Free Republic

“Give me a bite of your burrito,” Mahamed Abdi, 24, allegedly demanded of a stranger noshing Saturday afternoon outside a Seattle restaurant. When the burrito owner declined Abdi’s request (and remarked “That is rude”), Abdi pushed him and again demanded a bite of the Mexican food favorite. As the diner then arose from his seat, Abdi allegedly punched him in the forehead and fled on foot, according to a Seattle Police Department report. Witnesses described the attacker as a black male in his 20s wearing “a gray ‘beanie’ and white fur coat.” Cops subsequently caught up to Abdi as he...

A Seattle teen shot and killed a man for his cellphone — then went to a friend’s house and complained the stolen gizmo wasn’t nice enough, police say. Byron White, 17, now faces charges as an adult for killing David Peterson last month in the Washington city’s Greenwood neighborhood. White was on the lam for a week after the shooting until cops caught up to him at the airport last weekend as the boy tried to board a flight to Atlanta, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported. “David Peterson went out for a walk around the neighborhood after dinner and never returned,...

Why don't music innovators win competitions like America's Got Talent? Or is this guy too Vegas-y? Coming from a string instrument background, I am baffled by the idea of tuning each of the strings.

If you’ve ever wondered how the United States got in to its current mess of a stagnant economy and out-of-control government, I have a suggestion. Take a good look at what a handful of voters in one of America’s finer suburbs did to themselves and the rest of their community, and realize that it is a microcosm for what’s happening all across the country. The city in question is Seatac, a small suburb in the state of Washington (it’s name is derived from the larger neighboring cities of Seattle and Tacoma). Last year a group of activists there were...

SEATTLE, Wash. — Seattle city councilmember Kshama Sawant advocates a bold idea for ending the dispute between taxi companies and rideshare businesses - she says the city should take over the taxi business. Taxi drivers feel they’ll be crushed by competiton, despite the limits on rideshare companies that city council members voted to approve last night. Because rideshare companies use high-tech service to lure customers away from taxis, councilmember Sawant says the city should step in. “The real solution to this problem is for the city to have the app, the smartphone app and the dispatch system and to employ...

Seattle, Wash. — At an organizing event and rally for a $15-per-hour minimum wage, Councilmember Kshama Sawant emphasized the movement should not accept any watered-down version of the wage increase “I’m throwing down the gauntlet,” Sawant said, declaring herself the first politician to support a true $15-per-hour rate. She and other rally speakers cautioned against politicians and businesses who say they support a minimun wage increase but want loopholes and exemptions.

Lars Larson, substituting for KVI’s John Carlson, listens to a mildly contentious exchange between the two city council members during a Monday council hearing where council President Tim Burgess ordered councilwoman Sawant to stop talking when she went ‘off-topic’. Sawant was venting about her pet issues, employer wage theft. Also, Larson discusses the now interminable delay of the Seattle downtown tunnel dig because of damage to the drilling machine known as Big Bertha.

Seattle radio station KIRO 7 says that a local woman has been accused of sending over 100 abusive and violent messages to the frontman from nine different Twitter accounts, including posts which threatened to rape his 13-year-old daughter.

The tech-bus protest isn’t just a San Francisco thing anymore. This week, the anti-gentrification act of blocking a private shuttle full of high-paid tech workers spread to Seattle, where a handful of buses carrying Microsoft employees were stopped by demonstrators. The protest was chronicled by local Tweeps and community websites.

Researchers plot course of ancient American tsunami Researchers have calculated the scale of a giant wave that devastated the north west coast of America 1,100 years ago. Japanese scientists used computer modelling to recreate the devastation from the ancient tsunami. The team from the Disaster Reduction and Human Renovation Institution in Kobe say the work will help planners minimise the impact of any future wave. The researchers took clues from silt deposits found in the Puget Sound, a Pacific inlet above earthquake fault lines in the Seattle area. Experts say the tsunami could have reached up to seven metres in...

Pick on someone your own size! Why an elderly lady with a big fighting spirit refused to sell her home to developers When Barry Martin took on the role of construction supervisor of a huge Seattle shopping complex, he never imagined that he would end up caring for Edith Macefield, a stubborn 84-year-old who had refused $1 million from the developer to move house. Here he describes their unlikely friendship.

SEATTLE (CBS Seattle) – According to a recent study, fatal car crashes involving pot use have tripled in the U.S. “Currently, one of nine drivers involved in fatal crashes would test positive for marijuana,” Dr. Guohua Li, director of the Center for Injury Epidemiology and Prevention at Columbia, and co-author of the study told HealthDay News. Researchers from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health gathered data from six states – California, Hawaii, Illinois, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and West Virginia – that perform toxicology tests on drivers involved in fatal car accidents. This data included over 23,500 drivers that...

The city expects around 300,000 people - the same attendance as Seafair Parade - along the parade route to celebrate the Seahawks Super Bowl XLVIII Champions, the first Super Bowl winners in franchise history. >snip The Seahawks victory parade is scheduled for 11 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. Wednesday. It will begin just south of Seattle Center at Denny Way and travel south down 4th Avenue past Westlake Park and finish at the north entrance of CenturyLink Field. >snip A Super Bowl celebration will be held at CenturyLink Field following the parade. The celebration is expected to start around 1 p.m....

**SNIP** The Bureau of Labor projects the majority of jobs developing to be low-wage service jobs. Is this the fault of the unemployed who are still out there looking for decent work, or is this the fault of big businesses who have greedily outsourced their production jobs for increased profit? There was an article a couple of years ago about Henry Ford. He paid his assembly line workers a $5 per day back in 1914 (that’s $118 in today’s dollars, according to MeasuringWorth.com). He did this because he wanted to increase productivity and reduce turnover — and if his employees...

After the Seattle Seahawks won their first Super Bowl in franchise history on Sunday, fans in Seattle jumped on cars, took over intersections, torched couches, and riot police had to be brought in to restore order.

According to the police, Musab Mohamed Masmari tried to torch a crowded gay bar. It was just after midnight on New Year’s Eve while nearly 700 people crammed into Neighbours for a celebration when customers noticed the staircase at the iconic gay club was on fire. Management at the iconic gay club in Capitol Hill later discovered a gasoline container near the stairs. Neighbours released surveillance video that police believe shows Masmari as he walks into the club. The video was captured around the time of the countdown to midnight on New Year’s Eve. Masmari is carrying something in his hand. -snip...

Musab Mohamed Masmari, 30, was arrested as a suspect in the arson attempt on ‘Neighbours’ Gay night club as he was on his way to the airport. But that’s not all. As part of the Obama Regime’s Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP), Masari, a native of Benghazi, Libya, was also a cultural ambassador on behalf of the 9/11 Media Arts Center for the Arabic speaking visitors. Capitol Hill Seattle (h/t SusanK) On January 1st, a man poured gasoline over a staircase inside Neighbours and lit it on fire as the nightclub was packed with more than 700...

**SNIP** Lesson #9: Join the Fight Last but not least, we had Kshama Sawant – an intelligent, eloquent, passionate yet tactful immigrant woman of color running against stale establishment white guys in both 2012 and 2013. Sawant is an impressive speaker and a determined fighter, no doubt. But she is also an ordinary person who happened to attend a couple public forums in 2008 and was impressed with the Socialist Alternative speakers’ political clarity. Through discussions with Socialist Alternative, she decided to dedicate her life to fighting for a socialist world. Most ordinary people gravely underestimate our own potential to...

"Administrators at Seattle Children's today said they predicted this would happen, and it's even worse than they expected," says the local news anchor. "Patients being denied specialty treatment at the hospital by insurance providers on the Washington health benefits exchange. Children's filed request on behalf of 125 of their patients. Of those, they say they got only 20 responses, eight of which were denials. Dr. Sandy Melzer says all this comes after reassurances of certain unique specialty cases would still be covered."

**SNIP** In a frank and unflinching critique not seen or heard on the broadcast or cable news shows, Sawant described Obama's renewed focus on income inequality as an indictment of his own failures and misguided economic policy. Pointing to record high poverty and the fact that "95% of the gains in productivity during the so-called recovery have gone to the top 1%," Sawant argued that Obama's rhetoric on inequality has been forced on him by popular "outrage over the widening gulf between the super-rich" and the millions of workers, many working in low-wage retail and fast food jobs, who generated...

Seattle’s only Socialist City Council member announced Monday that she will make good on a campaign pledge and accept only $40,000 a year in salary — bringing her down to the average wage of a worker in the city. The remainder of the roughly $117,000 salary will go to social justice causes such as strike funds, civil rights and women’s rights, she said in a statement. "Every Councilmember faces a choice of who they represent and which world they inhabit,” said Kshama Sawant, who took office earlier this month. “My place is with working people and their struggles. I want...

With the current success of the Seattle Seahawks, the "12th Man" has been all over ESPN and social media. We decided to look further into the "12th Man" trademark and Texas A&M's licensing agreement with Seattle. Following an initial lump sum payment of $100,000 in 2006, Texas A&M University is receiving $5,000 per year from the Seattle Seahawks for their use of the "12th Man" mark. The initial term of the agreement was five years, and the Seahawks opted to renew the agreement for five more years in 2011. It will be interesting to see what happens in 2016 after...

A 32-year-old Seattle man accused of posting threats on Facebook against Seattle’s openly gay mayor and a socialist City Council member was charged Wednesday with malicious harassment, felony harassment and two counts of cyberstalking. Mitchell Munro Taylor remained jailed on $600,000 bail, The Seattle Times reported. …

"Omaha" versus "You mad, bro?" Super Bowl XLVIII between the Denver Broncos and the Seattle Seahawks is setting up to be a classic contest in which the surgical Peyton Manning will try to perhaps cap off his career and legacy against the brash--and best (ask Richard Sherman)--Seattle secondary that has smothered the league's best wide receivers all season long. Simply put, the league's top offense (Denver) will face the league's top defense (Seattle). Something has to give.

Bertha, the world's largest tunneling machine, churning through the rock and mud beneath Seattle, has hit a mysterious roadblock—so mysterious, it is only known for now as "the object." The New York Times reports that the machine—300 feet long and 5 stories tall—has ground to a halt. Built precisely not to be stopped by, well, just about anything, Bertha has apparently met her match. But what exactly is it? "Something unknown, engineers say—and all the more intriguing to many residents for being unknown—has blocked the progress of the biggest-diameter tunnel-boring machine in use on the planet," the NYT writes. It...

After drilling four deep shafts and sending a man down to look last week, Seattle Tunnel Partners and the state Department of Transportation don’t fully know yet what’s blocking tunnel machine Bertha, some 60 feet deep next to Pioneer Square. So the DOT announced Tuesday it is “going hyperbaric,” by sending workers to the pressurized cutting face. Teams of five or six workers would take turns inspecting the huge area. Bertha is equipped with two hatches for men and one for equipment, to reach a five-foot wide chamber where excavated muck enters the conveyor system, right behind the 57-foot rotary...

Assuming the 49ers win on Sunday, fans wanting to cheer on the Niners in the January 19th NFC Championship Game in Seattle will not be able to buy tickets through the Seahawks, as the team is restricting sales to only zip codes in Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho, Alaska, Hawaii, and parts of Canada. Tickets go on sale Monday, and California residents can still purchase tickets through the secondary ticket market like NFL Ticket Exchange, Stub Hub and others, or with a friend who has a credit card billed to an address in the Pacific Northwest.

<p>A buried steel pipe is at least partly to blame for stopping the giant tunnel-boring machine Bertha, which has been stuck since Dec. 6 along the Seattle waterfront near South Main Street. The long pipe was a “well casing” used to measure groundwater during studies in 2002 on the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement project, state DOT spokesman Lars Erickson said this afternoon. The well site was listed in reference materials that were provided to bidders as part of the contract specifications, he said. “I don’t want people to say WSDOT didn’t know where its own pipe was, because it did,” Erickson said. It’s unclear for now why the pipe was left in the ground by the team that did those soil investigations, or why Seattle Tunnel Partners would not have removed it prior to drilling. A modern tunnel machine can chew through dirt and concrete, but not steel. Even fiberglass rods caused a snag that delayed work several days this summer. A steel pipe can become tangled in the spokes of the rotary cutting head, and in a conveyor screw that pushes dirt from the cutter face onto a belt that moves out the rear of the machine. Downtown Seattle contains some of the most frequently poked and studied ground on earth, which makes the blockage all the more confounding. Five-foot diameter holes were drilled alongside the tunnel path to install concrete pilings that protect the old viaduct; the contractors have used ground-penetrating radar; and geotechnical experts drilled test holes, which didn’t hit this particular object. The state Department of Transportation is holding a news conference this afternoon, during which state engineers and contractors will provide more details about the next steps, and about resuming drilling. An inspection was conducted at the front of the machine Thursday night.</p>

As the Big Apple’s tax base shrinks, its municipal costs skyrocket, increasing the urgency that it get its financial house in order. So I’ll make a bold prediction: New Yorkers may someday regret electing a man who says he does not believe in the free market system. “Everything you heard about me is true…I am not a free-marketeer…I believe in the heavy hand of government,” Mayor-Elect Bill de Blasio recently told a meeting of major real estate developers. (snip) Amazingly, this erstwhile reader of Barricade magazine isn’t the most radical city politician lately to sweep into power. Meet Kshama Sawant,...

SEATTLE — People are used to liberals running things around here. But nobody reckoned with Kshama Sawant. Ms. Sawant, a 41-year-old economics teacher and immigrant from India, took a left at liberal and then kept on going — all the way to socialism. **SNIP** But Kshama Sawant (pronounced SHAH-mah sah-WANT) heartily embraces the label. Ask her about almost any problem facing America today, and her answer will probably include the “S” word as the best and most reasonable response. Socialism is the path to real democracy, she says. Socialism protects the environment. Socialism is the best hope for young people...

NFL Media Insider Ian Rapoport reported Tuesday that the Dallas Cowboys worked out David Carr, Tyler Thigpen, John Skelton and Caleb Hanie, only to send all four of the free-agent quarterbacks home without a contract. Now we know why.

A group of 49ers fans who raised money for a billboard in Seattle to brag about their team's five Super Bowl trophies got their sign - but it's nowhere near CenturyLink Field. The digital billboard is just north of Fife, about 27 miles from downtown Seattle. Niners fans raised money through the fundraising site gofundme.com. They raised more than the $7,000 needed to pay for the billboard so the rest will go to charity. A Seahawks fan wants to do the same thing in San Francisco, but to promote Seattle Children's hospital and Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson. On Sunday, a...

SEATTLE (AP) — Students at a Seattle-area Catholic school are gaining national attention for their protest over the forced departure of a gay vice principal. An online petition started by the senior class president of Eastside Catholic was the third fastest growing U.S. petition on change.org Friday, attracting around 15,000 signatures in one day. The petition was launched after Vice Principal Mark Zmuda resigned under pressure from school administrators after they learned he had married his same-sex partner. Bradley Strode said the students want to effect change within the wider Catholic Church, with an ultimate goal of altering the Catholic...

ABC This Week viewers were treated to a classic conservative versus liberal debate Sunday. When former Clinton labor secretary Robert Reich tried to blame the increase in poverty in the past five years on Republicans, former Speaker of the House and current CNN host Newt Gingrich called it "baloney" firing back, "Every major city which is a center of poverty is run by Democrats" (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary): Gingrich Schools Reich: 'Every Major City Which Is a Poverty Center Is Run By Democrats' JONATHAN KARL, SUBSTITUTE HOST: And let me ask you, Mr....

A secret subterranean heart, tinged with mystery and myth, beats beneath the streets in many of the world’s great cities. Tourists seek out the catacombs of Rome, the sewers of Paris and the subway tunnels of New York. Some people believe a den of interstellar aliens lurks beneath Denver International Airport. Now Seattle, at least for now, has joined that exclusive club. Something unknown, engineers say — and all the more intriguing to many residents for being unknown — has blocked the progress of the biggest-diameter tunnel-boring machine in use on the planet, a high-tech, largely automated wonder called Bertha....

The mother of a Ballard High School student is fuming after the health center on campus helped facilitate her daughter's abortion during school hours.

SEATTLE -- The mother of a Ballard High School student is fuming after the health center on campus helped facilitate her daughter's abortion during school hours. The mother, whom KOMO News has chosen to identify only as "Jill," says the clinic kept the information "confidential."

Wednesday March 24, 2010 Seattle Mom: School Sent My Daughter for Secret Abortion without Telling Me By Patrick B. CraineSEATTLE, Washington, March 24, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Seattle mother is furious after learning that her 15-year-old daughter was sent by her school's health center for a secret abortion, reports ABC-affiliate KOMO.The mother, identified only as “Jill,” says her daughter was given a pregnancy test at Ballard High School's Teen Health Center, which came back positive.  Rather than informing the parents, she said, the center gave the girl a pass and put her in a taxi for the abortuary, all...

Former ATF agent accused of embezzling SEATTLE — A former Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent accused of embezzling nearly $20,000 when he worked for the federal agency was indicted Thursday. A federal grand jury in Seattle indicted James Contreras, 51, of Maple Valley, Wash., on an embezzlement count and 30 counts of making false statements, the U.S. attorney's office in San Francisco said. The U.S. attorney's office in Seattle is recused from the case. While Contreras worked as an agent and supervisor at the ATF office in Seattle, he's accused of embezzling money from a cash fund...

SEATTLE — Seattle City Councilmember-elect Kshama Sawant told Boeing machinists her idea of a radical option, should their jobs be moved out of state “The workers should take over the factories, and shut down Boeing’s profit-making machine,” Sawant announced to a cheering crowd of union supporters in Seattle’s Westlake Park Monday night.

SEATTLE – A woman who was nine months pregnant was attacked and rob by two teenagers wearing burqas last Tuesday in North Seattle. Now, police are asking for help finding the attackers. ... two female teens dressed in all black and wearing burqas approached the woman and asked if they could use her cell phone. The expectant mother said no, and that she would place the call for them. That’s when the girls, between the ages of 13 and 15, knocked the woman to the ground and tried to rob her before fleeing.

A dramatic showdown is underway in the State of Washington, pitting Boeing against its largest labor union, the International Association of Machinists (IAM). If the union, voting Wednesday, rejects a proposed contract that includes lower health care benefits, Boeing is threatening to move production of its next generation airliner, the 777X, out of the Puget Sound region, to such locations as Charleston, SC (where it is assembling the new 787) or Texas, right-to-work states where the union's demands would hold no sway. The Washington State Legislature takes Boeing's threats very seriously, indeed. Boeing has long complained about the tax burden...

Nearly 10 percent of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun group Mayors Against Illegal Guns retired from their job or were sacked in Tuesday’s elections, including the organization’s two leaders: Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino. Some 95 key members of the group that targets and criticizes lawmakers backed by the National Rifle Association are losing their title of “mayor.” According to an election review of Bloomberg's membership list of about 1,000, three quit the group, 69 retired from their jobs, and 23 were rejected by voters.On the retirement list: Bloomberg and Menino.Among the defeated members of Mayors Against Illegal...

Seattle’s city council voted unanimously Monday to use eminent domain to take private property. They say they must seize the private property, which is currently being used as a parking lot, in order to turn it into … a parking lot. In this case, they decided it was critically important to seize a parking lot from its 103-year-old owner so that it can be a parking lot. At least this is their stated justification.

An active duty combat veteran is dead, a victim of black mob violence. The soldier, who has yet to be identified, had been celebrating his safe return from combat and his imminent release from the military. He was walking to his hotel early Saturday morning near a Seattle area military base where KOMO-TV news picks up the story: A group of men in a car drove by and someone inside shouted a racial comment toward the white soldiers, the Lakewood Police Department said. “One of the soldiers yelled back something about the suspects treating combat soldiers with disrespect,” Lt. Chris...

At a Seattle city meeting Tuesday night, Amazon presented plans for a futuristic, greenhouse-like sphere of a building in the middle of its new Seattle campus. According to the proposal, the five-story, tri-domed structure will be large enough to accommodate mature trees, allowing employees to “work and socialize in a more natural, park-like setting.” From the plans: In addition to a variety of workplace environments, the facility will incorporate dining, meeting and lounge spaces, as well as a variety of botanical zones modeled on montane ecologies found around the globe.

Health enrollment campaign will spread the word to every neighborhood in King County Wednesday, September 18, 2013 An ambitious effort hits high gear this week, aiming to enroll 180,000 King County residents in a new health insurance program.On Friday, September 20, more than 100 volunteers and staff members from Public Health – Seattle & King County will spread out across the county to share information about low-cost health insurance options made possible by the Affordable Care Act and available through Washington Healthplanfinder.This on-the-ground outreach launches a six-month enrollment campaign, a central part of King County Executive Dow Constantine's initiative for...

FULL TITLE: Seattle's Green River killer confesses to slaying nearly DOUBLE the 49 women he's convicted of killing in first ever interview A Seattle-area truck painter who was unmasked as the Green River serial killer has claimed he murdered up to 80 women over two decades - nearly double the number he was convicted of killing. Gary Ridgway is currently serving 49 consecutive life sentences in a Washington state prison. But in a series of interviews conducted over the past five months, he is now claiming there are significantly more victims and he says he is coming clean to help...

A Catholic university in Washington has invited communist and abortion supporter Angela Davis to speak on campus, raising concerns among those who say her views are anathema to Catholic teaching. Davis will give a lecture on October 17th at Seattle University, a Jesuit institution. Her talk is sponsored by the Center for the Study of Justice in Society, and will ostensibly be about prison reform. Davis is a controversial choice for a Catholic university, however. She is a former leader of the U.S. Communist Party, and ran for vice president twice in the 1980s on the Communist ticket. She holds...

Aaron Alexis, the man identified by Washington D.C. police as a suspect in this morning’s tragic attack on a US Navy Yard, was previously arrested by Seattle police in 2004 for shooting out the tires of another man’s vehicle in what Alexis later described to detectives as an anger-fueled “blackout.” Because Seattle police have received numerous inquiries about the incident, we are posting the details, detective logs, and the original report for the May 6, 2004 case. At about 8 am that morning, two construction workers had parked their 1986 Honda Accord in the driveway of their worksite, next to...