I have no idea how to estimate the post election swing on this recall. If Sawant was only down 53 to 46 in previous elections, you would have to say it was a gimme. But a higher percent of the votes have been counted (King County has the same facilities, but only one election). And recalls aren’t the same as general elections. So we’ll see. Probably more quickly than usual.
Annnnnyway, please wash your hands right now. And if aren’t vaccinated, please do. If you haven’t been boosted and you are available, please do. I have my booster appointment this weekend. There were plenty of slots available in South Lake Union when I signed up last night.
We’ll see about the recall.Either way, should be close. Noticed that the council would appoint an interim member to fill the seat, but Sawant can still run again for the seat. Perhaps it should be treated like an impeachment instead.
Must admit, I love how NZ handles a vacancy in parliament under Mixed Member Proportional. If it’s a district MP, a special election. If it’s a List MP, next on the party’s list. List MPs have run for empty district seats, even won. System would work in 49 of 50 state legislatures. Wouldn’t workin Nebraska, as MMP only works for partisan bodies.
“I have no idea how to estimate the post election swing on this recall.”
In 2015, with 49.6% turnout, Sawant won 56.0% of the vote.
In 2019, with 58.8% turnout, she won 51.8% of the vote.
From this it might be inferred that higher turnout drives down her margin, presumably because her supporter base is more likely to vote, and vote early, whereas less-engaged voters who are more likely to procrastinate are also more likely to vote against her.
That makes turnout a crucial factor and implies a last-minute voting surge works against her. KCE data show such a surge, with ~40% of the total ballots being received Monday, yesterday, and today.
It’s always possible, of course, that this time the last-minute voting has other explanations and those votes could be running in her favor. Today’s ballot drop may bring some clarity to that question.
@ 2
In 2015, with 49.6% turnout, Sawant won 56.0% of the vote.
In 2019, with 58.8% turnout, she won 51.8% of the vote.
From this it might be inferred that higher turnout drives down her margin, presumably because her supporter base is more likely to vote, and vote early, whereas less-engaged voters who are more likely to procrastinate are also more likely to vote against her.
From this is might also be inferred that a substantial number of those who voted for her in 2015 realized their mistake, and voted against her in 2019.
When it’s over she’s removed from office immediately. In order to delay this the silliness intended to prevent vote certification commences.
Goldy does make a good point about the absence of undervotes this time around, in the Twitter sidebar.
When y’all compare 2021 voting to the 2015 and 2019 voting, make sure to account for the fact that in 2020 Kshama Sawant played a direct role in the conversion of Capitol Hill into a flaming garbage dump for an entire summer.
Prior to the 2015 and the 2019 votes there were only credible concerns that she might play a role in turning a large part of Seattle into a flaming garbage dump.
Bad news for dumbfucks: “Prices at the pump have finally started to creep lower, and that trend should significantly accelerate in the coming months, according to new government forecasts.
“The US Energy Information Administration said Tuesday the national average for regular gasoline will probably drop to $3.01 a gallon in January. For 2022, gas prices are expected to average $2.88.”
https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/08/business/gas-price-forecast/index.html
Steadily sinking pump prices moving toward the midterms is the GOP’s worst nightmare.
HAR.
HAR HAR.
HAR HAR HAR.
The best part is when she breaks into tears while reading it. Probably because she’s envisioning that apology she made to Barack that night, because she blew a barely contested layup.
@ 5
“Prices at the pump have finally started to creep lower…
This is not news, Robinhood Dumbfuck Rabbit. Remember that tweet last week from the DCCC, thanking First Vegetable Joe Biden because gas prices dropped two cents in prior weeks?
What does Robinhood Dumbfuck Rabbit @ 5 think will happen to petroleum prices when Russia invades the Ukraine? How about natural gas prices?
Tell us again about the GOP’s worst nightmare, Robinhood Dumbfuck Rabbit.
@3 “From this is might also be inferred that a substantial number of those who voted for her in 2015 realized their mistake, and voted against her in 2019.”
For dumbfucks, anything is possible.
“When it’s over she’s removed from office immediately. Then the silliness intended to prevent vote certification commences.”
There should be no “then” between “removal” and “certification,” which implies the latter occurs after the former.
Removal does not precede certification, it follows it. Just as, to normal people, trial precedes verdict, not the other way around as you’re prone to do (because you’re a dumbfuck).
2024.
She’s @ 6 running.
@4 If you were reading the electorate correctly, the voting should have been stacked into the first days of the voting period, not the final days as is occurring, and she should be much farther behind than she is.
Maybe if you crawled out of your Whidbey cave and visited the big city more often, you’d have a better handle on the mindset of Seattle’s Capitol Hill and Central District voters. For all you know, they like bonfires outside police precinct stations.
@6 Your Hillary Clinton obsession is both weird and disturbing. She should double her security.
@ 9
“When it’s over” referred to the vote count. The certification follows the vote count, frequently not immediately.
In Seattle, there’s:
Vote count.
Violence by the left.
Recount.
More violence by the left.
Attempted certification.
Something torched by the left, which interferes with certification.
Certification and removal, after the National Guard is called in.
Left ensures that the Seattle pendulum swing to the right continues, while expressing bewilderment as to why the pendulum is swinging the wrong way.
@7 I’m not going to bother to go back and search old threats for examples of your posts about high gas prices. I have better things to do this morning. This falls in the same category as “Donald who? Never heard of the guy.”
@8 Can’t wait for a war to bail you out, can you?
Seattle needs Mark Sidran.
@13 “When it’s over she’s removed from office immediately. Then the silliness intended to prevent vote certification commences.”
seems to have changed to
“When it’s over she’s removed from office immediately. In order to delay this the silliness intended to prevent vote certification commences.”
I’m pretty sure that didn’t happen when I was copying and pasting.
@15 Freeland or some other rightwing hellhole needs Mark Sidran.
Let’s skip over Sidran imitating Giuliani’s ideas about policing and go straight to what he did on the Utilities & Transportation Commission, specifically with reference to the leveraged buyout of Puget Sound Energy by an Australian hedge fund.
I personally attended that hearing. Many of the speakers were retirees who spoke of how they depended on their dividends from PSE stock to make ends meet. Stock they would no longer own if the buyout was approved. Others were customers with concerns about rates and reliability if the buyout were approved. The only people who spoke in favor of the commission approving the buyout were guys in suits, including PSE’s CEO who stood to get a multimillion-dollar golden parachute if the buyout was approved.
The vote was 2-1 in favor. A smirking Mark Sidran cast the deciding vote that fucked the shareholders and customers and lined the hedge fund’s and CEO’s pockets.
Enjoying your electric rates up there in Whidbey? When the power works?
Wouldn’t it be funny if the DOJ successfully sues Texas to increase Hispanic representation in Congressional districts, only to see those Hispanics then vote for the GOP?
Hispanic Voters Now Evenly Split Between Parties, WSJ Poll Finds
Republicans have made rapid gains among a crucial voting demographic that has long favored Democrats
’cause I’d LMFAO at that.
By 2024 HA’s dirty little secret is gonna be YLB’s kids supporting DeSantis/Haley.
More evidence @ 18 that Robinhood Dumbfuck Rabbit is nowhere close to being a millionaire:
From Robinhood Dumbfuck Rabbit himself.
@19 “Wouldn’t it be funny if the DOJ successfully sues Texas to increase Hispanic representation in Congressional districts, only to see those Hispanics then vote for the GOP?”
I’m perfectly fine with that. What I’m not fine with is armed insurrectionists attacking the seat of government, beating and bear-spraying cops, and threatening the lives of election officials and workers when the GOP falls short at the ballot box.
@21 How is that informative of my financial status? And what does it say about my net worth? Show your math work.
Maybe I’m just a commie who likes public power. Or a nativist who doesn’t like foreigners controlling our grid. Or maybe I just don’t trust Mark Sidran and wanted to keep an eye on him. Or simply didn’t have anything better to do that day. I don’t recall whether I owned PSE stock then, probably not, or I wouldn’t have objected to their inflated ROE allowance in their regulated rates; I wasn’t a PSE customer in 2009.
And at best any inferences (there are none) to be drawn from my attending a public hearing about the sale of a local utility company to foreign investors in 2009 are a dozen years out of date.
Reason # 37 why I’m 10% in cash right now:
Good thing I’m not going to have to rely on dividends from a stodgy utility to make ends meet in my retirement, unlike some people @ 18, 21 around here.
@ 23
Show your math work.
Thanks for bringing that up. You didn’t argue my math earlier this week. There’s no reason to argue with me now.
Your equity holdings are a pitifully small amount, Robinhood Dumbfuck Rabbit. You have failed your family.
Power’s out on the south end of the island, third time so far this fall. Generator up and running. Heading to the well house for water.
Good thing I’m in far better physical condition than slovenly fucks like Robinhood Dumbfuck Rabbit.
@24 You’re really are stupid enough to think I own utility stocks, aren’t you?
Up next: Donald Trump gives his 2020 victory speech.
It would be no less pathetic than Hillary giving her 2016 victory speech, libbies. She lost, bigly.
A bunch of other things will happen first.
NATO will vote a MAP for Ukraine that includes a rapid transition to membership if Russia refuses to begin negotiating a withdrawal. Which is probably why Putin simply will not “invade” Ukraine. His entire Ukraine strategy is focused on preventing NATO membership. And the biggest obstacle to Ukraine’s inclusion into NATO currently is the Russian threat.
So long as Russia continues to threaten Ukraine’s borders, member countries, diplomats, and security analysts are free to offer their conclusion that membership would be considered “provocation” by Putin. Invasion removes “provocation” as the basis for Putin’s aggression and everything pretty much proceeds like clockwork from there.
Energy prices would certainly go up. Much the way they did when Dick Cheney ordered the invasion of Iraq.
@25 I didn’t even see that nonsense. To a simpleton like you, “five figures” = $10,000. To everyone else, “five figures” is anywhere from $10,000 to $99,999.
You’re not normal, and your math work isn’t normal. It follows that your assumptions (I won’t dignify them by calling them “conclusions”) aren’t normal, either. If you need an excuse, I’ll offer one on your behalf: Normality isn’t to be expected of a dumbfuck.
And for your multiplier to work, my entire portfolio would have to be in a Dow index ETF, which it isn’t.
In response to #CrookedHillary, may I just say:
Gorsuch
Kavanaugh
Coney Barrett
@31 I’m happy for you that you found something to gloat about. You can’t gloat about your returns on the 10% of your holdings still in cash while you wait for a 10%-15% pullback.
See Goldy’s tweets from an hour ago, and this from capitolhillseattle blog:
This one’s gonna be close.
Cutest photo of adult humans you’ll see this week:
https://twitter.com/GirmayZahilay/status/1468439233043984386/photo/1
@33 I’ll save you the trouble of going back to #30 of the previous thread by copying and pasting here what I posted there slightly before 10 pm last night: “there could be over 10,000 ballots still in the mail”
Today’s ballot drop could be clarifying. If those 6,000 or so ballots trend against her (see #2 above for why conceivably they might), it won’t be close. Subsequent ballot drops could be expected to follow the same trend, as they’re now mostly counting last-minute voters.
So’s David Perdue, Mo Brooks, and the Inter-Gender White House Boxing Champion.
Etc. And by “etc.” I mean Trump.
Despite a valiant effort earlier this morning to go down, the stock market is up again today, while Doctor Dumbfuck still patiently waits for a 10%-15% pullback.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddWNMSUbcGI
Does your state allow challenges by independent poll watchers? And if so, can anyone here say if there was an organized ballot challenge effort by either campaign? The numbers would suggest there was.
@38 No. Washington is all-mail voting, and as Ballotpedia explains,
“Absentee/mail-in ballots may be challenged in an attempt to prevent the ballot from being counted. Ballots may be challenged for a variety of reasons, including: allegations that the voter is not qualified to vote in the election, the ballot was not received by the stated deadline, or that the voter had already voted in the same election.
The methods and reasons for challenging ballots vary and are provided in state law. States without such provisions do not allow challenging absentee/mail-in ballots. As of October 2020, Washington did not have a provision in state law for challenging ballots.”
https://ballotpedia.org/Processing,_counting,_and_challenging_absentee/mail-in_ballots_in_Washington,_2020#Challenging_ballots
Washington does have statutory provisions regarding rejecting ballots, or parts of ballots. Election workers identify ballots or parts of ballots for possible rejection, and in all cases a canvassing board decides whether to count a questionable ballot.
39,
Okay. Cool. Thank you.
So your canvassing board alone decides which ballots to question/challenge. And the board is set by statute to consist of the county auditor, the county prosecutor, and an employee-designee from the County Council Chair. And then if I understand it only ballots with signature issues can be cured.
California plans to offer all-expenses-paid abortions to residents of Xian Taliban states.
https://www.aol.com/news/california-plans-abortion-sanctuary-roe-170351681-190122040.html
Heh. From the pages of NEWZWACKJOBS:
https://www.newsmax.com/john-gizzi/klinge-youngkin-reagan-virginia/2021/11/21/id/1045554/
Nother!
83 f’in years old.. Was it gettin’ a SS check? Does the pope take a dump in the woods? According to the “serious” babblin’ of babblin’ boob mcdimfuk this turn of events is
GOOD for my kids..
AMIRITE? heh.
@40 Correct. Signature cures decided Washington’s 2004 governor’s election, which the Democrat won by 133 votes. (The original margin was 129 votes, but an election contest lawsuit brought by the GOP increased winning the margin by 4 votes.)
Washington allows voters to cure ballots with missing or defective signatures within a certain time limit. After the election, the Democrats obtained lists of those voters, set up phone banks, and enlisted 6,000 volunteers, mostly union members, to go door-to-door in efforts to contact those and collect signature cures from those who voted Democratic. A total of roughly 1,100 signature cures were collected of which about 70% were validated, adding over 700 votes to the D’s total.
The Republicans were late to get started, less organized, and had fewer human resources at their disposal, and collected somewhere between 200 and 300 signature cures (I forget the exact number, but it was over 200). Assuming a similar 70% validation rate, they probably had at least 140 valid votes in that batch. The GOP’s lawyers made a tactical decision to not submit them.
The lawyers had a case pending before the state supreme court trying to get the Democrats’ signature-cure votes thrown out. They apparently felt that submitting the GOP’s signature-cure votes would undercut their argument. They lost the case, and the net result was that the Democrats’ 700 or so signature-cure votes were counted, and the Republicans’ 140 to 200, or thereabouts, signature-cure votes weren’t counted. The GOP candidate (Dino Rossi) lost by 133 votes.
The GOP paid $2 million for this legal advice and representation.
From link @42: “For those who knew Ken Klinge, it was a sad irony that he died at age 83 on October 27—just six days before Republican Glenn Youngkin was elected governor of Virginia.”
I think someone should look into whether he voted in that election.
@26 I see. Your power company is a generator, and you haul your water to the house in buckets.
43,
“…and enlisted 6,000 volunteers…”
I could see Sawant having a decent shot at assembling a large volunteer effort.
But for the other side, maybe Jeff Bezos can simply assign Amazon staff. If it comes to that.
@3 “From this is might also be inferred that a substantial number of those who voted for her in 2015 realized their mistake, and voted against her in 2019.”
It might also be inferred that people are more willing to vote against her if they don’t know who they’re voting for.
Because Seattle’s capitalists and other anti-socialists only offer them shitty alternatives.
45,
Wasn’t he bragging about his solar just the other day?
Off the grid might be cool in someplace like Montana or Tanzania.
For a week or two at the most.
By why on fucking earth would you choose to shit in a bucket in the suburbs unless you were broke?
ALEC up to its old tricks..
Behold: Critical Energy Theory..
The [Charles]Kook is still strong with that one. Perhaps a bit too abstract or parochial I’d say.. It’s gotta have some “rape” or “black guy” behind it to catch on with the dimfuk crowd.. Oh they use “woke” – maybe that’s enough.
Goldy
✔
@GoldyHA
I betcha if I rolled my bicycle over a cop’s head I’d spend years in prison… assuming I survived being apprehended by the police. https://twitter.com/lewiskamb/status/1468700213170737154
23m
I betcha if you rolled your car tires over the foot of the mother of your child you’d be released on only $1,000 bail despite numerous violent crimes in your history, enabling you to driver your SUV through a crowd of unsuspecting children and grandmothers at a holiday parade, killing six of them.
@50, Looks like drinking untreated ditch water during the power outage gave Bob a dose of crypto.
Sawant will win.
I’m going to put a number on it: She’ll win by 220 to 230 votes.
@50 You’re forgetting that wrongful death is cheaper than debilitating injury. That’s why cops always shoot for center mass. The real money is in the 48 injured you totally forgot about, not the 6 who were killed.
You’re not just a shitty lawyer, you’re also a shitty law practice manager. Other firms would’ve snatched up those 48 cases before you even thought about them.
@49 “The event—attended by a mix of state legislators and representatives from the private sector—featured spirited discussions about a potential Constitutional Convention …”
Looks like they’re fixing to repeal most of the amendments. Among other things, if women can’t vote, they can’t complain at the ballot box, can they? Stacey Abrams will be put back in her place — on a plantation. No income tax. Religious liberty for Christians. Due process will be modified. One person, one vote, will be abolished. Voting will be property-based.
@49 “The event—attended by a mix of state legislators and representatives from the private sector—featured spirited discussions about a potential Constitutional Convention …”
Looks like they’re fixing to repeal most of the amendments. Among other things, if women can’t vote, they can’t complain at the ballot box, can they?
Stacey Abrams will be sent to a plantation. No income tax. Religious liberty for Christians. Citizenship limited to Christians. Due process will be modified. One person, one vote, will be abolished. Voting will be property-based.
Caught another one! The more of these cop beaters go to jail the better. Support the blue!
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/michigan-man-charged-assault-officers-capitol-riot-81637142
Update on Sawant recall: I called the election for Sawant last night. The Stranger projects she’ll win by ~47 votes, but I believe that’s too low. They said King County Elections has ~1200 uncounted ballots, but their website reports 41,204 returned and 39,274 counted, a difference of 1,930. Based on that number alone, and using a multiplier of 62.3% for Sawant, she would gain by ~475 giving her a lead of ~229 votes. There also could be ballots still in the mail. Last night on Handbill.US I projected that Sawant would win by 180 to 240 votes, and it still looks to be in that range. I would now guess about 225 to 235, unless there’s a lot more still in the mail. There could be; delivery is slower under Trump’s postmaster. That would further expand her margin.
This will be an enormous victory for Sawant. Her enemies have tried and failed twice in two years to dislodge her from office. I don’t think anybody’s going to spend another million dollars on that. She’s now won three elections in a row. Clearly, her constituents like her. Good candidates won’t run against her, and money won’t be there. This recall was a strategic mistake; she’s now more entrenched than ever, and probably in office for good.
A Nigerian Medical Student Wondered Why His Textbooks Only Depict White Patients. So He Drew His Own Illustrations—and They Went Viral
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/diversity-medical-illustrations-chidiebere-ibe-2045122
How long before Texas bans them?
Yesterday David Perdue the leading Republican challenger facing Gov. Brian Kemp confessed to a reporter that if he were elected governor and in 2024 there was a clean election with close results showing President Biden the winner, he would throw the election in Georgia to Trump.
Because fuck democracy.
“By an overwhelming margin, the House passed a bill to spend $778 billion on defense next year, $25 billion more than what President Joe Biden had requested. The Senate is expected to second the motion within days,” Slate reports.
Not a peep yet from Manchin questioning the necessity of such an increase or how much of an inflationary impact it will have.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/12/defense-spending-bill-778-billion-military-china-russia.html?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
@58
if you want links.
Trump-backed Perdue says he wouldn’t have certified Georgia 2020 results
https://www.axios.com/david-perdue-georgia-2020-election-certification-56e54cd2-c0c1-41e8-a44e-f582335243da.html
Trump-endorsed Georgia gubernatorial candidate David Perdue says he wouldn’t have certified the 2020 election results as governor
https://www.businessinsider.com/david-perdue-says-he-wouldnt-have-certified-the-georgia-2020-election-2021-12
Josh Duggar got convicted. Hope his future cellmates know of the allegations of what he did with his sisters.
The Navy has officially commissioned DDG-118, the USS Daniel K. Inouye. Love the ships flag, honoring his old unit, 100th Infantry Battalion/442nd Regimental Combat Team. Go For Broke!!
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/43441/why-the-navys-new-destroyer-was-just-commissioned-flying-a-giant-go-for-broke-flag
And another one:
https://www.kolotv.com/2021/12/07/search-january-6th-suspect-ends-peavine-mountain/
Geezus, how miserable. Living in a coldwater plywood shack like the Uni-Bomber, shitting in a Home Depot bucket and stealing from neighbors.
Is that you Bob?
There is a reason the FRA and FTA discourage such crossings. This particular crossing in Philadelphia is grandfathered in, I believe, as it predates the regulations. One of the reasons Sound Transit had to construct the D-M street connector in Tacoma was the old junction between the BNSF Seattle and Lakeview Subdivisions had to be abandoned when T-Line was built due to this such prohibition.
https://www.trains.com/trn/seven-injured-as-septa-trolley-csx-train-collide/
Thought it was one of the Suburban Trolley lines(101/102), but it was a City line, Route 11. SEPTA has three major divisions, Regional Rail, City, and Suburban, with the latter further subdivided.
@63 Sovereign citizen freakos. Training their kids to be the same. Good thing the intervention happened before it was too late.
14 day stay begins today for SCOTUS to ignore Trump’s phony begging for their help hiding his administration’s obvious participation in the Jan. 6 attack on Congress. The House committee should have the records before Christmas day.
Merry Insurrection, everybody!
This only took six months.
This will be an enormous victory for Sawant.
A victory perhaps, enormous? Don’t think so.
Her enemies have tried and failed twice in two years to dislodge her from office.
Fun to see the dorki moron crowd and the jerks like dimfuk in total despair over this but this doesn’t mean it’s over for her.
I don’t think anybody’s going to spend another million dollars on that.
Maybe not a million dollars but a good amount for the right candidate.. A “neighborhood” person who’s more “Seattle” and not SA.. Definitely not f’in corporate.. That’s for sure.
She’s now won three elections in a row. Clearly, her constituents like her.
With such a close outcome? A good number of her constituents sure but a good number of them don’t care for her and for good reason.
I don’t see this as support for Sawant, more against pro-corporate Seattle. Fuck that fucking jerk Cliff Mass.. Stick to the weather and teaching meteorology asshole.
Good candidates won’t run against her, and money won’t be there.
Good candidates should always run if they have a good argument to make and money will be there. Sawant is so damned polarizing.
This recall was a strategic mistake;
If the strategy was to chip away at her, it was merely an expensive “mistake”.. Chipping away could have been done “cheaper”..
she’s now more entrenched than ever,
No. She’s in more trouble than ever.
and probably in office for good.
She always be in trouble for good unless she “radically” changes her style and that won’t ever happen.
Just my .02.. Fyi, I voted for Sawant when she was at large, not because I agreed with everything she said but because I thought she’d shake things up in a positive way. Today if I lived in her district, I wouldn’t vote for her – I’d vote against the pro-corporate jerks who reflexively hate her. I experiment from time to time with my vote but once bitten twice shy.
@66 Justice is a tortoise, but when allowed to operate without interference, it does cross the finish line in due time.
These fuckers thought they could just brush aside two centuries of law and legal tradition simply by filling the bench with ideological conservatives. They thought wrong.
That’s one of the disadvantages of never reading anything, and not knowing anything. If Trump read history, he’d know that one of his predecessors, Eisenhower, famously said, “I made two big mistakes, and they’re both on the Supreme Court.” The point being that presidents not only can’t control their court appointees, but can’t even predict them.
He’s fucked. His whole insurrectionist cohort is fucked. Even without their fidelity to rule of law, the judges who are now fucking them where they deserve to be fucked probably would not be eager to serve as judicial servants of a fascist dictatorship that recognizes no legal or other restraints on its power. Under such a system, judges are as disposable as everyone else.
Ignorance and arrogance usually don’t work out well for those who combine those traits, which tend to feed on each other and amplify the negative feedback of both.
@67 Voters elected her because the only alternative was pro-corporate jerks. Now, I think the voting majority actually likes her. She’s not my idea of a city councilperson, but from now on, I think it’s about damage control rather than getting her off the council. It’s true her margin has shrunk in each succeeding election, but no effort to date has been able to dislodge her. The chances would have been better if her opponents had waited for the next regular election. All this did was galvanize her supporters. It’s possible the right candidate could defeat her, but I don’t have high confidence in that. That’s what her detractors (who included SeattleJew) thought the last time. She has staying power, and has demonstrated that time and again. That’s a force to be respected.
I’ve been in Seattle over 50 years. For much of that time, city government was dominated by developers and commercial interests who were indifferent to neighborhood concerns and did nothing for the homeless and other disadvantaged populations.
It’s surprising how completely city governance has flipped. The corporates are still around, but they seem to have no power these days. Pols with a neighborhood base took over, perhaps in a kind of backlash against downtown interests, and then the social activists arrived on the scene.
I can’t say the corporates didn’t have it coming. The “old” Seattle was like a medieval principality in which the dukes and barons looked out for their own interests and the rest of us were ignored peasantry. A backlash was inevitable. Despite some excesses and questionable decisions and policies, this city government is better for more people than the old one.
70)Would like to see the developers and politicians allow more housing options. Need a mix between high rise towers and single family housing. Building up mass transit is good, but also need to do better upzoning. Dense housing around transit stations used to be the norm. You can see the impact in many neighborhoods. Prior to being annexed, Columbia City was what one would call a streetcar suburb. At least the portion on Rainier between Edmonds St and Hudson St didn’t totally succumb to the need for big parking lots. Although the old Seafirst Branch and the Grocery store next to it did. The latter is now a PCC and an appartment building. It’s not just taxes and zoning that affects housing affordability. Not sure how Seattle is on Parking minimums, and lot set backs.
67,
I think you may be right. But it’s not absolutely clear. Looks like it takes between 20k and 25k votes to win a seat. That’s pretty doable. Not quite doorbelling territory. But for an engaged candidate with a strong identity in the community and the ability to produce volunteers (and of course money backers) that’s a very reachable number.
The question that needs asking though is who do you target? Most of the time the answer to that is the incumbent with the weakest, most indifferent support. Not so sure that’s Sawant. After all, most of the time she’s just one vote out of nine.
Smollett found guilty.
Did you guys lynch the dumbfuck traitor and forget to invite me?
I ask because if a Smollett conviction doesn’t have the traitor slithering out from under his rock, then he must be dead.
75)Only posted it because I mentioned the Duggar conviction, and he has a habit of being a whataboutist.
Of course, the dumbfuck traitor might be spending the day on the mainland stocking up on Listerine.
Free Jussie!
Too soon?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSZsBApH5Gk
Bob is having more fun, he has the horse.
not much body fat in that video posted @69….i mean 79
@65 Breding will not save them!
Probably the same question the horse would ask.
Another grand prediction that will end up in the gutter with the rest of them.
Bob likes to take a lot of risk with those grandeous ideas, but he can’t take a crack at my AGI.
78,
Free Josh!*
Too soon?
The degenerate pedophile Duggar served for two years as the executive director of the lobbying arm of Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council. Jussie Smollett is an actor on a teevee show.
One of these things is actually very much worse than the other.
Can you tell which?
Last night I estimated @56 that Sawant would lead by 229 votes after the 1,930 ballots were counted. I was off by 3; she leads by 232 votes. Ballots are still dribbling in; KCE had 766 to count as of tonight, and my revised estimate puts her final margin at “more than 425 votes.” It could exceed 500. I really isn’t all that close.
Does anyone know if the Fat FuckHump paid his respects to a Bob Dole?
On Planet Fox, a mentally ill, homeless guy torching a tree is guilty of a “hate crime,” yet the Trump supporters who took part in an insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6th aren’t guilty of sedition.
@70
I’ve been in the Seattle area for over 50 years too. Grew up in a highly desirable neighborhood.
Seattle was a beautiful city back in the day. I don’t live within the city limits anymore but occasionally need to go to the downtown core for services. Quite frankly the core of the city has turned into a hell-hole.
Was the city perfect under Uhlman, Royer, and Rice? No. But it was definitely a safer and cleaner place during their tenure.
As easy as it would be to just blame Sawant, the slide started a long time ago. Sawant capitalized on a city council that is just outright ineffective and has been for 40 years.
I would enjoy seeing Sawant shown the door, but it isn’t going to happen.
Either vote at the polls or vote with your feet. Unless the City Council grows a pair and starts to govern again rather than let crime and homelessness run rampant, more will vote with their feet, including big businesses like the ones Sawant wants to have pay for her utopian society.
70, 89,
You guys should study the population statistics for Seattle and the demographic history a little more.
The start of your chosen time frame coincides with a point where the city was essentially half-empty due to rapid depopulation and economic collapse. And if the other socio-economic data are any indication, not exactly a heaven on earth. But that would mostly depend upon your perspective, age group, and personal interests.
In 1970s Seattle about every other household is drawing unemployment. The city has no professional sports other than a quirky NBA franchise. Arts and culture orgs are failing but still surviving on the legacy of a worlds fair from ten years earlier. Public schools are worn out and empty with lots of broken windows, furnaces, and plumbing. Sports and rec programs are canceled. Public school music instruction is circling the bowl. Parks restrooms are broken and locked and play fields are seldom maintained. There are maybe four decent restaurants, but at least Dags, Dicks, and Ivars are booming.
On the other hand, freeways are empty, tee times for golf at Jackson are wide open and rounds are cheap, moorage at city harbors is plentiful and cheap, trailhead parking is ample and trails are empty, skiing is cheap and there are no lift lines, and if you arrive early enough you can jog half way around Greenlake without encountering another jogger.
It was a childless, Boomer paradise, at least so long as your interests were outdoor focused. But local government was going slowly bankrupt. And investment at all levels was fleeing.
Maybe there was some magical sweet spot somewhere between then and now. But the forces that produced the recovery are the same forces that have produced the homelessness, lazy indifferent cops, indolent public servants, and overcrowded everything.
Seattle remains locked in a boomtown mentality and boomtown pattern. It’s been that way since the Denny Party landed.
@90
You make valid points, however, the city was not covered with filth and garbage like it is now. No tent cities, freeways didn’t have homeless folks along the side. From that standpoint alone, then is better than now.
You left out the bussing that Seattle Public Schools did. That changed the demographics as much as the economy. Can’t recall exactly how many families I knew left the city due to bussing, but it was a bunch.
Sports teams, what does that have to do with anything? Sonics won the NBA championship in the 70’s, nice, but didn’t put Seattle “on the map” as one might like to believe. What have the Mariners done for Seattle? I personally have not attended a pro sporting event since the 80’s, the cost for tickets remains too high, parking is unreasonably expensive. There are many other entertainment opportunities for my $$$ other than attending sporting events.
Ironically, we did have world-famous J. P. Patches, who was the Mayor of the City Dump. He was a forewarning of the future but we just didn’t know it. The City Council today is nothing but a clown show.
Except that now, if you look at the underlying financial data, there is more than enough money to remove garbage, and house the homeless in something other than discarded $700 mountaineering tents.
You and I agree about sports. But nationwide, we’d be in the minority. People, especially when they are a little younger, absolutely love mass gatherings to drink and yell. It’s been that way since we lived in caves.
Look around and whatever it is that fuels your dissatisfaction with city life in Seattle and chances are there’s a decent solution available that only requires spending some of the vast sums of money that are instead being exported to the San Juans, Sun Valley, Palm Springs, or Zihuatanejo (or Bainbridge, Whidbey Island, Vashon Island, Mercer Island). I can’t really blame those folks for wanting to escape the seven months of grey rain and externalize all the inequality onto the less affluent. For them, Seattle is still a boomtown. And they call the shots.