I liked Boom Clap. Glad she is touring

"Speaking of sweeps: Seattle loves them!"

It's worth noting that the increase in sweeps correlates with a substantial decrease in violent crime within encampments: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/in-one-big-way-seattles-homeless-encampment-removals-have-worked/

I know the conventional wisdom here at the Stranger is that the most vulnerable members of our community are best off left to their own devices in squalid encampments while local elected officials struggle to come up with solutions, but that might not actually be the best strategy.

Agreed, a ceasefire is long past due. Hamas should accept the Biden proposal.

Really hoping to be able to carve out the time to see the Charli XCX show when she comes to town in October. Same for Maggie Rogers, who'll also be in town in October.

Please don't tell me these shows are already sold out. If they are, hey, c'est la vie. I've got other first world problems for now.

@2 Whoa, whoa, whoa. You mean if there are fewer people in encampments, there's fewer crimes in encampments? Good thing Captain Obvious is on the job! The only fly in the ointment is that violent crimes citywide are basically flat between 2021-2023, so the sweeps just moved the problem from encampments to [somewhere else within the city].

And golly, what did the people opposed to sweeps say? That just moving the people without actually providing services would just move the problem. What happened? Exactly that!

The outlier, of course is murders. 2023 murders [with sweeps] were up 19% over 2022 [few sweeps], so that sweeps policy was definitely working to improve public safety. /s

They've calculated Democrat anger on the subject doesn't matter, and Biden will be financing and arming Israel's war right up until Election Day.

@5:

Thanks, that's exactly what I was planning to say. I mean, what exactly IS the purpose of sweeping unsheltered people in the first place? They don't go away, because - duh - they have nowhere else to go. Oh, they get shelter referrals, which are a joke, because everyone knows Its a useless gesture since there aren't enough shelter spaces anyway, and what few there are impose so many restrictions or are so physically unsafe that the unhoused are still better off taking their chances out-of-doors. So, they just find another nearby patch of ground to set up a new camp until they get swept again and whatever physical items they've managed to carry along with them or collect on the way gets thrown into a dumpster, and - lather, rinse, repeat. It solves nothing, aside from providing some feel-good optics that lets the housed citizenry pretend something is being done, when in fact precisely NOTHING is being done besides the City playing Whack-A-Mole and spending who knows how much money in the process. I guess the cops and trash collectors are happy to get more overtime - like cops need more OT - but otherwise, I just don't see it.

@6, All crimes do not need to be reported for his statement to be accurate, nor is it in conflict with your claim that retail thefts are up. If overall crime stats are unchanged even though it decreases in the specific locations the city has disrupted, it’s clearly not making a dent in total crime, and this has absolutely nothing to do with retail theft. Both his point and yours can be true at the same time.

@6 Do try to keep up. @2 said that crime was reduced by sweeping encampments. Which is only true if you look at the problem extremely narrowly. It's on the person making the claim to provide evidence to back it up, and it shouldn't be a surprise if someone else shows the evidence is woefully inadequate.

I'd be happy to revisit the claim that sweeps reduce crime if anyone can point to data showing crimes committed by homeless people. By all means, show me that data. Otherwise it's just feelings.

And is it only your feelings that are meaningful? No doubt my feeling that the city is no more or less safe than it was a decade ago is also meaningless. Sure, 3rd and Pine is a lousy part of the city, especially after dark. And my brother was told to stay out of that area after dark 35 years ago. Same as it ever was.

@5, 6: Here's Real Change founder Tim Harris on the issue:

Tim, do you think there are other reasons to remove encampments even if the majority of people stay outside?

Harris: Healthy encampments often turn into unhealthy encampments. In a healthy encampment, there are people who are visiting to support. Often there is some sort of natural leadership, you know, some kind of street mom or street dad who’s kind of keeping things glued together, watching out for people.

The longer an encampment sits, one thing that happens is the dealers find it. Once the dealers find an encampment, it’s downhill from there because the drug trade completely infiltrates it. With size and identification by dealers, the inevitable path is that it’s going to get druggier and more dysfunctional and that usually means a lot more internal strife.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/should-seattle-remove-encampments-advocates-answer/

@10, I have not "said that crime was reduced by sweeping encampments." I've instead noted "the increase in sweeps correlates with a substantial decrease in violent crime within encampments." It looks like you are just rewording my comment in order to create a strawman to use against @6, but I nonetheless thought it was important to flag the mischaracterization.

@11 Glad you appear to agree it's time for this one-sided war to end. It's essentially just wanton cruelty at this point with no real military or political objectives remaining and vanishingly little pretense otherwise. Whether Hamas formally accepts Biden's ceasefire proposal or not, Israel would be wise to unilaterally call it a day and focus on the return of the remaining hostages. (Of course this will not happen as long as Netanyahu is calling the shots.)

Anyway, it's hard to imagine Trump picking Tim Scott. Most right-wing whites instinctively distrust Black conservatives simply because they've experienced racism first-hand and know it still exists, whether they admit it or not (and Scott has). He can win elections in South Carolina because that state has an unusually high number of religiously conservative Blacks, but that math won't work anywhere else. Trump almost surely understands this, at least in the lizard-brained way he grasps most political dynamics. But Scott apparently doesn't get it and is very likely abasing himself for nothing.

@5/@8 you are both right of course. We should just leave encampments in place until such time that we can provide luxury accommodations paid for by us to everyone that shows up on our doorstep while allowing all sorts of anti social behavior. It's unfair of us to expect common respect when the system has treated them so harshly and even a modicum of expectation that they take steps to contribute back to society in some way (or even just pick up their garbage) is more proof of late stage capitalism (or pick your favorite obscure Mudede economic theory). Here's the deal, sweeping encampments is not about the campers just like arresting people for stealing is not about the criminal. It's about the rest of the public and having some basic rules of decency. If you can't abide by those rules then you need to go somewhere else or be put in timeout.

@12 What value is reducing crime within the encampment if the violent crime moves elsewhere within the city? If there's no reduction in total crime, then has anything been accomplished? Is a homeless person less injured because they got beat up outside an encampment than if they got beat up inside an encampment? No. Sure, it's true that you said that crime was reduced within the swept encampments. But that's not exactly a surprise if the encampment is gone. The clear implication that crime is reduced overall by sweeps is absolutely wrong.

@13 I can totally see Trump picking Scott. He's Republicans' one Black friend, so he would insulate [some] against charges of racism. That's also how he won election in South Carolina--he was the one Black friend of the Tea Party movement. He took very little (10%-15%) of the Black vote, more or less in line with percentage of Black Republicans in SC.

RepubliKKKans are such horrible excuses for people.
The entire Party of Turd needs to be fully castrated, overhauled, and replaced by competent, well educated people dedicated to serving ALL the citizens of the United States, NOT just the wealthiest 1 %; salvaging what remains of our dying planet, and STOP pandering to the gluttonous fossil fuel industry; defending ALL human rights, NOT just corrupt-as-fuck woman hating white men, guns, and unborn fetuses, and restore our Constitutional reproductive and voting rights and what's left of our democracy, and rid the Supreme Court of pro-Turdist neofascists, for fuck sake!

@10 boatgeek, re @6: I keep warning raindrop about how FOX TeeVee causes brain cancer, but he never listens.
The poor, willfully misinformed old schmo remains stubbornly glued to his MAGAt cave, even at the distinct risk of permanently losing vital brain tissue.

@14, I realize you’re being sarcastic but you’re underlining the problem and our enduring failure to address it. Sweeps are never going to be effective if you’re not giving people someplace else to go because setting up camp somewhere else is their only option. The accommodations don’t need to be luxury but they do need to exist, and this is not just for the benefit of the homeless but the rest of the community who coexist with them.

If the Orange Turd finally got gunned down on 5th Avenue in New York, I'd call that both a national and global victory for Election 2024. DJT's 34 criminal felony convictions are quite telling when all 12 jurors voted unanimously. WTF is Georgia so afraid of? Incarcerate the motherfucker already!
Orange Turd for Life Imprisonment in 2024! The world will cheer.

Scott could be a formidable pick if he manages to swing even a tiny fraction of votes, but it might not even be necessary - Biden's ratings are in the absolute gutter with large swathes of minority voting groups, with his approval among Hispanic adults dropping from 70% when he took office to 32%, and from 94% to 55% with Black adults over the same period. With this in mind, it's worth wondering what effect Scott's presence will have during Trump's plausible second term.

15: Overdose death are trending lower than 2023 in the County; I don’t think it’s a stretch to link sweeps to the lower trend line, FWIW.

@20 Sure, it's possible. Plausible even. But don't try to tell me it works when all you have is "this seems plausible" and no actual data. Show me the data trends for homeless deaths from overdose and we can talk.

Of course the same folks who complain about the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy when talking about Biden and people voting uncommitted are the ones who use the same fallacy to say that sweeps are improving public safety.

@21 So heartwarming that you want women to die from complications of pregnancy.

@11 "So how effective are those international institutions at altering anything in Gaza?"

It's likely that the threat of indictments is already having an effect. It seems that Israeli have stopped bombarding every single building in sight like they did in Northern Gaza before, but that has to be confirmed, although they haven't stopped with the episodic mass murdering of civilians. I also believe that one of the original Israeli objective was to flush Gazans into the Sinai desert, then refuse their relocation in Gaza after the conflict, similarly to what they have done during every single war since 1948. The window for massive ethnic cleansing of that type has probably closed and it is likely because of international attention, in part generated by the moves of the court. Netanyahu and co aren't indicted yet but if they are, it'll be a landmark decision that will serve as a warning of what war criminals can expect and it'll cause considerable damage to Israel, which will create an incentive to negotiate a resolution to the conflict.

@1 So you must also believe that Ukraine should roll over and take whatever Putin wants. After all, they can end the conflict immediately if they just accede to Putin's demands. Stop the slaughter and accept occupation! Of course, there's no way to know if Russia thinks that they're targeting Ukrainian troops when they bomb schools, shopping centers, day cares, playgrounds, and published evacuation routes.

@24 Every time a state bans abortion (particularly late term abortions), there's a delicate dance when the medical teams decide when /exactly/ a woman is sick enough for them to act. Or maybe they just throw up their hands and send the woman to another state. There have already been a few near-deaths in the past year, where women were told to go home with a dead fetus inside them because she wasn't /yet/ septic. She needed to be on death's door for the hospital team to abort a dead fetus, if they would at all.

The effect of abortion bans is that women will die from lack of care. That's what you're for when you're for banning abortions, even ones with exceptions for the life of the mother. At least have the courage to admit it.

@25 should have been @11.

@12, @14: It's amazing, watching one paragraph in Real Change provide more useful contextual information on this topic than the Stranger has in eight-plus years:

"The longer an encampment sits, one thing that happens is the dealers find it. Once the dealers find an encampment, it’s downhill from there because the drug trade completely infiltrates it. With size and identification by dealers, the inevitable path is that it’s going to get druggier and more dysfunctional and that usually means a lot more internal strife."

Good luck in finding within the Stranger a statement, or any combination of any number of them, which links drug use to encampment squalor -- let alone a single statement which links it this eloquently. The Stranger has spent many years denying this reality, and seems determined to do so forever.

Also @14: No fair, describing the effects of encampments on anyone else in the city. The only time anyone is allowed even to pretend to care about non-camper residents is when attempting to extort more funds, as @17 nicely demonstrates.

@20: "Overdose death are trending lower than 2023 in the County..."

One very simple explanation: it would have been extremely difficult for them to have trended evenly or upwards, given the astounding annual growth in number of overdose deaths prior to 2023.

@13 part two
It’s all about what will make Trump feel better about himself?
Picking Tim Scott- then Trump can crow endlessly about what a not racist he is, and how every Black voter is flocking to vote for him!
It’s all about Trump feeding his endless delusions.

@19, 31

judging by VP Pence's
near-brush with the Gallows
Scott'll make the perfect subject
for Eltrumpster's Lynch Mob movement

and won't
Clarence 'Uncle'
Thomas be Surprised!
when he Votes to overturn
the 13th Amendment and they
cart Him away, screaming, in chains

@29 You’re not in favor of abortion bans? That’s a surprise given your post history. But sure, whatever.

Are you planning to vote for Trump or Biden?

@28 "All that is speculation on your part, without empirical evidence or outcome in the real world."

No, claiming the courts have no effect on Israel and its allies is simple bad faith. Israel spying on the ICC for years and threatening its prosecutor all by itself shows the actions and words of the court cannot be ignored. So does congress when it threatens and votes sanctions on the ICC because a) it doesn't want arrest warrant against Israeli leaders whose actions it supports and b) the threat to its own war criminals will become ever more real (hello Bush). One has to be blind or unwilling to admit that Israeli propaganda, dutifully relayed by western media without questions, has been instrumental in retaining some support for Israel and US policy. Once the arrest warrants are issued it will become a liability with many more. I cannot wait for that moment to come.

Moreover, ignoring that most countries will observe the rule of international law and consequently threaten Israel's diplomatic relations and a large fraction of its trade with the rest of the world is delusion. Even the US will not be able to ignore completely that unconditional support (which include weapons) with a rogue nation whose leaders are wanted for war crime has serious impact on its world standing and its ability to claim it is a force for good.

Finally, despite your claims, short of annihilating Palestinians (complete and successful genocide) there is no military solution to this conflict like there were no military solutions to the many asymmetrical conflicts between colonized and colonizers of the 20th century.

@35: You left out the part where you get a pony.

@36 I don't even get pleasure from knowing I get under your skin. Quit making a pathetic spectacle of yourself.

@30 Real change has insight in the unhoused population that no other publication has because it has a very close relationship with homeless people who compose a sizable fraction of its workforce. Anyhow, Real Change certainly doesn't endorse sweeps like it appears you do:

" a growing body of research that suggests encampment sweeps and other policies of continual displacement directly contribute to increased rates of death and illness. Real Change previously reported that an April 2023 study by the Journal of the American Medical Association estimated sweeps were associated with a 19% increase in deaths and 2.5 times more overdoses among unsheltered homeless people who inject drugs. In November 2023, the American Public Health Association published a statement describing sweeps as dangerous and “a temporary cosmetic fix [that] does little to effectively connect unhoused people to services and housing.”
https://www.realchangenews.org/news/2024/06/05/sweeps-tripled-2023

Real Change is really great. Isn't it Tensor?

"inconvenient facts"?

"Real Change previously reported that an April 2023 study by the Journal of the American Medical Association estimated sweeps were associated with a 19% increase in deaths and 2.5 times more overdoses among unsheltered homeless people who inject drugs.

In November 2023, the American Public Health Association published a statement describing sweeps as dangerous and 'a temporary cosmetic fix [that] does little to effectively connect unhoused people to services and housing.'"

some'll see this as a Bug.

others, as A Feature!

it just depends on
which Encamp-
ment you hap-
pen to inhabit

homeless peeps
(& their Tents)
just make
some so
fucking
Sore.

@39 Hi Kristo. The exact same quote! Apparently, we have the same reading material :)

@37: Well, @36 obviously left a mark. Must hurt, typing up your whole fantasy, only to have it completely dismissed so effortlessly.

@38: As part of Seattle’s Homeless-Industrial Complex, Real Change makes bank from Seattle’s homelessness crisis. Of course they oppose sweeps; every homeless person removed reduces Real Change’s revenue opportunities. They’ll print whatever they believe to be necessary to keep the $$$ flowing. Ka-Ching!

My point, since it sailed right over your head, was that even with Real Change having a tremendous financial incentive to deny addiction as a factor in homelessness, they admit it up front anyway; the Stranger never has. That’s how deep the Stranger’s denial runs, and it has crippled Seattle’s response to homelessness.

but
it's vastly
EASIER to blame
the Victims than address

the Causes.
thankfully (for) the
Rich have their special
Mouthpieces placed strategically

Relax.
it's just
Capitalism.

@41 You appear to think that any situation can be twisted to your advantage by increasingly stupid verbiage. When Trump does it, we call it narcissism:

"Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental health condition in which people have an unreasonably high sense of their own importance. They need and seek too much attention and want people to admire them. People with this disorder may lack the ability to understand or care about the feelings of others. But behind this mask of extreme confidence, they are not sure of their self-worth and are easily upset by the slightest criticism."

@42: Mentioning addiction's role in making the homeless experience worse -- which, by the way, Real Change did, not me -- is not 'victim-blaming,' it's recognizing reality. Years of pretending a public-health crisis was a housing-affordability crisis has resulted in Seattle's current mess, with hundreds of millions of dollars squandered over the years, even as homeless persons remain homeless, and continue to die from the very overdoses the Stranger won't admit is happening. That's enabling addiction on a grand scale , and it's extraordinarily cruel to homeless persons who struggle with addiction.

You're not a good person just because you keep saying you are, or because you swallow and regurgitate exactly the same propaganda as others who keep saying they are.

@43: Projection much?

Here's a hint: when someone who has a clear financial incentive NOT to say something says it anyway, that person should be believed. When someone who has a clear financial incentive to say something says it, that statement should be taken with appropriate skepticism. Your own personal desire to believe or not, no matter how strong (or even desperate), has nothing to do with either of those two considerations.

This animated gif music video sucks

@45. It's basically tensorna posting on slog.

@13- everyone should mistrust Black conservatives. They’re either idiots to support the party that wants to strip away their civil rights, in which case they are too dumb to trust with any important decisions, or they have been paid off to work against people like themselves (Fat Clarence, is that you?) in which case they are traitorous whores.

"People
with this disorder
may lack the ability to
understand or care about
the feelings of others. But . . .
are not sure of their self-worth and
are easily upset by the slightest criticism."

check.
Check.
& Mate,
mate. you
See Wormtongue

@17
he prefers
Uncle or just 'Unc.'

@48: “People
with this disorder
may lack the ability to
understand or care about
the feelings of others.”

As a result, do they steal the creations of actual writers, and waste this stolen creative work on witless attempts at jejune insults?

“See Wormtongue”

Yes!

nailed
it again.

@25: “…Ukraine should roll over and take whatever Putin wants. After all, they can end the conflict immediately if they just accede to Putin's demands.”

Sure, if you equate a murderous, raping, genocidal terrorist jihadi gang, who callously use local civilians as human shields, with the legitimate government of a sovereign country, which protects citizens against foreign imperialist military aggression.

Which, apparently, you do.

@38/42 it's NOT about the homeless, it's about the rest of the community. You keep focusing on the impacts the sweeps have on the homeless but you fail to mention the impacts not sweeping has on the rest of us. Sweeps are not great and not the ideal solution but in absence of alternatives or in the case of many of our unhoused neighbors outright refusal to accept alternatives we have to use the best options available and one of them is sweeps. @38 placing the blame of those deaths on sweeps is tenuous at best. The article itself says the deaths are estimated and the actual cause is overdosing. It's been long documented the city goes out of their way to offer services to people before sweeping and so many times most of them refuse. There is no sure way of knowing whether that person was going to OD anyway if you left them where they are at. The one sure thing we do know is if we leave them in place they aren't going to accept treatment, they will continue using and they will continue to have a negative impact on the community around them with their anti social behavior.

@5: "2023 murders [with sweeps] were up 19% over 2022 [few sweeps], so that sweeps policy was definitely working to improve public safety. /s"

"few sweeps" in 2022? Let's check on that:

"...the City's near daily encampment sweeps..."

"...and the Mayor’s office has ordered plenty of sweeps."

"...the Mayor’s recent sweep frenzy."

(https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2022/05/24/73946179/the-hunger-games-of-housing)

How's the murder rate in Seattle, after a year-plus of even more sweeps?

"Seattle saw a 36% decrease in the number of homicides recorded in the first three months of 2024 — nine, compared to the 14 reported during the same period in 2023, according to AH Datalytics, a criminal justice consulting firm."

(https://www.axios.com/local/seattle/2024/04/17/homicides-seattle-us-down#)

So yeah, you're right, there's absolutely no reason to believe reducing crime in encampments within the city reduces crime across the city. /s

@52: The quote, from the founder of Real Change, clearly describes how allowing an encampment to remain dooms it to becoming a drug-ridden dystopia of violent crime. From this, the persons you're addressing concluded there was no value in sweeping encampments. Evidence simply does not matter to them.

And if they don't even care whether the homeless reside in crime-ridden encampments, why bother talking to them about persons who don't reside in encampments?

from:
the Ralph Nader Radio Hour

Poor People's Campaign/ Corporate Misbehavior

Ralph welcomes back Bishop William J. Barber to discuss the upcoming Poor People's Campaign March and Assembly in Washington, DC on June 29th, as well as Bishop Barber's new book "WHITE POVERTY: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy."

Then Ralph is joined by Phil Mattera from Good Jobs First to discuss their new report on corporate misbehavior, "The High Cost of Misconduct: Corporate Penalties Reach the Trillion-Dollar Mark."

by Ralph Nader
June 08, 2024

tonnes more for
those Exhausted
by tentsores & co:

https://www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/p/poor-peoples-campaign-corporate-misbehavior?

@54: Shorter Ralph Nader:

Al Gore and W were exactly alike, so you poor filthy sluts can just go die from back-alley butchery.

@55

Wrong, again,
wormmy!

your Heroes*
at our formerly-
Supreme ct STOPPED
Fla's Recount showing Gore
WON. but yeah, Wormtongue,
blame the guy in his Eighties STILL
working Hard for the Working Man

small Wonder he gets
the Wormtongue's
unending S.corn

bugger off
East Coaster.

*fucking
FASCISTS

On the topic of removing a woman's right to choose, anyone who spent two presidential campaigns baldly lying about the lack of difference between the Democrats and Republicans gets at least a participation trophy. (And also bonus points for the Republicans funding the latter of his two campaigns. They knew what he was doing, even if he -- and you -- won't ever admit it.)

As RBG noted, only poor women will suffer from loss of reproductive freedom. That Nader now pretends to care about poor women makes him an incredibly cynical exploiter of them.

speaking of
Projections
& cynicism

"That Nader
now pretends
to care about poor
women makes him an
incredibly cynical exploiter of them."

more Lies
but Not
unex-
pect-
edly.

@43, @48: Yeah, I post here because I believe it will induce you guys to admire me.

(You really need to understand the very large — and yet rapidly widening — gulf, between your belief in the value of your judgements, and the actual value the rest of us place upon your judgments.)

@59

yeah Wormtongue
we Get it:

“There
is no justify-
cation for terrorism. Ever.”

tensorna on December 8, 2023 at 8:44 AM

‘There
Is No Justifi-
cation for Terrorism,’
Says Man Justifying Genocide

more disturbingly:
https://theneedling.com/2023/09/02/there-is-no-justification-for-terrorism-says-man-justifying-genocide/

@21: You didn't even bother to actually read my comment @16, did you?
FOX TeeVee is only contributing further to your functional illiteracy, raindrop dear.
Check with your neurologist for pro Turd fueled brain cancer.
But hey--it's not too late to get a full frontal lobotomy.
@29: Your consistent misinformation spewing pro-MAGA trolling commentary screams otherwise.
Now go eat your kerfuffle paste before you really crack up, raindrop dear.

@22, @26, and @34 boatgeek +3 for the WIN!!!

@55: Wow. MAGAt much?

@56, @58, and @60 kristofarian: +3 tied with boatgeek for the WIN!!!!

@29: ....said the brain addled pro-Turdist projecting even more sloppily.
How much of your SSDI benefits have you senselessly blown on the Orange Turd's lawyers?
Quit while you're deeply entrenched up DJT's cavernous behind, raindrop dear.

@46 CDizzle (Garb Garblar?): +1 joins boatgeek and kristofarian for the WIN!!!!