students enrolled in 12 or more credits," KIRO reports.

Don't even think about using plastic bags: Washington's ban on single-use plastic bags takes effect Friday, covering grocery stores, retail and restaurants, the News Tribune Reports.

Former Dem Govs endorse Republican Seattle City Attorney candidate: Some Democrats are so dedicated to criminalizing poverty that they'll line up behind a person who became a Republican during the Trump administration, ran for Lt. Gov in order to abolish the position, and has been to court literally five whole times.

SWAT officers shot a man in Snohomish County: The injuries are not believed to be life-threatening, according to police. Police say the Valley SWAT team, composed of officers from South King County departments, was surveilling a murder suspect who eventually rammed his car into a police vehicle. (Police have not said which murder.) The Seattle Times reports two Kent officers and one Federal Way officer shot at the man.

The City Council OK'd Sawant's latest renter protections: One bill will require landlords to give six months' notice of rent hikes. The other will require them to pay rent assistance if all of the following applies: 1) The landlord raises the rent by 10% or more, 2) the tenant moves out, 3) the tenant makes 80% of area median income or less ($65,000 for a single person). The relocation assistance bill passed unanimously. Alex Pedersen voted against the six months' notice bill. Tenants need these bills now because rents are on the rise after getting a little cheaper during the pandemic. One Capitol Hill renter told the Seattle Times he recently got a 73% rent increase. "It almost feels like landlords are trying to get revenge right now," he said.

Apparently people are anticipating this wizard bar opening: The Splintered Wand will open in Ballard on Nov. 2 in what MyBallard calls "one of the most anticipated restaurant openings of the year." You can expect a large skeleton hanging from the ceiling, a wand shop on the second floor, and potentially a spells and charms class. My fellow millennials: YKINMKBYKIOK, that said, Harry Potter is not a personality.

Congress puts generals in the hot seat over the Afghan withdrawal: The Senate forum has so far presented the opportunity for Republicans to criticize our holy troops and for Democrats to ask about "lessons learned," though analysts predict a grilling from Dems, too. Watch live, if you're into that:

Republican Senators grab wheel and drive nation into ditch, again: The Democrats put together a bill that would pay for natural disaster relief, fund the government, and raise the debt ceiling to pay for bills we've already racked up, but the creepy group of necromancers who make up the GOP voted against it. Come Friday morning, "Absent an agreement, Washington would grind to a halt, disrupting federal agencies that are responding to the coronavirus while leaving thousands of federal employees out of work and without a paycheck," the Washington Post reports.

The GOP's play here, the Post mentions, is to force Democrats into raising the debt ceiling—again, to pay for shit Trump bought—through the reconciliation process so that they can run a bunch of ads saying Dems went on a unilateral spending spree once they took power. This morning Sen. Dick Durban running the debt limit vote through reconciliation would be "a non-starter" because it would take too long.

In case you need a refresher: The Post included this helpful video on the debt ceiling:

Nancy Pelosi betrays progressives, again: The Speaker plans to bring the infrastructure bill to the floor on Thursday without Biden's $3.5 trillion budget despite a monthslong strategy, conceived by Seattle Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, to move both bills at the same time. Pelosi said the vote must come Thursday because some "key surface transportation funding" expires that day, but Jayapal told Politico "the program’s authorization has expired many times in the past but 'nothing happens as long as we keep the appropriations going.'" Some progressives still say they'll stick to the plan and refuse to vote for the infrastructure bill without the budget bill, because if they don't voters won't reward them at the polls in 2022. They're right.

The reason the Democrats are in this mess? Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin oppose Biden's budget. Why does Manchin oppose Biden's budget? He's a coal baron who thinks that making child care more affordable for the poor will produce "entitlement mentality." Why does Sinema oppose Biden's budget? Because she loves Trump's tax cuts. Why does she love Trump's tax cuts? Because she's bought by people who love Trump's tax cuts. The New York Times reports that Sinema "is scheduled to have a fund-raiser on Tuesday afternoon with five business lobbying groups, many of which fiercely oppose the bill."

What he said:

North Korea's getting missile-happy: Though the UN banned them from testing ballistic missiles, the hostile dictatorship launched one into the peninsula's eastern sea, Al Jazeera reports. The North Koreans want the U.S. to withdraw its 30,000 troops from South Korea, at which point the country would “respond willingly at any time," according to NK's UN envoy, Kim Song.

Did they ever give Trump that Nobel?

Brexit appears to be working out great: For the fifth day in a row, people in the UK are waiting in long lines for gas—or "petrol," as they call it, insanely. The gas companies say they have the fuel, but the country lacks enough truck drivers—or "lorry" drivers as they call them, again, insanely—to drive the fuel to the pumps, the BBC reports. Experts guess the UK is short "more than 100,000 lorry drivers." The "queues," as they call them, for the third time, insanely, prompted people to panic-buy gas, creating longer and longer "queues." Yesterday the Army stepped in "to help ease pressures caused by spikes in localised [sic] demand for fuel."

I leave you with the trailer for the best show on television, Love on the Spectrum: I'm late to the party but I'm so glad I came. I melt down into a puddle of pure human fellow-feeling every 15-20 seconds as I watch these sweet, earnest, determined neurodivergent people search for love.