3rd Congressional District update:Ā After Clark County dropped its latest batch of ballots around 6 pm last night, Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez's lead over MAGA Republican Joe Kent shrunk to just 5,882 votes. She led by more than 10,000 on election night, and the trend of later-arriving ballots in Clark County shifting toward Kent could spell disaster for keeping Washington's most prominent election denier out of Congress. Clark County is reporting about 45,000 more ballots to drop over the next couple of days, and it looks like this one will be a nail-biter.

Put up or shut up, Kent:Ā *Sigh*. *Even bigger sigh*. Yes, of course, this jackass is spreading conspiracy theories about "some sleight of hand going on behind the scenesā€ now that it looks like he might not end up with enough votes to overtake a first time Democratic candidate who came out of nowhere to build a bipartisan coalition of people who don't like fascism. No, he doesn't have any evidence to support his claims. And no, he will not face any accountability from within the Republican party for undermining the legitimacy of this election.Ā 

Other election news: For more updates on how yesterday's ballot drop affected the closest contests around the state, check out my update from last night. I refused to wait an extra hour and a half for Island County to get their shit together before publishing that update, so here's a quick hit on the swing district race for state House up in northwest Washington: lyin' ass Clyde Shavers is still leading GOP Rep. Greg Gilday by just over 2% of the vote. If he and the rest of the Democrats running for the State Legislature we covered in our ballot drop update hold their leads, it looks like the Dems willĀ grow their legislative majorities in a year where even optimistic pundits expected modest shrinkage.

More election news: Federal Way Mayor Jim Ferrell conceded to soon-to-be King County Prosecutor Leesa Manion last night after she continued to grow her sizable lead from election night. As I wrote on election night, the SECB's IG Reel game is undefeated. Cross us at your own peril, politicians up for election in even years!

If you prefer your election news in video:Ā I joined Naomi Ishisaka from theĀ Seattle Times on the Seattle Channel to break down the election night trends. [Note: Despite the host continually framing his questions to Naomi as how theĀ Seattle Times Editorial Board endorsed in the races, Naomi is part of the newsroom, not the Ed Board.]

Dr. Kim keeps her seat: In Washington's 8th Congressional District, which was rated as a "toss-up" by national pundits, incumbent Democrat Kim Schrier declared victory last night. The last batch of King County ballots spelled doom for Republican Matt Larkin, who is now 0-2 as a candidate for office after getting trounced by Bob Ferguson in the 2020 race for Attorney General. Don't think the third time will be a charm for this particular GOP goblin.

Voting reform initiative still too close to call:Ā Capitol Hill Seattle Blog reports that the initiative on whether Seattle should change the way we vote is still failing to garner majority support, with a "no" vote on Proposition 1 leading with 50.55% of the vote after yesterday's ballot drop. If that flips over the next few days, we will switch to ranked-choice voting rather than approval voting, as RCV has a commanding majority of nearly 75% of the vote.Ā 

Twitter's substitute teacher loses control of the class:Ā Elon Musk is... not having a good time after completing his purchase of Twitter. After launching his allegedly revolutionary idea of charging users $8/month for verification earlier this week, the service has now been suspended. Why? Because of the completely predictable reaction from pranksters on the internet that anyone who has used Twitter for more than a day should have been able to see coming. People paid their $8 to create parody accounts impersonating everyone from former President George W. Bush to LeBron James, and, uh, it did not go well. Personally, I think $44 billion is a bargain price to watch a billionaire expose himself as a total moron in public.

But don't worry, he's got it all under control: We all just have to be more hardcore, you know? What problem in human history hasn't been solved with that solution, when you think about it?

Final bit of Musk schadenfreude:Ā The Verge reports that senior compliance and privacy executives have resigned from the bird app, warning the remaining skeleton crew that Musk's reckless direction of the company could draw billions in fines from the Federal Trade Commission. This may be the wildest line I've ever read in a story about an allegedly major tech company when it posted yesterday, though Musk has since responded to the request for comment: "The Verge reached out to Musk for comment. Twitter no longer has a communications department."Ā 

I cannot engage with this speculation yet:Ā We need like, at least another week before we should have to emotionally grapple with the prospects of a Trump 2024 run.Ā 

Our legal system is the worst: The same tool that helped check Trump's worst policies, a nationwide injunction from a single federal judge, is now threatening Biden's student debt relief program. The Trump appointee (because of course) insisted that his order was not driven by his policy preferences, but by a totally normal desire to simply fuck up millions of debt-burdened Americans' lives. Ok, he gave some bullshit legalese to cover his ass, but that's what's really going on here. Now, we have to wait while the administration fights this garbage in court to know if we're going to get any relief, and payments will still resume in January regardless of whether the litigation has wrapped up by then.

Florida Man story of the day:Ā This time, the Florida Men deserving of nationwide ridicule are two Columbia County sheriff's deputies who arrested a legally blind man because they believed his cane was a gun. Yup, that's what they said. The two deputies face suspension without pay, and their boss has called the arrest "unacceptable." Yet, the cops will not be fired. Instead, you guessed it, more remedial training! I'm sure that'll fix the problem.

Weekend podcast rec:Ā I promoted Michael Hobbes's new show, If Books Could Kill, last week and got some nice emails from readers about them enjoying the takedown ofĀ Freakonomics. So if you didn't take my recommendation last week and give the show a listen, you'll definitely want to tune in for the hosts' evisceration of Malcolm Gladwell'sĀ Outliers.