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Good Morning! It’s another one of those perfect days that convince unsuspecting visitors to move to Seattle. Clear skies, high of 69, lows in the high 40s. You can practically hear the soundtrack to Practical Magic.
Trump Is Still Obsessed With Portland: And Chicago. And all of our other Godless, queer, blue-haired cities. On Saturday, a judge temporarily blocked Trump’s attempt to activate the Oregon National Guard to “defend” Portland’s ICE facilities against protesters. So Trump decided he’d try and get around that by summoning 200 of California’s National Guard troops to Portland instead. Some 100 troops arrived in the city on Sunday before a judge blocked that order (which covers deployment in Portland from any state). Then Trump remembered that he has friends in high places in Texas, so he ordered 400 members of the Texas National Guard to deploy for “federal protection missions” in Portland, Chicago, and possibly other cities. The judge’s block protects Portland from Texas’s troops as well, but it doesn’t apply to Chicago or other cities yet.
The @oregonian.com social media team spending the weekend making social card after social card explaining the current state of national guards coming to Oregon
— Nik Streng (@nikstreng.bsky.social) October 5, 2025 at 8:30 PM
And There’s More: One of Stephen Miller’s top deputies, Anthony Salisbury, was chit-chatting on Signal with one of Hegseth’s senior advisers, Patrick Weaver, in public, apparently with his screen “in clear view of others” in Minnesota. The Minnesota Star Tribune saw images of those messages. The two were talking about the Trump administration’s plan to send the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, an elite overseas military unit that specializes in parachute assaults and forcible entry operations, to Portland, an American city. Weaver told Salisbury: “Between you and I, I think Pete just wants the top cover from the boss if anything goes sideways with the troops there,” Weaver said. “82nd is like our top tier [quick reaction force] for abroad. So it will cause a lot of headlines,” he added. “Probably why he wants potus to tell him to do it.”
Awfully Busy for a Government That’s Closed for Business: We’re starting day six without an operating government, and there’s no sign that an end to the shutdown is in sight. Two million federal workers currently aren’t getting paid, and the White House social media account is still posting AI video of Hakeem Jeffries with an ever-larger sombrero while Trump threatens widespread layoffs for federal workers. The Senate is scheduled to vote on the legislation again today, but the current stopgap bill still strips millions of Americans of their healthcare subsidies, so it’s not going anywhere.
Third Country Deportations Are Still Happening: Amid the noise of government shutdowns, National Guard threats, and AI-generated diss-videos, 10 people who were deported from the United States were sent to the African nation of Eswatini on Monday morning. (For anyone rushing to Google Maps, it’s a small kingdom that borders South Africa.) And they’re just the latest. More than 40 people have been sent to Africa since July, after Trump struck secretive agreements with at least five nations there to take migrants under his third-country deportation program. At least two of them are Vietnamese—none of them are from Eswatini. They’re now in a maximum security facility with no known charges.
Peace Progress: This week will mark two years since the genocide in Gaza began, and on Monday, Israel and Hamas are starting indirect peace talks in Egypt. Everyone seems more onboard than usual: Israel has said it supported the new plan that Trump’s administration has drawn up, dictating that Hamas would release the remaining 48 hostages—about 20 believed to be alive—within three days. It also requires that Hamas give up power and disarm. Notably missing from the coverage: Hamas’s take on the deal.
Flotilla Protesters Deported, Detained: Meanwhile, last week, more than 400 activists who were sailing from Barcelona to try to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza on the Global Sumud Flotilla were arrested in international waters by Israeli forces. The protesters included climate activist Greta Thunberg, Nelson Mandela’s grandson, and our own local protester, Orcas Island resident Jas Ikeda. The protesters were taken to Israel, where they report being held in inhumane conditions “like monkeys.” Today, hundreds of protesters were deported from Israel, but Ikeda is still detained, and is one of 42 protesters on hunger strike in the prison.
Watch for Splinters: Foster Poultry Farms had to recall almost 4 million pounds of chicken corndogs after wood was found in the batter. This is the second corndog recall in as many weeks.
Dr. Brunkow Gets Her Flowers: It’s Nobel Prize season, and Seattle’s Dr. Mary E. Brunkow is one of three researchers who won the Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for their work on peripheral immune tolerance. What does that mean? It means she helped open an entire new field in immunology that makes it easier for us to treat cancer and autoimmune diseases. And how did Dr. Brunkow react? She didn’t answer the phone because she thought it was spam. Nobel-prize-winning doctors, they’re just like us.
The Ms Tie It Up: Okay, that news was a lot, but guess what?? We’re two games into the post-season, and last night, the Mariners won their first post-season game since 2001. They’re now 1-1 against the Detroit Tigers.
the Mariners would probably win the world series if they brought back “Can’t Hold Us” as the seventh inning stretch song
— Nathalie Graham (@gramsofgnats.bsky.social) October 5, 2025 at 7:05 PM