What a great idea to end homelessness! Just make it illegal to be homeless. Doy. Most people enjoy sleeping in tent cities and on benches so much that the only way you can possibly incentivize them against it is criminalizing it.

We can all agree that people with a criminal record are the ones we do best at integrating back into society. I mean look at how well it worked for drugs.

I am writing because I hope you will do everything you can to support an independent commission investigating Russia. With the firing of James Comey and, holy cow, the interview with Lester Holt, it’s clear that something is up. I don’t know the extent of Russian ties and I don’t know that anyone can at this point. But Trump’s words are clearly lies.

Thank you,

Carl Ballard

HorsesAss.org

(You can contact Senator Murray or Senator Cantwell for this or anything else.)

Only several hours after Ed Murray decided against running for reelection, the HA Editorial Board decided to endorse Ed Murray not running for reelection. Unlike The Seattle Times or other editorial boards, the HA Editorial Board encourages dissent (at Drinking Liberally last night).

So no, Ed Murray can run if he wants. Nothing has been proven. That said, if he decides to run, or even just in his public statements and defense in court, he should stop the victim blaming. And obviously, fuck him if he did it.

Carl Ballard

The headline is a little off (he was held in one facility rather than transferred to a different facility). And even if it was accurate, we’re not as a society going to be as worried about violent criminals in jail too long as we are with the early release scandal that happened earlier. Still and all, I hope he’s the only one. And we should have better safeguards going forward.

So the House Republicans passed a monstrosity of a health care plan. I normally don’t talk about national stuff unless there’s a local angle. But honestly: Fuck the entire GOP. I know, some of them didn’t vote for it. And I’m sure there will be a much tougher road in the Senate. But, you know. Fuck every last one of them.

If you’re represented by someone who voted for it, you might want to let them know that fuck them (but more polite, maybe?). If you’re represented by someone who voted against this shit show of a bullshit bill, please thank them. If you’re represented by Dave Reichert who opposed it on the House floor but supported something similar in committee, you might want to let him know that you see him.

I know it has been successful in many localities, but I just do not like the soda tax Seattle is considering. It always feels very fat shaming whenever people trot it out. Here in Washington where we don’t have an income tax, it seems like a strange place to use your time and energy to push.

I’ve seen a lot of how-to-survive May Day posts in the local media recently. Or more accurately, I’ve been seeing a lot of headlines about them on social media and rolling my eyes about the whole thing. So here’s A Downtown Resident’s Guide to Survive May Day:

1) Are you a window Downtown? If so, congrats on being able to read, and thanks for choosing HA. There is a small chance someone will throw a brick at you and if that happens a decent chance that brick will smash you. That sucks, but your owner probably has insurance and at least you’ll get to be on TV continuously for the next few weeks and then in perpetuity ahead of May Day every year. There’s also a chance that someone will spray graffiti on you. That’s less bad, but still.

2) Are you a police officer? If so you’re probably getting more training than a nonsense snark blog post can provide. Please don’t attack peaceful protesters and try to use harm mitigation strategies on ones damaging property, or putting people in harms’ way if that happens.

3) Are you a protester? I’m usually against the bottled water industry, but I always recommend if you’re marching to have a bottle with you. It can be tap water, but those marches can be dehydrating. Maybe bring something you can eat like some trail mix or a Cliff Bar. Please don’t be violent to another human. If you’re going to smash windows or graffiti stuff, know the consequences of that ahead of time.

4) Are you worried about being stuck in traffic? Since May Day is the only day in Seattle where the traffic gets annoying, this is a reasonable fear. If you’re in your car, take alternate routes, I guess. Or wait for the marchers to go somewhere else. They’re marching, so they’ll pass. Give yourself some extra time and be patient with other people caught up in traffic.

If you’re taking public transit, just be patient. Give up your seat if you can since it might take a little longer. You know, bus stuff we already do, mostly.

5) Are you going to be outside Downtown, including suburbia, or like, anywhere North of the Montlake Cut? I guess just watch it on the news. If you do, maybe try to remember that if you’re seeing the same window smashed for the 5th time, it doesn’t make it 5 times as bad. Or watch something else? Maybe. There’s got to be some playoff basketball or a Mariners game. You probably have Netflix, so you can watch something on that. Maybe play a board game with your family.

Pete Holmes is pretty good as City Attorney, but it seems like there is space to his left if a challenger wants to come along. I mean a lefty candidate pushing harder on the consent decree might be an interesting race.

I don’t know much about Scott Lindsay (Seattle Times link), but all I really get from that article is that he’s been pushing the homeless sweeps that are gross gross gross. He also has supported safe consumption sites, so he probably wouldn’t be going back to the bad old war on drug days.

I’m glad the hunger strike for the women at the Tacoma detention facility is over (for now). Their demands are eminently reasonable and it’s a damn shame they ever had to go on a hunger strike in the first place.

First Capitol Hill Seattle, and now Seattlish except permanent. It turns out it’s tough to make a go of it covering local news on the Internet and being decent.

I don’t know what to say. Seattle politics will be a lesser place without their wit. It will be a lesser place without their compassion. It will be a lesser place without their dedication to the local. In short it will be a lesser place without their voice.

Good luck in whatever comes next.

On top of KIRO’s homeless map from a few weeks being pretty awful morally, they seem to also be slapdashedly done. Maybe those ridiculous institutional players could take a page from part-time bloggers Seattlish.

It looks like the Northwest Progressive Institute fundraising gala is shaping up to be quite an event. On top of fundraising to NPI can keep doing good work, they always have quite a few notables. And this year is no exception.

So it looks like everyone is running for Seattle mayor now that Murray is perceived (fairly or not) as damaged goods. I have decided to sit it out, so I think that makes me the only Seattle citizen not to run. Enjoy the debates where half a million people get on stage. Seriously though, McGinn got in the other day, Cary Moon is getting in the race. There are probably many more to come.

I didn’t go to either of the tax day rallies over the weekend, although I respect them both. I don’t know, but release your returns guy who is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity doesn’t seem like a high priority. On the other hand, sure. If it matters enough to you to get out, I’m not going to tell you you’re doing it wrong.

That said, it seems like the Black Lives Matter one was more about tax fairness. In any event, it looks pretty amazing.

A lot of people have taken this ridiculous Seattle Times editorial to task. But now a few days late, let me also make fun of some choice selections.

Meanwhile, Murray is transformed from the bold big-city mayor into one who defers to his defense lawyer when he is invited to speak to The Seattle Times editorial board about the biggest political scandal in Seattle in generations.

I think we can all agree: No matter if you think he did it, if you think a law firm run by bigots is setting him up, or if you’re not sure, the scandal is definitely that he won’t talk to the Seattle Times Ed Board. For decades, we’ll all remember where we were when we read about how Ed Murray isn’t meeting with the Seattle Times to discuss this and is instead deferring to his attorney in a legal matter. For me it was when I got to this paragraph the other day. For many of you, it’s right now.

Murray’s defenders cast the lawsuit and related allegations as well-timed political payback for his iconic career as a gay civil-rights champion. Indeed, there are legitimate questions about the law firm that filed the lawsuit. It is founded by a Tacoma attorney with an anti-gay rights record.

But Murray’s counterpunch begs a question: when is the right time to file a child sexual abuse lawsuit against an elected leader?

This is correct. The Seattle Times shouldn’t sit on the story, just because it’s happening at the beginning of an election year. But also, someone who knows what “begs the question” means* should probably be in the chain. Whatever. You’re here for me to make fun of the baby splitting if you’re here for anything (are you here for anything? Why?).

Murray at times has been that leader, and could still be. Regardless of whether the allegations are true, he cannot lead under this cloud. He should serve out his term and not run for re-election.

There are 2 possible situations. First possibility: He’s guilty of at least one of the charges; If that’s the case, saying he should serve out the rest of his term seems pretty gross. The other possibility is that he’s innocent of all charges; If that’s the case, being forced to not run for office by a bigoted law firm seems like a terrible thing. The Seattle Times’ solution, in other words, is a bad one no matter what you think happened.

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