+ Editor’s note: With a recent merger with Hawaiian Air recently consummated, and a launch into intercontinental nonstops from Seattle against major carriers, is Alaska Air expanding too fast with massive expenses, high fuel costs? Watch their balance sheet’s cash flow for clues.

Seattle to Paris is going up against SkyTeam partners Delta and Air France, both sharing a massive hub in Paris. Alaska Air has no major OneWorld Alliance airline with feeder traffic in Paris, so they will depend on Seattle feed. With Athens a leisure market, expect Alaska Air to discount the fares on  both of these nonstops, if those routes even launch, especially if there is a Autumn economic downturn.  

They are going to have to have deep pockets to go up against Delta & Air France to Paris. 

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+ Alaska Air Group’s stock is down 21% year over year as of today. Yet Seattle-competitor Delta Airlines stock price is up 1.76% in the same time period.

Merger, rapid expansion and added fuel expenses drag down Alaska Air Group’s stock price.

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+24/7 Wall St.: American Airlines Faces a Reckoning: Merger Off the Table, Turnaround Uncertain – Delta and United soared while American Airlines sank, and now a rejected merger offer has left the carrier fighting a turnaround battle with no clear timeline and a balance sheet still deep in the red.

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Alaska Airlines announces new nonstop service to Athens and Paris, connecting Seattle to more of the world

From Alaska Airlines: 

In Trump news last week

+ BlogTo: There’s a Trump Lake in Ontario and people want to rename it after Obama

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+ KNEZ: CNN’s chief data analyst Harry Enten says voters think President Donald Trump is ‘a member of the swamp’ instead of ‘the person to clean up the swamp’ 

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+ CNN: Judge rejects Trump’s newest bid to fight hush money conviction in federal court

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+ The Independent (UK):  The world could face the biggest credit crunch in history – thanks to Donald Trump – US debt reaches the barely imaginable milestone of $40 trillion, America’s ability to meet its financial obligations – coupled with the reality that the global economy depends on decisions made in Washington – should concentrate White House minds on ending its consequential war with Iran

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+ MS.Now: Our debt trajectory is unsustainable. Tax cuts are to blame. Here’s what you need to know about the $40 trillion debt milestone our nation recently hit.

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+ Mary L Trump and Thom Hartmann: [Donald Trump] Turning Against America: I sat down with the amazing and brilliant Thom Hartmann, and we discussed just how bad things could get under Donald Trump’s leadership and the extent to which Donald is beholden to and potentially advancing Vladimir Putin’s interests.

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+ National Security Journal: Trump Just Got Hit with a New Problem: The World Has Burned Through Hundreds of Millions of Barrels of Reserve Oil Since the War With Iran – Jack Buckby examines how the global energy system has absorbed the largest oil supply disruption on record — drained strategic reserves, rerouted exports, and falling demand — and why those buffers are nearly exhausted, with fuel rationing already visible in Russia and the same risks approaching the West.

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+ The Daily Beast: Trump Gets Stuck at Humiliating Low as Midterms Loom The president appears to have hit rock bottom.

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+ HuffPost via MSN: Trump Urges Ignorance After Poll Shows He’s Underwater In 47 States

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+ The Daily Beast: Here’s the One Thing That Terrifies Trump: Guru – The 80-year-old president is embracing his enemies to save himself from his worst fear.

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+ Black Information Network: Trump Admin Removes Obama Portrait Artist’s Painting For Being ‘Woke’

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+ yahoo!finance: Steve Rattner Says Manufacturing Has Lost 100,000 Jobs Despite Trump’s Tariffs

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 + The New York Sun:  – D.C. Bar To Weigh Complaint Filed Against Chief Justice Roberts Over Millions Paid to His Wife for Law Firm Recruiting – A hearing of the District of Columbia Bar next month will determine if a disciplinary investigation ought to be launched.

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+ The New York Post: Beware Iran’s most devious weapon — another ‘October surprise’

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+ Cleveland.com: Shock poll reveals stunning number of Gen Z Trump voters who regret their 2024 vote

Epstein news just keeps piling up every week

+ VT.: ‘Missing’ Epstein files containing a major allegation against Donald Trump have surfaced

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+ AlterNet: Trump’s DOJ now risking contempt in Epstein obstruction: judge

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+ ABC 7 Chicago: Judge to consider final approval of Bank of America’s $72 million settlement with Epstein accusers

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+ Radar Online: Doctors Connected to Jeffrey Epstein Under Investigation, New York Department of Health Says 

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+ Raw Story: Anderson Cooper gets icy sendoff after asking Bill Gates about Epstein

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+ TMZ: Doctors Linked To Jeffrey Epstein Being Investigated By New York Department of Health

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+ Radar Online: EXCLUSIVE: Trump DOJ Takes Epstein Files Fight to Appeals Court — as Lawyers Clash Over Nearly 100 Examples of Handwritten FBI Interview Notes

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+ ABC News: Judge rejects Ghislaine Maxwell’s attempt to overturn conviction – The scathing ruling rejected Maxwell’s attempt to vacate her 20-year sentence.

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+ ABC News: Judge approves Bank of America settlement with Epstein accusers – The women accused the bank of ignoring suspicious transactions by Epstein.

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+ The i Paper: We’re going to hear a lot more about Trump’s ‘Epstein class’

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+ Who, Where, Why: Canada Changes Name of Mar-a-Lago to ‘Casa Epstein’ – Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Thursday declared that Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club would henceforth be known as “Casa Epstein.” This, according to Carney, is meant to reflect the friendship between the US president and deceased sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein, and the fact that his most prominent victim was recruited from the resort.

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+ The Daily Beast via MSN: Mitch McConnell’s team fuels health mystery with cryptic update [posted Aug. 27]

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Mitch McConnell’s Hometown [Louisville, KY.] Newspaper Publishes Scathing ‘Pre-Obituary’ of the ‘Not Yet Departed’

A Kentucky reporter who covered McConnell for decades argued that the 84-year-old senator is “every bit the detestable figure that” President Richard Nixon was

Excerpt from People, published July 23rd:

The scathing reflection on McConnell’s career was written by columnist Joseph Gerth, who has covered Kentucky politics at Louisville’s The Courier Journal since 1988 — three years into the Louisville native’s first of seven Senate terms.

“Unlike Nixon, McConnell never paid for his sins that have damaged our nation’s trust in government, destroyed the country’s ability to have meaningful dialogue and cemented our nation’s politics as an arena in which winning is the only thing that matters,” wrote Gerth, who spent a decade as the paper’s chief political reporter, in an op-ed on Wednesday, July 22.

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Gerth wrote in his Wednesday [July 22] column that he was sparked to write his evaluation of McConnell’s life’s work after seeing pushback to criticisms of the late South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham following the 71-year-old Republican’s sudden death on July 11.

“That got me thinking about Sen. Mitch McConnell, who was rumored to be dead or on life support or in a coma or whatever and was the odds-on favorite to beat Graham to the gates of hell in the days before Graham’s death,” Gerth wrote. “And, so with McConnell allegedly on the mend, I figured I’d go ahead and tell you what I think about McConnell now — when no one can complain, ‘How dare you write that about a dead guy?’ ”

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Gerth also noted that McConnell once boasted he voted for Democratic President Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1964 over the opposition to civil rights by Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee.

Yet as a senator decades later, the columnist wrote, McConnell was the architect of the 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court that has now undone much of the legal achievements of the civil rights movement that McConnell once claimed to belong to — including attending the 1963 March on Washington where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech.

“He had more guts as a young man than he had as an old man,” Gerth wrote. “It seems somehow fitting for the ultimate shape-shifter, who wrote about accompanying Sen. John Sherman Cooper to see Johnson sign the Voting Rights Act into law, that the court he created was the court that struck down the last remaining significant provision.”

The Kentucky Republican’s “biggest failing may be his embrace of a president who he believes is stupid and who he believes led an attempt to overthrow the United States’ government on Jan. 6, 2021,” Gerth continued.

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Beyond McConnell deciding to once again support a president he accused of triggering “a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election,” Gerth noted the senator has also tolerated President Donald Trump’s racist remarks towards his wife, former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao.

“And that is the legacy of Mitch McConnell,” Gerth wrote. “He ends his career adopting the anti-civil rights positions Barry Goldwater supported, handed to him by a despised and distrusted Supreme Court that he created.”

Click here to read the full story.

+ MS.Now: 5-year-old detained by ICE with his dad has been deported to Mexico, attorney says – In a video of their arrest, the boy, Liam Tadeo, cries and holds on to his father’s hands, which are cuffed behind his back, as they are escorted into an ICE vehicle.                                                                                [Editor’s note: The child was separated from his mother left in the U.S. What kind of country does this?]

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Sailor on Battered USS Lincoln Crew Says ICE Took His Father

Excerpt from Truthout:

The Trump administration has detained and is trying to deport the father of a sailor on the USS Abraham Lincoln, whose crew has suffered from a mental health crisis due to a lengthy deployment extended by the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

Border Patrol agents arrested Luis Manuel Aviles Roa on Sunday, as he was trying to leave his house to take his car to the mechanic, his wife told The Associated Press. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which has confirmed his arrest, said that he will be held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody as the administration pursues deportation. Aviles has lived in the U.S. for 19 years.

The Trump administration claimed that they were simply enforcing the law, though Aviles’s son, Joshua Aviles, said in a post on Facebook that his family has “done everything through immigration to get his green card approved, and we are just waiting.”

Joshua Aviles said that his father, who is originally from Nicaragua, has a driver’s license, Social Security card, and a work permit. He said that his father’s arrest is “heartbreaking” and is taking a severe mental toll as he continues his work.

“I’ve been deployed for over nine months, out at sea in the Middle East aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, fighting for a country that has given me everything,” said Joshua Aviles in his post.

As a result of Donald Trump’s war on Iran, the USS Abraham Lincoln recently broke the record for the longest ever deployment at sea without a port call, and is expected to be relieved soon after media reports brought attention to its plight. Sailors and their families reported a dire mental health crisis onboard as reports emerged that several sailors had tried to jump overboard, along with reports of food shortages and unhygienic conditions.

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“This is heartbreaking for me. I don’t know how I can mentally continue working 12+ hour days knowing that my dad is somewhere, possibly being treated like a criminal. My dad’s only ‘crime’ was coming to this country to give my siblings and me a better life,” Joshua Aviles said. “Dad, I don’t know where you are right now, but know that I am doing everything I can to bring you back home.”

“He dedicates himself only to work so he can put food on the table at home. He is a good father. He loves his children with all his soul,” said Luis Manuel Aviles Roa’s wife, Argelia Aviles.

In a statement defending the decision, DHS said: “Having a family member in the military is not a free pass to violate our nation’s laws.”

However, as a recruitment mechanism, the U.S. does offer special immigration-related benefits to people who enlist. Under a program known as Military Parole in Place, family members of active-duty service members and veterans are given a path to citizenship. The administration has tried to cut this program under its mass deportation campaign, however, and previously came under fire for its attempts to deport nearly 300 veterans and their family members during the first year of Trump’s second term.

Click here for the full story.

Washington sues again to stop Trump administration mail-in voting requirements

Excerpt from the Washington State Standard via yahoo!news:

Washington is suing to stop the Trump administration’s latest attempt to restrict mail-in voting, days after the U.S. Supreme Court opened the door for the effort to move forward.

Washington and other states had sued over President Donald Trump’s executive order issued in March on the issue. A lower court blocked its implementation, but an emergency ruling from the high court this week lifted that injunction.

The justices, in a split decision along ideological lines, didn’t weigh in on the constitutionality of Trump’s order, only determining the lower court injunction was premature.

The muddled legal landscape just over two months out from the midterms is stirring confusion as Democrats hope to retake Congress and hold the Trump administration accountable.

The outcome of the court fight is particularly important in Washington, where almost all votes are cast via drop boxes and mail. Washington already requires each voter to sign an attestation that they’re qualified to vote, and a signature verification process ensures each ballot is cast by a registered voter.

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Attorney General Nick Brown, a Democrat, said in a press conference Wednesday morning that the proposed federal rules accompanying the executive order “will totally upend how our elections are administered.”

Meanwhile, Hobbs’ office is seeing if extra drop boxes can be added. Nearly 70% of ballots in this month’s primary election were returned via drop box.

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Twenty-five states are bringing Wednesday’s lawsuit, filed in federal court in Massachusetts. Brown is co-leading the coalition. The complaint argues the Trump administration’s proposal “effectively eliminates mail voting through its onerous administration requirements.”

The states say the order violates the U.S. Constitution, which gives states the power to run elections. They’re seeking a temporary restraining order from a judge blocking its implementation, and hoping for a court hearing as soon as possible.

Click here to read the full story.

Michelle Christin retires from Yelm City Hall’s front desk after 21 years

From Mayor Joe DePinto’s Facebook post:

Our water tower shines in “a coat of many colors” as we remember Dolly

From the City of Yelm Government:

US-Canada tariff tensions threaten Washington businesses reliant on cross-border shoppers

New U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods leading to higher prices and declining tourism could hurt Washington businesses, experts warn, as trade tensions escalate.

Excerpt from KING-5 TV News, NBC Seattle:

Near-total lunar eclipse will soon be visible in WA sky. Here’s when to look up

Excerpt from The Olympian via MSN:

After watching the Perseid meteor shower, sky watchers in Washington state can observe another stunning sight: a partial lunar eclipse.

North and South America will have the best views of the blood-red moon.

When are the best times to get a glance at the astronomical phenomenon?

Here’s what to know:

When is the next full moon in 2026?

August’s full moon will reach peak illumination in Washington state at 9:18 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 27, according to online clock Time and Date.

The full moon will coincide with a partial lunar eclipse.

Why is August’s full moon called the sturgeon moon?

August’s full moon is known as the sturgeon moon due to the “abundance” of fish that could be easily caught in the Great Lakes at this time of year, according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac.When are best times to watch the partial lunar eclipse?