I appreciate all of you who have shared that you enjoy the Hacks & Wonks podcast, where we discuss state and local politics and policy in WA.
We air twice per week:
✅ a midweek show focused on a subject (issue or person)
✅ a week-in-review every Friday
This is W I L D labor violation case:
A California restaurant had someone impersonate a priest and hear workers’ confessions.
Then the restaurant used that information to retaliate against workers
@carolinerenard_
That was the part for me. She spent the majority of her life devoted to ballet and it was a viable career for her, not just a little hobby. It was clearly still important to her because she planned a home studio and seeing it turned into a room for the kids was a gut punch.
A 51-year-old man shot and killed a 17-year-old who was walking into Big 5 in Renton to return an airsoft gun.
The man said he thought the teen and his two friends were going to commit an armed robbery, so he confronted them and shot the teen.
DNA evidence clears Williams. The victim's family doesn't want the death penalty. The DA agreed to take the death penalty off the table. A former Republican governor granted a stay.
But Missouri's current GOP governor, AG and Court are determined to execute him.
A driver of a Chevy Silverado backed over a 3 year old while parking in Bellevue yesterday, killing the child.
People often say big trucks make them feel safer, but they are more deadly for kids, pedestrians and other drivers.
Loren Culp thought he could dodge a q by asking for a specific instance of a well known problem.
Melissa Santos was prepared with receipts, and Culp is melting down because he won’t answer whether a cop who punched a handcuffed woman should have been rehired.
#waelex
“The CEOs of five of the largest railroad conglomerates have been paid more than $200 million in the last three years, and company shareholders have been boosted by nearly $200 billion in stock buybacks and dividends over the last dozen years.”
@RachelRGonzalez
@ReignOfApril
Thank you for standing by your roommate. I always say “ally” is a verb and you are showing it in action. I hope this harassment stops and you are both safe.
The call: A thin Black woman on foot accused of stealing food from Taqueria El Sabor
Cops responded to the wrong location (Taqueria El Riconsito) and stopped me (a fat Black woman in a car with a receipt).
Wrong location! Wrong description!
How did I live my life wrong here?
I believe it’s possible to live your life in such a way that the police are not a threat to you.
It’s called having agency and making reasonable life choices.
Over 1.9 million votes were recounted by hand and the vote tally in this race only changed by 2 votes. That should make everyone feel extremely confident about the integrity our elections!
Dave Upthegrove (D) will face Jamie Herrera Beutler (R) in the general election!
#waelex
#DefundSPD
won.
The override of Durkan’s veto is 100% a result of the community marching, calling, writing, testifying and *not relenting when it got hard.*
People have the power to reshape their own communities, and what happens locally can move the nation.
I’m thankful that Tammy Morales, Teresa Mosqueda and Kshama Sawant were always clear yes votes to override Durkan’s veto. It’s important to know who never wavered, and they didn’t.
I’m thankful to all of the activists and community who held the rest of council accountable.
Breaking News: Mike Richards, who was named the new host of “Jeopardy!” last week, is abruptly leaving the role at the beloved game show after a report this week resurfaced offensive and sexist comments he made on a podcast several years ago.
I was cleaning out my car. I was reported as a suspicious person rummaging through a car. In a neighborhood I’d lived in and walked through daily for almost a year.
#LivingWhileBlack
In SF, no one calls themselves a Republican. So instead we get this weird group of people for a war on drugs, for deregulation, for ever-expanding police budgets, and for endless corporate tax breaks, who have no doubt in their mind they are on the left.
Counties in states that expanded Medicaid under the ACA saw a 25% decrease in drug arrests, a 19% drop in “violent offense” arrests, and a 24% decrease in “low-level” offense arrests (Simes & Jahn 2022). Expanding public benefits leads to lower crime rates! RT
@PrisonPolicy
Can we talk about Black women?!
T’wina Nobles (28th LD)
Tanisha Harris (17th LD)
Jamila Taylor (30th LD)
April Berg (44th LD)
All challengers. ALL WINNING.
If these results hold, we’ll TRIPLE the number of Black women in
#waleg
.
Y’all. This is big.
#waelex
What Repeat COVID Infections Do to Your Body, According to Science
SARS-CoV-2 behaves differently than a common cold or flu virus—and can do major long-term damage.
WA State Patrol Capt. Ron Mead blamed the victims and said that he hoped the protestors changed their behavior.
Maybe if he focused on stopping people trying to murder protestors with cars, this wouldn’t be Seattle’s 4th incident like this in the past month.
@iamopheliabyers
I’m very uncomfortable with criticizing the child in that situation, but feel there’s a valid conversation about the decisions that adults in her life made that were disrespectful to the other performers and audience who paid for a professional show.
@boobeebah123
@TeethLedger
Maybe that’s a lesson here: not knowing those details about a person is a reason to pause and keep scrolling instead of dunking on them in a way that can be cruel.
This is why the GOP is playing along.
It won’t change things for Trump, but this is the foundation for maintaining minority rule in the long term.
Thread:
they're setting the stage for years of new restrictive laws in states they run, justified under the false pretense of fraud, & bolstered by an even friendlier SCOTUS.
📜 The Washington State Democratic Party platform, page 55: “We oppose private prison companies”
❌ Advocating for SCORE should disqualify Woo from endorsement by every Democratic org and ally in the city.
Endorsements for the August primary are ramping up now.
Welp.
I ordered takeout from Taqueria El Riconsito. Waited in my car for about 15 mins for it to be ready, then went in grabbed it and went back to my car. As I got ready to leave, 2 Kent PD officers pull up and look at me, walk over to my window and ask if I was inside…
Hard to overstate how much worse things are going to get in a country where the population is armed to the teeth then conditioned to live in a constant paranoid state of fear.
🚨🗣🧾🚨
Dear Seattle mayoral candidates:
I know that one of you is trying to stiff a BIPOC firm for services provided. I’m aware that another has offered BIPOC consultants much lower pay than junior staff.
You should resolve that ASAP.
Sincerely,
A founding PCCC member
$62K used to be a solid middle class salary.
$62K (w/perf credit) doesn’t qualify for an apt in Seattle today. Buying? Impossible.
Imagine looking ANYTHING that systematically excludes half the people it needs to serve and thinking the people, not the system, is the problem. 🙄
It’s time to end the “moderate” charade and call Sara Nelson and her allies what they are: conservatives.
Her rhetoric and policies are the same as Republicans.
Dems across the country need to study this race.
Her competitiveness in rural areas won this race, and she did it by running boldly on her values, not running scared.
#WA03
#waelex
Yesssss!!! What a massive, game-changing win by
@MGPforCongress
! She ran one of the best campaigns of the entire cycle and showed Democrats how to win in rural America without compromising on values. Time to celebrate!
can we come up with a definition for "progressive" in seattle bc it clearly no longer serves a function when everyone from Sawant to Lewis is considered one? Does it just mean "not and outright fascist" or something??
Some homeowners are ecstatic that housing costs doubled in the past 10 yrs. I get that.
Also notice that scheduling dr appts takes longer and your pharmacy closed? Your kids class is bigger and there’s no more bus? Homelessness still getting worse?
Costs of costly housing.
I see this person deleted their tweet and went private after getting ratiod hard for saying that people have a “skill issue” if $62K isn’t livable.
I see this a lot from people who last rented on that salary 10-15 years ago, and don’t realize housing costs DOUBLED since then.
This is egregious.
The things Cathy Moore and this council majority have said are divisive, uncivil, and dangerous when coming from the public are nothing compared to the vitriol they unleash on their colleague Tammy Morales.
Moore chastises Morales for a full 7 minutes because she dared to say the Unified Care Team conducts sweeps, which it literally does. Moore even appears to admit that UCT pushes people block to block because there's not enough shelter and housing.
It now takes at least 6 figures for a family to get by in Seattle
The cost of basic necessities for a family of four just went up by $16,000, or 18%, in a single year.
On Tuesday, SPD officers saw a car intentionally drive over tents that were on a sidewalk along Third & James.
Police tried to pull the suspect over, but they fled.
Officers started to pursue the suspect, BUT TERMINATED THE PURSUIT WHEN THEY LEARNED NO ONE WAS IN THE TENTS.
This confirms Jenny Durkan and Carmen Best’s tweets were intentionally deleted. Durkan tried to blame the IT department, but her phone settings were changed to auto-delete before IT had it.
There needs to be an investigation. The texts still need to be recovered.
BREAKING Fmr. Mayor Durkan’s text messages from 2020 racial justice protests vanished because a phone setting was manually changed to auto delete & ex-SPD Chief Best "periodically deleted" her texts, a long-overdue forensic analysis indicates
@DBeekman
)
This is a BFD:
"The records...appear to show that SPD and the City planned to abandon and evacuate the precinct itself at the direction of Mayor Durkan, and in coordination with SPD command staff, directly contradicting public facing comments by Chief Best."
Council President Sara Nelson interrupts speaker
@colinokeefe
as he calls on he to recuse herself from Pay Up discussions because Seattle Hospitality Group, which presumably would benefit from minimum wage rollback, just bought into Fremont Brewing, her business.
A WA statewide Dem candidate is currently demonstrating two things:
1️⃣ The Dem base doesn't care for "tough on crime" signaling and it's as likely to backfire as help
2️⃣ No amount of "tough on crime" signaling from a Dem will win or pacify the GOP base
Dave Reichert is not a moderate Republican. If you hear pundits continue to say that, you should disregard everything else they say.
Reichert reflects the extreme Republican base who wants to roll back LGBTQ+ rights.
This has no place in WA government.
Here’s the full video of Dave Reichert saying that “marriage is between a man and a woman” just two months ago.
Congressman Reichert revealed who he really is. Discrimination like this has no place in the Governor’s mansion.
Thinking again about SPD failing to respond quickly to the hate crime at Wing Luke Museum.
And we’re supposed to trust them to investigate hate crimes when those hateful beliefs are shared within the department?
NEW: Seattle Police Department Officer Burton Hill called his Chinese American neighbor, Zhen Jin, a racial slur (ch***) during a confrontation in August 2022.
@TheStranger
got the audio recording
A new law in San Diego, which will go into effect at the beginning of 2022, requires grocery stores and other food suppliers to donate all edible food waste to a food rescue organization or food bank.
🗣️Tacoma Summer plan to keep teens safe begins Monday night
From June 26 to Sep. 1, teens can not only get dinner every night, but they can also use open gyms, do art and music activities and hang out with friends.
I’d be very surprised if the call they received specified a Black woman. Especially since no one from the restaurant even needed to look at me to tell them I wasn’t who they called about.
So I’m left wondering why they stopped me out of everyone there. And I’m still shaking.
Alexis Rinck is essentially at 50% in a 5-way citywide primary as a challenger to an incumbent! WILD!
Not only is this a stunning rebuke to Woo and the council majority, it’s a testament to the genuine excitement Seattle voters have for Rinck’s progressive vision and leadership.
I have to travel between Kent and Bellevue (17 miles) tomorrow, and I’m planning the trip via transit during this
#WeekWithoutDriving
.
It’s a 2 hour one-way trip via transit. 😬
We have to improve travel times outside of Seattle to get more people riding more often.
🙌🏾 The wages in Renton have been raised!
Renton’s minimum wage initiative is leading by 57.5% to 42%!
Congratulations to the
@RTWRenton
campaign and the workers of Renton!
#waelex
#Renton
@salamasinamusic
One big problem is that if people aren’t very online, they aren’t exposed to information about post-infection risks and don’t connect their symptoms. It’s easy to overestimate how much the average person knows. It’s a failure of our public health and healthcare system.
Seattleites support more dense housing - even beyond sixplexes
65% of respondents to a recent poll targeting high propensity Seattle voters support constructing four-to six-story apartment buildings “anywhere in Seattle” to expand social housing
😬
“The office of Mayor Bruce Harrell, who has proposed giving thousands of city employees a “cost of living adjustment” significantly below the rate of inflation, sent out an email to city workers this week containing tips and tricks for spending less money.”
“Financial Self-Care” Email Advises City Employees Seeking Wage Increase to “Avoid Impulse Buys”; Council Funds Student Mental Health
New at PubliCola:
I’m still not over this ✨illuminating✨ story about Mayor Harrell expecting ethnic media to “celebrate” him.
Kudos to the journalists who placed the public interest over access.
At what point we going to acknowledge that the Seattle Chamber now functions as a mega-corp lobbyist pushing policies that actually hurt the city’s small businesses?
Sawant has survived the recall attempt against her. She's proven once again that most voters in her district agree with her.
Now let's see if most the coverage moving forward focuses on exploring those voters' lives and concerns instead of big corp talking points.
#WAelex