loading . . . **I want to say this with all my heart** , but the World Cup has been nothing but a blessing to the United States. Yes, we lost badly on Monday, July 6. But we can blame Trump for that. He cursed the USMNT in much the same way he cursed the New York Knicks in Game 3 (that series should have been swept). Trump also totally cursed the country’s 250th anniversary by making it all about himself. But the National Mall fiasco, the algae at the Lincoln Memorial, the passport bullshit (he couldn’t tell the difference between a passport and visa) looked pitiful when compared to the general joy much of the country has experienced during the World Cup. Visitors from around the world have, on social media, expressed genuine surprise at what they see in actual, diurnal American cities. It’s far from the MAGA apocalypse that’s relentlessly pumped on the telly or the phone. We are not as miserable as our top politicians. The future will certainly see this World Cup as our real 250th celebration. Now, let’s get back to the business of this paper, which is to make the country, our cities, and Seattle even better.
**To the person who wrote this on Bluesky,** in connection with our Primary Endorsements**: “**This is the most I’ve felt betrayed by the Stranger since Charles Mudede got me to go see Cloud Atlas in theaters.” First, get a grip. Our guide can’t be beat in this town. Sorry. That’s just a fact. Now, let’s move on to the matter of _Cloud Atlas_. Can you recall W.H. Auden’s famous poem “Musée des Beaux Arts”? If so, direct your attention to this line, which concerns Brueghel’s painting _Landscape With the Fall of_ _Icarus_ : “..the ploughman may / Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry / But for him it was not an important failure.” And so it is in cinema. We have worthless failures and important failures. _Cloud Atlas_ is clearly the latter.
> Cloud Atlas (2012) Tom Tykwer, Lana and Lilly Wachowski
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> — Klassick-Moviez (@klassik-moviez.bsky.social) 2026-06-29T08:12:12.762Z
**Someone once told me there was a drive-in funeral home** in the South called Moan and Go On. This should be our attitude toward Starbucks. You are what? Leaving the town that made you? Am I hearing right? Okay. You do what you gotta do. But I will go to this new Dutch Bros that’s opening in “a former Starbucks location.” I heard the coffee was better and their owner didn’t sell the Sonics like some weasel.
**Seattle experienced a full month** , June, without a single homicide. To find a month of this kind in the past, you have to go all the way back to 1970, 56 years ago. Conservative KIRO News Radio believes this murderless month happened because Police Chief Shon Barnes told his officers “to get out of their cars and talk to people.” In short, more cops, less crime. But this is too simplistic, and the reasons for a homicide-less June will take a little more time to determine.
**Today arrived with large, slow-moving, rainless clouds.** So far summer has been merciful to this city. It also provided the best weather possible for Seattle’s World Cup games. God, it seems, favored those events over the one that happened at the National Mall on July 4. That MAGA event was a mess on every level. It was organized poorly. It was not about the US but its president, who was caught watching himself watch himself on Fox News. That moment said it all. Trump on my mind; my mind on Trump. Expect a high of 73 today.
**Not enough is being done about the bad drivers on MLK**. Cars speed all of the time. Pedestrians are killed on the regular on this road. And yet when a car smashes into a Link train, the blame is sent back to the past, back to when Sound Transit picked at-grade over elevated rail. But no one addresses the permitted amount of anarchy that’s enjoyed by cars in this and other parts of town. King 5: “A car struck a Sound Transit 1 Line light rail train near Columbia City Station Monday afternoon, briefly causing delays and forcing trains to single-track through the area… The agency updated riders shortly before 3 p.m. that normal service had resumed.” One person brought misery to thousands of riders on what will surely be the system’s busiest day. And it was a hit-and-run. We should fix this problem (the unchecked power of cars) and stop talking about the past, about the dead dreams of elevated trains.
**Today in Stock Market Manipulation:** Trump resumed his dumb war with Iran. The US hit targets during the night. And Iran, of course, retaliated with strikes around the region. The price of oil soared. There will be blood. There will be billions flowing into the pockets of those in the know.
**Greenland is back on Trump’s mind.** He wants to control it. Denmark warned NATO that such an action would start a totally needless war with her. This is the America the world is used to seeing in the news.
**Mayor of America****Zohran Mamdani** told reporters that it’s “time for [Graham Platner] to drop out of the race” for Maine Senate. The game is up, bro. You are toast. Your goose is cooked. So, do the right thing and end this massive clusterfuck. The Dems need to focus on races with candidates who are not accused of rape.
**Mitch McConnell is still alive** and, according to two top Senate Republicans, able to talk. The future of the Kentucky senator is still, however, in a fog thick with mystery. He has been in the hospital for three weeks.
**Because it’s never easy for the healthy to speak ill of the dead or dying, we must ask those who are terminally ill** to say a few parting words about the man who made Trump’s America possible, Mitch McConnell. If this is you, and you have the strength, please email us your thoughts on Kentucky senator at [email protected]. We will publish your words.
> Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear requests update on Mitch McConnell’s healthWashington — Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear formally requested an update from Sen. Mitch McConnell on Wednesday amid a weekslong hospitalization that has prompted growing speculation about his health. "Over the last several weeks,…
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> — Ayoob Kerala (@ayoobkk1984.bsky.social) 2026-07-08T14:23:26Z
**Pictured is Brian Elliot.** He bartends at Lost Lake Cafe & Lounge.
He is also the mind behind the neo-techno-goth Velvet Heartbreak. He also has excellent tastes in music. Not long ago, he played this tune, which will conclude AM, “Man o To.” It’s by Berlin’s Nu, who sings a poem by the 11th century Persian poet, scholar, and mystic Rūmī. Melancholy is worthless without caresses.
### _Related_ https://www.thestranger.com/slog-am/slog-am-seattle-enjoyed-its-first-murder-free-month-since-1970-mamdani-tells-platner-to-give-up-already-trump-resumes-the-war-with-iran/
