thestranger.com

“The top ten metropolitan areas, including Seattle’s, generate an astonishing 90 percent of the US GDP, and 88 percent of its employment. The modern economy would collapse without them. Without this kind of economic power, you don’t have an Idaho, or a Wyoming, or a Montana. You don’t have a billionaire class. Yet cities are now under violent attack from the GOP, the party that represents the ruling class, because they’re too blue, because they have policies that are supposed to protect the rights of immigrants, and so on. Yet ICE has only one mission: make the lives of city people miserable. This is the paradox of all American paradoxes and it has seemingly backfired.

And best of all, it’s one quick bus ride from my place!

Unbelievable. Hell just froze over.

In its latest attempt to prove the patently false assertion that immigrants are causing widespread voter fraud, the Trump administration sued Washington state after Secretary of State Steve Hobbs refused to give them voter information.

Clankers: If you need another excuse to go Sarah Connor mode, starting January 1, Washington will be one of six states participating in a new federal AI-assisted Medicaid program called “Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction.” Until now, our state’s Medicaid recipients didn’t need prior authorization (permission) for most services. But the magic of Artificial Intelligence will help determine whether or not they qualify for services like pain management, cervical fusion, arthroscopic knee surgery, and impotence treatment.

A new Trump administration policy would force the country to disinvest from an evidence-based approach to homelessness dominant for over two decades, a move that could push 4,500 formerly homeless Seattleites back onto the street. Now, Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown is suing HUD with 20 other states for control of our federal homelessness dollars.

[Mayor-elect Katie] Wilson stood in front of a makeshift podium (with nowhere to put her many, many sheets of paper) in the lobby of the Labor Temple in Georgetown for her first speech as the official Mayor Elect.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20250926115851/https://www.thestranger.com/news/2025/09/23/80249464/seattle-area-trans-women-are-being-attacked-by-groups-of-men

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20250926115851/https://www.thestranger.com/news/2025/09/23/80249464/seattle-area-trans-women-are-being-attacked-by-groups-of-men

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20250926115851/https://www.thestranger.com/news/2025/09/23/80249464/seattle-area-trans-women-are-being-attacked-by-groups-of-men

Public records show he is currently in ICE Custody at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma.

Nailed it:

Seattle election results are still rolling in, and they just keep getting better. In yesterday’s 4:30 p.m. ballot drop, everyone who could help pull our city out of this logjam was moving on up. With 23 percent of the vote counted, City Attorney candidate Erika Evans is now a full 17 points ahead of republican City Attorney Ann Davison, City Council candidate Dionne Foster has an almost 18-point lead on Council President Sara Nelson, and mayoral candidate Katie Wilson is 4.5 points ahead of Mayor Bruce Harrell. We’ve seen some incredible comebacks in our days in local politics, but Davison and Nelson look like they’re cooked. And Harrell? Parboiled, at least.

Fascism Is Tacky:

Fascism Is Tacky:

Trump Is Afraid of Teachers: Last week, ICE arrested and detained Fernando Rocha, a theater manager at Juanita High School in Kirkland. His lawyer told the Seattle Times that Rocha entered the US on a tourist visa in 2018, and before it expired, he applied for asylum. The case is still pending. Meanwhile, ICE Seattle claimed on Twitter that Rocha was wanted in Brazil for theft, a claim that his family in Brazil called “outlandish.”

Free Gui: Guilherme “Gui” Silva, a Brazilian immigrant, lawyer, and muralist, was detained by ICE earlier this month on San Juan Island in Washington state. Silva was a lawyer in Brazil, and moved to the US about eight years ago to pursue his art. He has a four-year-old daughter with his now ex-wife, and is expecting a child in just a few months with his wife Rachel Leidig. Two Fridays ago, masked ICE agents followed Silva from his home in unmarked vehicles, pulled him from his car, confiscated his cellphone, and detained him. When he asked to see an arrest warrant, they refused. Silva is married to an American citizen and is currently in legal proceedings to apply for a green card. The only blemish on his record that the Seattle Times was able to find was a $100 speeding ticket. The Department of Homeland Security said they detained him because he overstayed his tourist visa, which, let’s say it again together: is a civil violation.

The GOP, which first lost command of the white vote in cities and, gradually, the suburbs, is in actuality the minority party. Without certain institutional (and therefore structural) advantages, the country should have long accepted the obvious fact of its multiculturalness and been organized by a politics that spanned from the likes of Joe Biden (conservative) to the likes of Mamdani (progressive).