Spoggers: Seattle City Council approved the city’s contract with the Seattle Police Officer’s Guild (SPOG) in a 6-3 vote. Seattle police officers remain the highest paid in the state, and we didn’t get any significant accountability measures in the contract. The CARE team is expanding, but not much. Micah will have more on this later. SPOG celebrated victory with this dorkass tweet.
Seattle City Council ratifies the SPOG contract. Moderates 1 – Socialists 0. Public Safety for the win! pic.twitter.com/4xNGVZ9VTs
— Seattle Police Officers Guild (@SPOG1952) December 10, 2025
In County Council news: Zahilay’s former chief of staff Rhonda Lewis was appointed yesterday to his old District 2 council seat. She’ll hold the seat until the November election. Lewis is the first Black woman to serve on the council. Women now hold a majority of council seats for the first time. Before working in Zahilay’s office, Lewis was the county’s chief of operations under former executive Dow Constantine.
One Seat, Never Cooled: Washington State Sen. Rebecca Saldaña (D-Seattle) is running for Girmay Zahilay’s newly old county council position in District 2. Nathalie has more here.
Some Atmospheric River We’re Having: See for yourself. It’ll be raining here until at least Thursday. This record river is one of the biggest and longest-lasting we’ve seen since 1959.
Uh Oh: Skagit County’s Emergency Management Office is “a little alarmed” that the Skagit river could crest 15 feet over the major flooding threshold, obliterating a previous record. Residents in the lowlands need to stay informed and be prepared to evacuate, the office told The Seattle Times. The National Weather Service has issued flood warnings for several rivers in Western Washington. The Times has more on when they could flood.
Flooding in Gaza: Flash floods, strong winds, and hail are projected in Gaza through Friday evening. Thousands of displaced people living in crowded, weakly-built shelters are vulnerable. Some tents have been completely submerged, the Mayor of Gaza City says.
Freedom: A proposed Trump Administration policy would require tourists to digitally disclose their social media activity for the past five years before visiting our county. The public has two months to comment on the policy. Tourism to the US has already dropped significantly since Trump took office. I wonder why?
More Freedom: US regulators are going to reexamine the safety of RSV shots, despite there being no reports of safety issues. Unless RFK Jr. is trying to make gains on our infant mortality rate, there is no reason to limit access to the shot. We’d ask him, but he’s probably doing pullups at the airport.
In line for the TSA behind this guy
— Razzball (@razzball.bsky.social) December 8, 2025 at 2:48 PM
Un-Secret Transcripts: A federal judge ruled that sealed transcripts from Jeffery Epstein’s 2019 sex trafficking case can be unsealed. Though, don’t expect much. The judge had previously ruled against unsealing the records, and only reversed that decision after Congress passed a bill to release the files. He said they were hardly revelatory.
Blue Miami: Democrat Eileen Higgins beat a Trump-endorsed Republican in the Miami mayor’s race, breaking her party’s three-decade losing streak. Her campaign focused on Trump’s reckless immigration crackdown, which has cost him the support of Latino Americans, polling shows.
Heartless in the North of Texas: Arlington, Texas had the honor of becoming one of the first cities in the country to kill its LGBTQ non-discrimination ordinance. The ordinance had been suspended since September because officials claimed Arlington could lose federal funds for having it on the books. Yesterday, the city council voted 5-4 not to reinstate it.
A New Casualty in the War on Woke: Marco Rubio and the State Department claimed a decisive victory over people with dyslexia and impaired vision Tuesday when it “returned to tradition” by switching its official font from Calibri to Times New Roman. The 2023 change was a DEI recommendation, so obviously this is a big moment for the citizens of Timewastington. “Tradition” is misleading, anyway. The department only used Times New Roman for 20 years. Before that, it was using Courier New.
Fuck it, Diamond Jubilee: Just listen to the whole thing.
