This post was originally published on this site
Man Breaks Into State Capitol, Breaks Shit: A 29-year-old Auburn man broke into the Capitol Building in Olympia Sunday night. The former minor league basketball player lit fires, tipped statues like cows, and broke glass with a hammer. The man is facing felony charges for first-degree burglary, first-degree arson, and first degree malicious mischief (that last one sounds a bit silly doesn’t it?). It’s unclear why the man did this. Lt. Governor Denny Heck told the Washington State Standard that he took the man’s “family at their word that there are mental health considerations.” The man had reportedly left notes and gifts for Heck for months.
Redmond W: Plymouth Housing broke ground on 100 units of permanent supportive housing in downtown Redmond last week. It’s been a journey. The building was supposed to be in Kenmore. Its City Council even approved the project in 2022. But in 2023, opposition ramped up, according to the Urbanist. Some Kenmorons were anxious about the building’s proximity to the city’s business district. Others had been duped by the false claim (reinforced by reporting from KOMO) that the city was building a homeless shelter. The Kenmore City Council ended up rejecting the plan in December 2023. Leadership in Redmond stepped up in a 5-1 vote last February. The expedited process was dragged out by a series of appeals, but they were dismissed by July.
Shaun Scott Holding “Tax The Rich” Town Hall This Saturday: The 43rd District Rep said it’s a chance for “community members to gather, get loud, and voice their support for progressive revenue before the January 2026 legislative session,” according to Capitol Hill Seattle Blog. The meeting at Seattle First Baptist Church, 1111 Harvard Ave., is scheduled for October 11 from 3:30 pm to 5 pm.
King County Metro Wants Our Money: In the lead up to King County’s budget process, King County Metro and its transit union asked the County Council to invest $115 million to improve the safety of its fleet, including additional security and safety barriers on buses. The ask comes a less than a year after bus driver Shawn Yim was stabbed and killed at work in the University District.
Trump Could Shut Down UW’s Science Monkey Jail: UW says the Primate Research Center advanced our understanding of COVID transmission, led to the development of cochlear implants, and helped test PrEP, a groundbreaking HIV prevention medication. But animal rights activists can’t stomach that sweet, intelligent monkeys should suffer for our benefit. Trump, who by all accounts adores human suffering, isn’t about animal testing either. In his second term, he has cancelled $28 million in funding for animal labs. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has announced a “dramatic reduction in animal testing” at the Food and Drug Administration. So, as KUOW reports, the future of UW’s monkey lab is unclear. As the old saying goes, to save some humans, you’ve got to break some monkeys, scientists argue.
WA’s Carbon Market Safe For Now: The US Supreme Court won’t hear a challenge to Washington’s Climate Commitment Act. In 2022, Invenergy, the Chicago-based owner of a natural gas plant in Grays Harbor County, sued the then-head of the Washington Department of Ecology. It claimed making a privately-owned gas plant purchase pollution allowances for its emissions when public utilities received the allowances for free was unconstitutional. In 2023, a US District Court Judge dismissed the case. The company appealed, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the US District Court Judge. Apparent sluts for rejection, the company appealed again to SCOTUS. The Justices didn’t even publish a written justification for their decision.
Small Rose, Large Thorn: This morning, the Supreme Court is hearing a challenge to Colorado’s ban on mental health professionals engaging in conversion “therapy” that attempts to change a child’s sexuality or gender. More than 20 states have banned the practice, which A) doesn’t fucking work, B) attempts to “fix” something that isn’t broken C) is condemned by every major medical association in the US, and D) is considered torture by the United Nations. The suit argues torture—sorry, therapy—is free speech, actually. The Spanish Inquisition is greasing the rack in anticipation.
Illinois and Chicago Sue to Block National Guard Deployment: President Donald Trump is lying about Democrat-led cities being lawless, “burning hell hole[s]” under the control of “domestic terrorists” so he can deploy federal troops to support his state-sanctioned ICE kidnappers. The suit comes after a judge blocked troop deployment to Portland, Oregon.
Is That a Threat? Not one to let the courts stop him, President Donald Trump suggested he may just invoke the Insurrection Act if those damned federal courts keep getting in his way. In the Oval Office Monday, Trump told reporters he didn’t see an immediate need to invoke the Act, but “if I had to enact it, I’d do it, if people were being killed and courts were holding us up, or governors or mayors were holding us up.”
Trump Has Said This Shit Before: During his first term, Trump toyed with the idea of invoking the Insurrection Act to crush George Floyd protests. He asked former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper if the 10,000 Guard troops he wanted to deploy could “just shoot them? … Just shoot them in the legs or something?” Esper wouldn’t do it. In Senate hearings, Secretary of WAR!!!!! Pete Hegseth wouldn’t say whether he’d give the order to arrest or detain unarmed protesters, according to PBS, which Trump has defunded. Oh, and when the President lost the 2020 election, his allies called on Trump to invoke the law to hold onto power as a very real insurrection happened at the Capitol.
Doesn’t Make It Normal! It’s not reassuring that the President says he doesn’t see an immediate need to invoke the Insurrection Act, or that we didn’t tumble into authoritarianism after President George H.W. Bush invoked the Insurrection Act during the LA Riots in 1992. Trump’s Cabinet members have called the ICE protesters “insurrectionists.” Stephen Miller, the man with the deportation plan, called the Oregon judge’s ruling “insurrection.” These comments, along with false assertions about Democrat-led cities, are all a bullshit pretext to invoke the insurrection Act when the government has no actual justification to do so.
$$$: According to a study from Brown University’s Costs of War project, the US has given Israel at least $21.7 billion since the Hamas attack that killed about 1,200 people. In the two years since, Israel has leveled Gaza and killed about 68,000 Palestinians. Another study from the Costs of War project found the US has spent about $10 billion more on security aid in operations in the Middle East in the same period, according to the AP. The State Department had no comment. The White House referred the AP’s questions to the Pentagon, “which oversees only a portion of the assistance,” the AP writes.
