Through the Static

By Hannah Saunders

We’re back with another weekly reporting round-up from July 20- 26. Last week, we published seven articles on topics like Garnet Smith being released from the ICE detention center in Tacoma, the Erika Kirk protest, and several candidate campaigns. Let’s take a look at what you may have missed!

Education, advocacy, and community service are shaping Julie Kang’s campaign for Seattle City Council District 5

Julie ‌Kang, ‌who’s ‌running for the Seattle City Council District 5 position, said her long career in education, community work, and public service has made her ready to address what she considers North Seattle’s toughest problems: affordability, public safety, and holding city government accountable.

The backbone of her campaign leans into her three decades teaching and advocating, and after years alongside students and immigrant communities, Kang thought it was time to move from supporting those on the outside to writing policies inside City Hall.

Learn more about Kang here.

Garnet Smith, 44-year-old U.S. Army veteran, released from Tacoma’s ICE detention camp

After over nine months of detainment in Tacoma’s Northwest Detention Center (NWDC), 44-year-old Garnet Smith, a U.S. Army veteran, has been released following the approval of a habeas corpus ruling. Smith’s release comes just weeks after he spoke out about experiencing sexual assault at the hands of a guard employed by the GEO Group.

“Garnet’s release is a step in the right direction,” a South Sound About Face (SSAF) member said. “Free them all. Abolish ICE. Fascism cannot be reformed.”

Click here to read the full article.

Toshiko Hasegawa emphasizes affordability and financial accountability in campaign for District 2 King County Council

King County Council District 2 candidate Toshiko Grace Hasegawa’s campaign is centered on ensuring South Seattle families can continue living in the communities they helped build, with affordability at the root of many of the challenges facing the district. Hasegawa, ‌a ‌fourth-generation ‌Japanese American who grew up in Seattle’s Beacon Hill, described her campaign and core values as closely tied to her family’s past.

Expanding economic opportunity is a central condition for raising quality of life across the district, Hasegawa said. In Hasegawa’s account, targeted spending on workforce development, apprenticeship pathways, and jobs that pay family-level wages can reinforce community stability while also easing a range of social problems that local governments routinely confront.

“I’ve been here for four generations, raising the fifth generation,” she said. “It’s really not about myself. It’s about wanting my kids, should they so choose, to be able to live in this community and give back to it the way it’s given to us, generation by generation.”

Click here to learn more about Hasegawa’s campaign.

Collaborating with cops leads to Erika Kirk protest cancellations; Seattle Revolutionary Socialists prevail

Seattle’s leftist activism realm has undergone a slew of drama relating to the July 24, Erika Kirk “Make Heaven Crowded Again,” event and subsequent protests. For weeks, the Puget Sound Division of the American Party of Labor (PSAPL) had been calling for unity instead of splintered protests, even publicly inviting Capitol Hill Seattle Pride to collaborate on its protest. Instead, Capitol Hill Seattle Pride and Indivisible Eastside sought out collaboration with Kirkland officials and police, leading to several cancelled protests due to safety concerns.

One of the endorsing organizations for PSAPL’s cancelled protest is the Seattle Revolutionary Socialists (SRS), who plan to turn out to the Pursuit NW Church in Kirkland at 5:30 to protest. On behalf of the SRS, a member told TtS that it is their duty to protest Kirk and TPUSA’s hatred towards immigrant, Black, Arab, and LGBTQ+ workers.

Read the full article here.

Seattle leftists protest Erika Kirk event; MAGA content creators fail at clip farming

After a whirl of events leading up to the July 24, Erika Kirk “Make Heaven Crowded Again,” speaking opportunity at the Pursuit NW Church in Kirkland, several community members in Seattle and those living on the Eastside turned out to let Kirk and her followers know that her extremist views are not welcome in the Puget Sound region. At the same time, several agitators and MAGA propagandists were on scene, spewing mostly anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric in an attempt to clip farm for content, yet were unsuccessful.

Before Kirk’s event kicked-off at 6:30 p.m., the Seattle Revolutionary Socialists (SRS) posted up on the sidewalk outside of the church, waving flags. SRS was one of the groups that endorsed the American Party of Labor Puget Sound Division’s originally planned protest prior to cancelling. Cars driving by honked and cheered in support, with one even shouting, “Charlie Kirk deserved it!” (referencing his death, which has been reported as a gunshot wound to the neck).

Click here to read the full recap.

Photos: Erika Kirk “Make Heaven Crowded Again,” tour in Kirkland

The long-awaited Erika Kirk “Make Heaven Crowded Again,” speaking event in Kirkland was overall peaceful, with a small group of protesters having avoided being clip farmed outside the Pursuit NW Church.

Photos by Gray Trammel

View more footage here.

Kelabe Tewolde centers campaign for 37th Legislative District on affordability and public safety

Kelabe ‌Tewolde said his run in Washington’s 37th Legislative District race starts with where he came from, and the pressures his family lived with. To him, those same pressures still sit at the top of the district’s list: keeping life affordable, keeping people safe, and making sure there are real paths to better-paying work.

Tewolde ‌currently works at Rainier Scholars, a nonprofit that offers academic support, leadership training, career readiness, and mental healthcare to elementary school students through college students.

“A lot of what I experienced growing up is still affecting the students I serve 20-some years later,” Tewolde said. “There are people that are getting pushed out of this city because of the cost of living.”

Learn more about Tewolde’s campaign here.