Seattle's Only News Roundup. by Hannah Murphy Winter Good morning! We’re getting some sun this afternoon, and the temps will get up into the 50s. I’m sure April will pull the rug out from under us soon, so enjoy it today! It’s April 2: Did you fall for anything stupid yesterday? My local favorite was the NRDC’s “narwhal spotting.”             View this post on Instagram                       A post shared by NRDC (@nrdc_org)   “I Rise”: Senator Cory Booker stood and spoke on the Senate floor from 7 p.m. on Monday to 8:05 Tuesday night. He held the floor for more than 25 hours—breaking the previous record held by Strom Thurmond, a segregationist who was filibustering against a civil rights bill (that was lost on absolutely no one in the chamber). Booker hadn’t eaten since Friday. He stopped drinking water on Sunday night. He never went to the bathroom or sat down for 25 hours. And he spent those hours demanding that the body see the harm the Trump administration is causing all of their scared constituents, and hundreds of thousands of people watched him do it. Technically, this speech did nothing. He wasn’t pushing against policy, just demanding attention and action and hope. But maybe for the first time since November 5, he gave hundreds of thousands of us something to collectively root for. I think that’s something we can build on, if we choose to. A New Holiday: Trump is calling today “Liberation Day in America”: the day he’s announcing a heap of new “reciprocal” tariffs. He’s announcing the specifics at 4 p.m. ET today, but economists overwhelmingly agree that this is going to hit most Americans in the wallet. Trump, meanwhile, is using sizzle reels of Fox propaganda clips to insist that this is going to drive billions of dollars in investment in American business. As economist Paul Krugman put it: “I don’t see any thinking at all.” Musk Loses in Wisconsin: In a victory for abortion and labor rights, Judge Susan Crawford won the Wisconsin state Supreme Court race, crushing anti-abortion Judge Brad Schimel. Schimel, best known for his charming parenting confessions ("I just psychologically beat the daylights out of an 8-year-old in the back seat”) was bankrolled by Elon Musk, another grade-A dad. Musk spent $20 million backing Schimel, and his super PAC offered $50 on Tuesday for Cheesehead selfies outside of polling sites. Super normal! The race shattered record spending as the most expensive judicial contest in US history, topping $100 million. "As a little girl growing up in Chippewa Falls, I never could have imagined that I'd be taking on the richest man in the world for justice in Wisconsin,” Crawford said at her election night watch party. “And we won!"—likely locking in liberal control for the next three years. The GOP Won in Florida: But not by the margin they would have liked to. Two Trump-backed Republicans won their special congressional elections in Florida yesterday, solidifying the party’s majority in the House. For now, these wins will help President Trump’s domestic agenda, but the slim wins are giving Dems some hope for the midterms.  Batman Forever: Val Kilmer passed away yesterday at age 65. If you were an ’80s kid, you know him best as Iceman from Top Gun. If you’re a ’90s kid, you know him as Batman or Jim Morrison. If you’re younger than that, I’m just gonna assume your parents had the good sense to show you all three. In his NYT obit, they described him as “unpredictable,” “charismatic,” and “tall and handsome in a rock-star sort of way.” We hadn’t seen him much lately. He left the Hollywood spotlight around the 2010s, and when NYT asked him why, he told them that “he had other interests; he wanted to hang out with his kids.” But, he added: “Once you’re a star, you’re always a star.” To honor the star, enjoy this homoerotic masterpiece (The Stranger’s Marcus Harrison Green reminded me this morning that the phrase “mostly straight” didn’t exist in the American lexicon before Top Gun):  Luigi Faces the Death Penalty: Pam Bondi announced yesterday that the DOJ is calling for the death penalty in the Luigi Mangione case. In a statement, she wrote: “I have directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty in this case as we carry out President Trump’s agenda to stop violent crime and Make America Safe Again.” One of Bondi’s first acts as Attorney General was to release a memo announcing that she would be “reviving the federal death penalty and lifting the moratorium on federal executions.” In it, she called federal executions “critical work” that “undoubtedly” makes Americans safer. Doubt it. Studies have consistently shown that the death penalty isn’t a crime deterrent. You’re just killing people because you want to. Karma’s a Bitch: Tesla sales fell 13 percent in the first three months of this year. Local HHS Office Chopped: Remember the 10,000 jobs RFK Jr. cut yesterday? That included the entire Seattle regional office of HHS. Local officials say the closures will impact 15 million people across the Pacific Northwest and Alaska who rely on these services, and local tribes will be hit especially hard—in case there was any question that MAHA just means leaving vulnerable communities without critical support. Washington AG Nick Brown has joined a multi-state lawsuit against the Trump administration, arguing that the slashing of funding for health programs violate federal law and will harm communities already struggling with public health challenges. Ferguson Says Nope to a Wealth Tax, Again: Did you think Bob Ferguson had a splinter of progressive backbone left? Cute. On Tuesday, he splashed cold water on Democrats’ proposal to fix our state budget deficit by taxing the ultra-rich. My guy says he won’t commit to the wealth tax, but nor will he commit to cutting everything, basically just leaving everyone on read like a bad Hinge date. So, we’re stuck in a Schrödinger’s budget crisis where the only certainty is that billionaires’ piles of dubiously concentrated cash will go untouched. Republicans are acting like this is some full-throated endorsement of trickle-down economics when, in reality, Ferguson is just ghosting both sides, hoping the budget magically balances itself. It won’t. Why Aren’t We Taxing the Rich? Ferguson claims that he won’t sign a bill with a wealth tax because it’s “novel, untested, difficult to implement” and likely to face legal challenges. It’s true that it’s novel, and the WA Department of Revenue released a report at the end of last year laying out guidance for avoiding legal pitfalls, and warning that the revenue from the tax could be difficult to predict. But the alternative can’t be cutting essential services throughout the state, especially while we’re losing more support from the federal government every day. The reality is that we need a new, progressive tax model, and Ferguson is intentionally failing to use even an ounce of imagination to build something better. The silver lining? He left the door open for a payroll tax similar to our JumpStart tax. But he also said he wouldn’t pass a budget without $100 million over two years to hire cops.  For Your Wednesday: Doppelganger by the Montreal-based Japanese band TEKE:TEKE—a perfect song to commute to. This Slog AM was a group project with Marcus Harrison Green. ...read more read less