Good morning! The rain pushed back some of the smoke from the six wildfires burning around us, so we get a little bit of that dreamy, pre-fire season September weather today: highs in the mid-70s with some breaks in the clouds here and there. Take a nice, deep breath while you can.
Alright, let’s do the news.
Bruce Cosplays as a Progressive: General election season has started, and last week, at a Haller Lake community center in North Seattle, the candidates got on stage together for the first time. The biggest surprise of the night? Mayor Bruce Harrell tried to insist that he is to the left of his opponent, Katie Wilson, who trounced him by almost nine points in the primary, taking home more than 50 percent of the vote. The Stranger’s Marcus Harrison Green was there for all the shenanigans. Read about it here.
Where Wilson Leads, Harrell Will Follow: To try to establish his lefty bona fides, Harrell is chasing Wilson’s heels like an Australian shepherd puppy, and last week was a perfect example. Wilson has made affordable childcare a pillar of her campaign since day one. She talks about childcare as a public good, like schooling and libraries, which has, unsurprisingly, resonated with voters. So last week, in a fundraising email, Harrell promised to “expand free childcare and preschool, offering fully subsidized care for infants and toddlers while increasing capacity for 3-5 year olds, giving thousands of families the support they deserve.” Just like how, after Wilson announced that she was exploring a public option for grocery stores to combat food deserts, Harrell suddenly had a plan for food access in the city. He thinks he’s showing voters that he’s progressive. He’s actually showing us that he has no vision for this city.
An “Unusual Arrangement”: You may not know Christian Sinderman’s name, but you know his work. He’s one of the most sought-after political strategists in Washington state politics. And over the weekend, the Seattle Times reported that Sinderman, who was Harrell’s strategist for his 2021 campaign, was paid by the city for three years during Harrell’s term. He was given a City of Seattle email address, got regular invitations to executive team meetings and retreats, and made almost a quarter of a million dollars of taxpayer-funded consulting fees in the process. To be clear, it’s not unusual for campaign staff to work on a winning candidate’s transition team for a few months. And it’s not even unusual for them to move into government jobs when their candidate wins. It is unusual for that person to stay on contract at their consulting rates, while maintaining their consulting firm, and working with other clients running for city office. Bruce insists it’s totally fine, but even City Council President Sara Nelson doesn’t think this passes the sniff test.
Electric Car Manspreads on Car-Free Day: Sunday was supposed to be the second-to-last open streets event on Lake Washington Boulevard, where the streets are shut down to let cyclists enjoy the lakefront without risking getting rundown by a lead foot in a minivan running late for lacrosse practice. Instead, the city granted a permit for a Rivian TV commercial shoot on that same stretch.
Seattle permitted a car commercial shoot in the middle of Bicycle Weekends and an accessible cycling event #SEAbikes #Seattle
— Seattle Bike Blog (@seattlebikeblog.com) September 7, 2025 at 7:28 PM
Queen Anne NIMBYs Are Freaking Out: The Comprehensive Plan has some plans for upper Queen Anne. It’ll add about 40 blocks of multi-family housing around Queen Anne Avenue in an area that surrounds two major grocery stores, a middle school, a community center, a public pool, and two public parks. It’s the dream of the 15-minute city. So why don’t they like that? Not because they’re obsessed with white, affluent “character” of their neighborhood, they say. But because Queen Anne is a hill, they say. And hills just aren’t suitable for density, they say. Sure, Jan.
Let’s take a look at the hilliest neighborhood in Paris—home to Montmartre—and see how their topographical constraints have impacted population density.
— Qagggy! (@qagggy.bsky.social) September 6, 2025 at 7:43 PM
100 Days of Solitude (Maybe): The search for Travis Decker, the man accused of killing his three young daughters in Eastern Washington, hit the 100-day mark over the weekend. The FBI is having a rough time with it. They’ve chased down a series of false sightings, had no success with a two-day, 250-mile grid search of the woods outside of Leavenworth, and found bones that turned out to be, well, animal bones.
No Apocalypse Yet: Trump insists that he’s not declaring war on Chicago. He just wants to send the National Guard there, rename the DoD the “Department of War,” and repost memes about “Chipocalypes Now” with his face horrifically plastered onto Martin Sheen’s body. That’s all.
Trump’s “Chipocalypse Now” meme appears to have come from conspiracy theory channel Next News Network. The channel has pushed conspiracy theories like claiming Biden wore a wire during the 2020 debate & Obama admin officials killed Osama bin Laden’s body double. www.mediamatters.org/google/youtu…
— Alex Kaplan (@alkapdc.bsky.social) September 8, 2025 at 6:30 AM
Make Racial Profiling Legal Again: In a brief, unsigned order, SCOTUS lifted a federal judge’s order blocking government agents from making indiscriminate immigration-related stops in the LA area on Monday. The order had been blocked because it clearly led to racial profiling—stopping people because of the color of their skin or because they spoke Spanish. In the new tradition of our Supreme Court, they gave no reason for why they thought racial profiling was okay now.
A Little Good News for Ya: Turns out, there’s still a little bit of justice in the world. On Monday morning, an appeals court upheld the $83.3 million jury award that Trump has to pay for defaming E. Jean Carroll in 2019, after she accused him of rape in a Manhattan department store (which he was separately found liable for sexual abuse, lest we forget).
A Song for Your Morning: This groove by the lovely, Welch Cate Le Bon has been stuck in my head all weekend. So now it must be stuck in yours.
