Bloglander

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NEWS: Spokane City Council President Ben Stuckart says he’d like to start a “discussion” with Greyhound in an effort to limit Customs and Border Patrol’s presence at the city’s Intermodal Center.

"More than likely, this isn’t going to be resolving itself until our lease comes up," Stuckart says.

NEWS: Spokane Police Ombudsman Bart Logue is getting pushback from the Police Guild. According to Logue, the union is resisting three things: access to unredacted body cam footage, access to the department’s internal database and the ombudsman assistant’s attendance at the Deadly Force Review Panel. 

"In my mind, when we talk about what the Police Guild should have bargaining rights over, it should be anything that interfaces with the police department," Logue says. "How I work in my office, that's none of the guild's concern. It's not very independent if they control everything I do."

NATION: Governors from five states are recalling or refusing to send National Guard troops to the border. (New York Times)

IN OTHER NEWS

Shame! Shame! Shame!
Protesters with the Democratic Socialists of America heckled the Department of Homeland Security out of a Mexican restaurant (of all places!) where she was dining on Tuesday night. (Slate)

“The triumph of cruelty”
President Donald Trump’s policy on family separation will be one of the defining moments of his legacy, writes Dylan Matthews of Vox.

“It’s not just that the policy is dumb, or wrongheaded, or unjustified. It’s cruel.” (Vox)

The timing on this one…
Amid his controversial policies at the southern border, the Trump administration has pulled the U.S. from the U.N.’s Human Rights Council. Supporters of the decision have said that the council was inept anyway. Ambassador Nikki Haley says the council is biased against Israel and includes major human rights violators on its board.

Either way, the optics in this moment are questionable. (Associated Press)

What say you, Condon?
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan is off to Texas to protest the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy along with other mayors. (Seattle Times)

For over a year, City Council President Ben Stuckart has repeatedly raised concerns — and outrage — about the sweeps from federal Border Patrol agents at Spokane's Greyhound bus depot at the city-owned Intermodal Center.

The Border Patrol sweeps are why he's refused to support a new social service center being located at the center and why he was worried about the increased Border Patrol presence in Spokane.

Last Wednesday, Stuckart took it a step further: He sent Greyhound a letter, drafted with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, suggesting that, by allowing Border Patrol to conduct sweeps on their buses without a warrant, the bus company may be violating the city of Spokane's anti-discrimination rules.

"Greyhound's decision to allow [Customs and Border Patrol] agents to access their passengers in Spokane can create and maintain a fearful and hostile environment on buses and at the Intermodal Center for people of color in Spokane," Stuckart writes. "This is the type of situation our anti-discrimination ordinances seek to avoid."

The letter also quotes witness testimony that, at least in one sweep in March, Border Patrol agents allegedly "only spent time questioning individuals that had darker skin or had an accent."

If true, the actions of the Border Patrol agents raise constitutional concerns and may have violated the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency's own policy against racial profiling.

The letter requests a meeting with Greyhound, and notes the nature of the relationship that the city has with the bus depot.

"Greyhound has been a long-term tenant of Spokane's Intermodal Center and I look forward to continuing that relationship," Stuckart writes. "Spokane's anti-discrimination ordinances mean little if the city of Spokane cannot ensure compliance with them on its own property, such as the Intermodal Center."

So far, Stuckart says, he has not heard back from Greyhound.

"I’d like to start with conversation," Stuckart says. "If they don’t answer me, I could talk to [the city legal department] about the potential violation of the law."

Next year, the Greyhound's lease at the city plaza comes up for renewal. Theoretically, Stuckart says, the City Council could put a stipulation in the lease that says the company can't just allow Border Patrol access to the facility without a warrant.

"More than likely, this isn’t going to be resolving itself until our lease comes up," Stuckart says.

In a statement to the Inlander in March, Greyhound argued that they didn't really have a choice in whether or not to comply with Border Patrol search requests.

Greyhound is required to comply with the law. We are aware that routine transportation checks not only affect our operations, but our customers’ travel experience, and will continue to do everything legally possible to minimize any negative experiences. Greyhound has opened a dialogue with the Border Patrol to see if there is anything that can be done to balance the enforcement of federal law with the dignity and privacy of our valued customers.

The ACLU has long argued otherwise — insisting that Greyhound has the constitutional right to refuse Border Patrol sweeps without a warrant.

Stuckart's letter also foreshadows another pending debate, over how far the new human rights section, Title 18 of the city code, can be stretched.

Most of last year's concern over the new city human rights code language had centered on restrictions on income discrimination from landlords.

The language of the bill that Stuckart references could have far-reaching implications: It states that it "is the intent of the city that all people have an equal opportunity to participate fully in the life of the city and that discriminatory barriers to equal participation in employment, housing and public accommodations be removed."

Depending on how future councils or mayors read that, the legal, regulatory or political impact of that language could be considerable.

"It applies to everyone," Stuckart says.

The ongoing feud between Spokane's Office of Police Ombudsman and the union representing Spokane's Police officers, the Spokane Police Guild, surfaced again recently.

During a special meeting of the Office of Police Ombudsman Commission, a five-member citizen panel, police Ombudsman Bart Logue laid out what he says is the guild's resistance to transparency with the public, with employees in his office and with the volunteer commissioners.

"In my mind, when we talk about what the Police Guild should have bargaining rights over, it should be anything that interfaces with the police department," Logue says. "How I work in my office, that's none of the guild's concern. It's not very independent if they control everything I do."

Two letters dated June 1 from the Police Guild president, Sgt. John Griffin, object to Logue's requests for information and cite the ongoing negotiations between the guild and the city for a new police contract.

"Thus, the guild believes that the appropriate place for talking about this is at the bargaining table," the letter says. Griffin did not respond to requests for comment.

The department is currently operating under the contract that expired in 2016, city spokesman Brian Coddington confirms. Coddington could not say when negotiations are expected to be completed on a new contract.

ON INLANDER.COM

NEWS: On Sunday night, WSU football coach Mike Leach tweeted a fake Obama video obviously doctored to make it look like he said something he didn't. When called out on it, he dismissed that it might be fake and said he wanted to start a "discussion." Finally, yesterday, he admitted the video was "incomplete."

FOR FUN!: A man with Spokane connections appeared on Jeopardy! last week. Not to be outdone, his brother will appear on Guy Fieri's Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.

NEWS: Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers is a Christian. So how does that square with Trump's policy on separating children and parents at the border?

IN OTHER NEWS

Listen to the children
When 10 Central American children are wailing after being separated from their parents, one Border Patrol agent jokes, "Well, we have an orchestra here." Listen to the audio of the children's cries here. (Propublica)

Trump's pen pals
Gov. Jay Inslee and state Attorney General Bob Ferguson wrote President Trump a letter condemning the administration's policy of separating families at the border, saying the policy was inflicting "intentional, gratuitous and permanent trauma" on children and parents. Trump has remained defiant in the face of the criticism. (Spokesman-Review/New York Times)

Tariffs fired
Trump has told the U.S. Trade Representative to prepare new tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports. The move is sure to move the two countries that much closer to a trade war. (Associated Press)

Ring, ring...
Spokane Valley, getting less money than it thought from a telephone tax, has to dip into reserve funds to pay for street repairs. (Spokesman-Review)

Suddenly, for a moment last week, Biblical exegesis became a national news story.

Last week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions decided to defend the Trump administration's family separation policy that has led at least 2,000 immigrant children to be separated from their parents, many of them held in cages, by citing scripture.

“I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order,” he said.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders echoed the idea: “It is very biblical to enforce the law.”

The claim was inaccurate — family separation wasn't mandated by law, it was a Trump Administration "zero tolerance" policy introduced specifically to discourage illegal immigration.

But many others pointed out that it seemed wildly contrary to the orthodox Christian reading of the Bible. After all, according to the Bible, Jesus had explicitly condemned leaders who obsessed about the fine details of the law and neglected mercy and compassion. Some pointed to verses about commands to help the foreigners, strangers and children. Others noted the historical context: Romans 13 had been used to justify all matter of evil, including slavery.

Heck, Hillary Clinton weighed in: "Those who selectively use the Bible to justify this cruelty are ignoring a central tenet of Christianity," Clinton said. "[Jesus] did not say, 'Let the children suffer.'”

At its heart, it's another moral dilemma that Christian Republicans face. In one sense, Trump, a guy who likely cheated on his third wife with porn stars and brags about assaulting women, is everything that conservative Christians have spent their life decrying.

And yet, white evangelicals support Trump in insanely high numbers.

In fact, white Evangelical Christians are one group that has been much quieter to object to the family separation policy.

Which brings us to Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers. McMorris Rodgers attended Pensacola Christian College, a very conservative then-unaccredited independent Baptist college. ("We reject the man-made theory of evolution occurring over millions of years and believe that the earth is approximately 6,000 years old," the Pensacola states in its articles of faith.)

What started off as a daydream of Deb Sheldon’s has turned into a reality.

It was more than 10 years ago that the idea for an annual art festival hosted in the South Hills of Spokane first popped into the painter’s head. But it wasn’t until five years ago that she was able to turn it into a reality.

Today, Art on the Blacktop is a popular event for both local artists and people in the community. The festival this year features 22 local artists showcasing their craftsmanship. Sheldon’s goal is to introduce the people of Spokane to the artists living among them in order to build a connection between the two groups.

“It’s sort of understanding what an artist community looks like. I think the world has kind of a wacky vision of what artists are, and it's not always an appealing image,” says Sheldon. "And so to be able to come and have everyone be friendly and inviting and respectful and incredibly talented, it's a really good thing.”

The artists at Art on the Blacktop are selected by Sheldon. From young artists in need of exposure to more seasoned veterans, the event is full of people with a range of skills and crafts. The idea is to showcase as diverse of a group as possible, Sheldon explains. A little bit of everything at the festival works best, and for Sheldon, only the best will do.

“These are people I’ve either worked with for years or I’ve seen work and been really impressed and thought, 'These are people that I think the people in the South Hill ... should meet,'" Sheldon says.

I

t was quite a week for the Brown brothers. On Friday, Jon Brown appeared as a contestant on the long-running quiz show Jeopardy! He was described as a bartender from Los Angeles, but Spokanites may recall him from Stella's, the beloved but now-closed sandwich shop, or as an occasional contributing writer to the Inlander.

His star turn on TV didn't exactly end well. He trailed most the game and bet everything but a dollar in Final Jeopardy. The final clue — "A Portuguese explorer gave this name to an island he sighted off Africa’s coast 40 days after Easter" — stumped all of the competitors. Jon had answered "What is Madiera?" and finished in third with that final buck. (The correct answer, by the way, is "What is Ascension Island?")

Meanwhile, earlier in the week, Jon's younger brother, Tony Brown, was rubbing elbows with Guy Fieri, who was in town filming for his Food Network show Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. Tony, the chef and owner of Ruins restaurant on North Monroe, declined to give any comment to the Inlander, but one of guests present during filming confirms that Fieri was at Ruins for a future episode of DDD. (Fieri visited the restaurant twice: on Saturday, June 9, and again last week.)

Luke Baumgarten, one of the guests at the June 9 filming, gives this account:

"We got there on Saturday around 10. After a little milling around, the crew sent us in the side door. Guy was filming his intro by pretending to talk into the payphone that still sits near the front of the restaurant. He seemed amused to be in a place where pay phones still exist.

"Guy came in a few moments after we’d taken our seat and started off by apologizing. He said there were a couple tiers of places they feature on Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives and that Ruins was top tier. The top tier places, he said, get a lot of love on the show, and he said he gets angry emails from locals who find their favorite spots overrun by Triple-D tourists. He said something to the effect of, 'You’re going to need to run people out of this place!'

"When we got to attend the filming at Chaps 8 years ago, Guy methodically went around for over an hour interviewing people. This time he spent about 15 minutes, interviewing only one table — a man and his father who Guy seemed to know personally. After that the crew quickly packed up and we were left to eat our dirty fries, taquitos, gnocchi and a couple other dishes.

"After everyone left, Tony came around to each table, told us he’d gotten to the restaurant at 1 am to prep for the filming and then thanked us for coming."

No word yet on when the episode might be broadcast.

Online followers of Washington State University head football coach Mike Leach are typically treated to tips on exotic travel destinations, inspirational sports quotes and the occasional meme. 

Last night, however, Leach's web surfing led him to tweet out a doctored 20-second video of President Barack Obama giving a speech in 2014. The video was intentionally edited to make it seem like Obama told the crowd, "ordinary men and women are too small-minded to govern their own affairs, but order and progress can only come when individuals surrender their rights to an all-powerful sovereign."

Again, the video is fake.

Obama was actually arguing against the idea presented above, calling it an "alternative vision" that threatened the idea that all men and women are created equal. Here's the full transcript of the actual speech.

But Leach, a supporter and friend of President Donald Trump, apparently didn't realize it was fake initially. His tweet has since been deleted, but Deadspin got a screenshot of it, in which Leach says, "Listen to this. Text your thoughts. There is a lot of disagreement on government, so I think that an open discussion is always in order. Tweet your thoughts. Maybe we can all learn something."

When people on Twitter pointed out the video was fake, Leach doubled down, spending hours arguing with Twitter users. He told them to prove it was fake, then argued that the facts were irrelevant to the larger "ideas" presented in the video, which, again, were misrepresented. And when all else failed, he justified tweeting the video — whether it was fake or not — because "fake news" happens all the time.


You can check out his account for more, but you can get the gist from the tweets above.

It wasn't until this morning that Leach said "I agree that the video was incomplete," without acknowledging his role in spreading the misinformation.

This is the complete speech. I agree that the video was incomplete. However, I believe discussion on how much or how little power that our Gov should have is important......Remarks by the President in Address to European Youth: https://t.co/BnNzxyivyN

— Mike Leach (@Coach_Leach) June 18, 2018

Washington State University has not responded to the Inlander's request for comment on Leach, who gets paid roughly $4 million a year. WSU spokesman Phil Weiler gave the following statement: "As a private citizen, Mike Leach is entitled to his personal opinions. Coach Leach's political views do not necessarily reflect the views of Washington State University students, faculty and staff."

ON INLANDER.COM

MUSIC: What could be better than catching a quality show at the Bartlett? How about a second, bigger Bartlett?

WHAT'S UP?: Summer starts this week (need ideas? Our Summer Guide is on stands this week) and there's a packed calendar, with Cedric the Entertainer and Buddy Guy swinging through the area, both KYRS and Beerocracy having birthday parties, and more.

IN OTHER NEWS

Republicans and Democrats call to stop separating children from parents at border
After President Trump put a "zero tolerance" policy in place in April, thousands of children have been separated from their parents at the border after crossing illegally. Now both Republicans and Democrats are calling for an end to the policy, which is not, as the President tweeted, a law Democrats put in place. (New York Times)

Tales of survival and facing down the man who killed her family
Shasta Groene, now a mother living in south Idaho, is trying to raise funds to support the first run of the book she's been working on to tell her story of the kidnapping and sexual assault she endured at the hands of Joseph Duncan III after he murdered her family. If the campaign raises enough, she'd also like to film a documentary this year and include the moment she faces Duncan in prison for the first time. (Coeur d'Alene Press)

Who are you, Washington?
Washington's ID cards will change starting in July to comply with federal Real ID rules, by placing a notice in the top of normal ID cards that says "Federal Limits Apply." (Spokesman-Review)

Paying to file your taxes? There's a free way though...
There are ways to file your taxes online for free, but most Americans aren't doing it, instead forking over fees to the tune of $1 billion. (ProPublica)

Remaking Evergreen
With enrollment expected to drop by 20 percent this fall, the Evergreen State College is considering making some changes.  (Seattle Times) 

In just a few days, June 21, summer is going to be all official, so it's time to step up your recreation game. Use our event listings and Staff Picks to help you out.

Here are some highlights from the week ahead:

Monday, June 18

MUSIC | Northern Quest Resort & Casino kicks off its summer concert series with Little Big Town, bringing the country to the newly redesigned amphitheater in Airway Heights.

Tuesday, June 19

FILM | The Garland Theater's summer camp movie series is off and running, and this week it goes full '80s with The Neverending Story on the big screen.

Wednesday, June 20

FOOD | Join chef Adam Hegsted for an exploration of soft pretzels and beer, two of the most important aspects of the bar life.