Progressives should go violently attack him and vandalize his business, to show him the error of his ways, and to teach him to be more tolerant.

Just kidding, "progressive" puritan censor!!!!

Easy Street Records isn't merely a store, it's a (West) Seattle institution, and barring economic disaster, it's not going anywhere. (Even if the owner momentarily forgot why he hired an employee to respond to social media in the first place. He will now remember why, and for a long, long time, too!)

Does trying to get people fired for hitting the "like" button count as "retro?" Are we already so nostalgic for the twenty-tens only half way through the twenties?

Give me a fucking break. This lame ass SLOG post is why Trump is president. Twice. If anything should be deleted, it’s this stupid “story”.

I agree with DOUG!

Huh. When the story was a liberal Democrat's campaign manager "liking" statements which praised Hamas, and the liberal Democrat then fired the campaign manager for it, the Stranger sided against the candidate, declaring this was a free-speech issue:

'But Randall did open up to Jewish Insider after the publication confronted her with screenshots of her campaign manager “liking” pro-Palestine content on Instagram. Upon “confirming social media activity consistent with what [Jewish Insider] described,” Randall fired the staffer.'

(https://www.thestranger.com/news/2024/06/28/79578010/congressional-candidate-emily-randall-loses-the-left-after-taking-a-pro-israel-stance)

Although the Stranger never actually quoted from any statement the campaign manager, Anna Carlson-Ziegler, had liked, here's what the Stranger meant by "Pro-Palestine content":

'Those included posts describing “Palestinian resistance as a natural and praiseworthy response to Zionist occupation and brutality,” posts describing Hamas as “the Palestinian resistance” and praising its continued survival, repeated calls for “the fall of the Zionist regime,” a post mourning the death of convicted terrorist and murderer Walid Daqqa and an Oct. 7 post denying that the attack by “Palestinian militants” was unprovoked.
Other posts Carlson-Ziegler liked included ones dismissing or denying the atrocities on Oct. 7 as propaganda, describing President Joe Biden as a war criminal and supporting various acts of vandalism and blockages of university, private and public property by anti-Israel demonstrators.'

(https://www.thestranger.com/news/2024/06/28/79578010/congressional-candidate-emily-randall-loses-the-left-after-taking-a-pro-israel-stance/comments/11)

So, would the Stranger even have this beef with Easy Street Records, if the store's management had instead "liked" posts which praised outright terrorism?

This record store owner needs a struggle session immediately!!!

Matt @easystreetguy Easy Street owner here. Appreciate Audrey and the Stranger for at least giving me the opportunity to respond to their questions. Longtime Stranger reader! I lived / raised on Capitol Hill from elementary school all the way to SSCC at Seattle U. Just a quick correction: I/ we never did delete any comments, it’s all there. Also, I never changed or edited my apology. I understand how some of my words were upsetting. I haven’t been in a good space myself. I’m sorry I disappointed u, u deserved better from me. My staff did not deserve to be put in this situation and Easy Street as a whole didn’t either. So sorry. I am born raised Seattle, I bleed it, I live, I love us. Please forgive me. All of ICE is complicit. I do not defend ICE in any way. Yes, I do hope there is a Frank Serpico, an Oskar Schindler, or a Stetson Kennedy in the bunch, but so far no. Fuck em .

People constantly confuse the right to believe and say what you want without the government punishing you and there being repercussions from whatever you choose to say. I am pissed, too, because I literally just bought Lucinda Williams' new album from Easy Street. Perhaps Matt Vaughn should listen to that album . It's title: WORLD GONE WRONG.

Seems odd someone running a business that exists solely because of people who support it wants to lie and obfuscate and deny accountability or accept that his employees and customer base might believe in the Constitution, law, due process, and civil rights. White men talking ish about no one is above the law when a criminal, felon, pedophile, racist, rapist, terrorist, and traitor is the so-called president is peak white male hypocrisy.

It sucks to realize that Easy Street Records is no place to spend money or support in any way. Time to throw away all Easy Street related stickers and sweatshirts and stop telling my record buying friends to shop there.

Imagine if someone Matt Vaughn loves were murdered by ICE in cold blood. Then again, this is the same guy who welcomed Amanda Knox, murderer and psychopath via the Easy Street sign all those years ago. Must have a thing for violent murderers.

@9. I love how unhinged you are. The Amanda Knox part was chef’s kiss. And you could probably return that album if you are so mad.

And Mudhoney on the sign. Guess Matt never listened to Mudhoney either. 21st Century Pharisees. Hard on for War. And that's just two songs.

“I imagine
there are some
decent ICE agents out there... "

until we hear of some
friendly-fire situations
it'll be hard as Fuck to
share in your optimism

"if u are a quality human being...
gotta be a tough job."

to willingly surround
yourself with masked thugs
and goons and commit heinous
crimes against your fellow citizens?

"All of ICE is complicit.

I do not [any longer] defend ICE in any way."

mayhaps
it's time to
put some Anti-
ICEStapo signage up*

lord knows
No One Reads
the damn Stranger.

*c u @ the Gulag!

@9 & 11

it is a JOY
to see You
Out & About!

@6

"Other posts Carlson-Ziegler liked included . . .
describing President Joe Biden
as a war criminal... "

All of our presidents*
are War Criminals
Wormtongue

if you didn't have
AIPAC so far up
your Ass, you
might even
See that.

*well, maybe
not Jimmy
Carter

"@9 & 11

it is a JOY
to see You
Out & About!"

She's not gonna fuck you, Calvin Priest.

@9: “People constantly confuse the right to believe and say what you want without the government punishing you and there being repercussions from whatever you choose to say.”

Way ahead of you; as I recounted @6, some of those people work at the Stranger, or at least did in 2024. The Stranger equated experiencing “repercussions from whatever you choose to say,” with assault upon freedom of speech. From the first link @6:

‘The news of Randall firing her campaign staffer spread around progressive, Muslim, and other political groups. Some expressed outrage that Randall would perpetuate what some have called a “new McCarthyism” related to pro-Palestine views and protest.

‘The Washington chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-WA) told The Stranger this firing was “not an isolated phenomenon” but rather “part of a disturbing trend” that “contributes to a climate of elevated fear and bias, as well as promoting suppression of speech.”’

I fully agree with you, xina, and I’m glad to see we agree the Stranger was wrong in its attack upon Randall. Thanks for your support and validation.

HAHAHAHA!!!! Who are the fascists again? Jesus y'all are like a caricature of yourselves at this point. Also, @#9, the groveling is pathetic and you look like a fool.
Cheers

Really - going after a like on Instagram? How pathetic. Maybe it was inadvertent.
Switch to X - likes are now private.

A like is not a comment.

Yet there are comments to back it up LOL.

@14
Thank you for
your Amplification.

b. I can Live
with that &
an Elated
Xina IS.

c. my
God but
you're an
Horrific ex-
cuse for an

AM elated!
obv?

Fascism is when people leave mean comments on your social media page.

@22~oh the humanity

(& here
I thought it
Was when one
Endorses, nay, Celebrates!
[With all The Laughing emojis!!]
A Genocide on a CAPTIVE population?

Seems our Standards've
Been 'slightly' lowered
Since WWII, "The
Really BIG
One.").

I'm Team Easy Street on this one. But "put down the phone" is always good advice.

@9 - Kind of rich, you having the nerve to call someone else a psychopath.

Is the hysterical overreaction of a social media mob really news? Isn't that what we're all into these days? Get back to us when man bites dog.

This whole thing makes me ashamed to be a leftist.

First of all, and I hate to tell you this, but "abolishing ICE" is, in fact, an extremely radical notion. Unless you have some other plan to enforce immigration laws and deport known criminals, ICE is the only mechanism we have to accomplish that. Or are we saying we don't need to enforce immigration laws? If so, say more about that. 'Cause, that's a pretty wacky take.

The problem, frankly, is not ICE. I mean, ICE has been around for decades, and functions just fine ordinarily. Y'all weren't calling for ICE abolishment during the Biden years (or the Obama years, etc), so why now?

I mean, I get it. ICE wasn't murdering civilians then. However, all the ICE agents involved in these recent shootings were veteran members, guys who served for a decade without incident. Now they're out here killing folks for pointing cameras at them? Why?

The answer: They've been thrust into a terrible situation by a bunch of lying, incompetent fascists, and we are all--including ICE agents--suffering for it. They are been forced to hit idiotic "quotas" and are being trained to use dangerous, unhelpful tactics which not only make their jobs harder, but are designed to deliberately trample over the rights of legal citizens. It's no goddamn good for anybody, but the problem is the dickbags in charge, not the stressed, confused, angry, tired agents trying to navigate a complete shitshow.

Speaking of which, and putting on my "Voice of the Proletariat" hat, the vast majority of folks in ICE are just trying to earn a living like anybody else. Yes, there are some bad people in their ranks (which, again, are only there because the recruiting is being done by fascist assholes), and yeah, maybe nobody with a conscience should involve themselves in what has become a massively compromised, immoral organization. But many--probably most--ICE agents feel like they don't have a choice financially, and simply can't walk away from the money.

More context: We are in a declining country with increasingly broken systems, almost no safety net, and an economy that no longer works for 90% of the populace. The desperation is becoming more palpable. Trump and the GOP are primarily interested in one thing: sucking as much wealth as they possibly can from the pockets of working Americans into their own, and/or the offshore accounts of billionaires and political cronies. They are happily watching us tear ourselves apart, glad that we are distracted from their ongoing descent into bribery-based governing and outright oligarchy/authoritarianism.

So yeah, fuck ICE. But let's just remember that at the end of the day, we are all, ICE agents included, part of the same class war. And we are losing. As leftists, let's worry a little more about that and not an errant "like" posted by some record store guy on a comment from some other guy on some stupid social network somewhere.

More Americans support than oppose abolishing ice

https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/53939-more-americans-support-than-oppose-abolishing-ice-immigration-minneapolis-shooting-poll

People have been critical of ICE since it was formed in the early 00s. I’m not a lawyer but it’s my understanding that after 9/11 immigration and naturalization was dissolved and it’s functions were broken up and transferred from the doj to homeland security, and these changes have enabled more civil rights abuses than enforcement under INS. These criticisms have grown much louder under trump but people were warning about the potential for abuse long before he took office.

https://www.aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/border-patrol-was-monstrous-under-obama-imagine

Good to see that after not even bothering for over a year, SLOG is just the same as it ever was.

More Americans support ICE than don't? BULLSHIT. The Constitution exists and people in this country do not want to be assaulted, kidnapped, trafficked, and deported by ICE, because of the color of their skin or the whim of a terrorist masked up, armed, and ready to kill who has been given the power to do whatever they want to whomever they want for no reason at all.

Native Americans are being arrested by ICE (to be deported, where, exactly)?
American citizens are being arrested by ICE (to be deported, where, exactly)?
Immigrants - regardless of status - are being arrested by ICE and deported to countries THEY ARE NOT EVEN FROM!
Immigrants - here legally (in whatever capacity) are being kidnapped and trafficked to other countries (like the hundreds of men sent to CETCOT with no due process - sold for a price to Trump delivering bodies to be used , abused, and killed). Only a handful of names are well known Kilmar Abrego Garcia sent to CETCOT. Mahmoud Khalil accused of crimes he did not commit, just had the nerve to protest while being a student at Columbia. So many children - no one knows their names or how many of them their even are - though recently an immigration lawyer turned away from seeing anyone at a concentration camp in Texas heard the voices of hundreds, if not thousands of CHILDREN as the SCREAMED LET US GO! LET US GO! LET US GO!

ICE is allowed to obscure their identity, not require probable cause or a warrant, violate due process, and apparently also allowed to kidnap and traffic people from one state to another before anyone even knows it has happened. The Constitution, the rights it supposedly enshrines, and the law it supposedly upholds applies to every person in this country no matter who they are - even if they undocumented or unhoused or poor or a child or whatever reason DHS makes up as reasonable for what they are doing - is allowed due process.

Anyone who believes more people in this country support NO FUCKING RIGHTS than support the law and the rights the law protects is FLAT OUT FUCKING LYING AND GASLIGHTING EVERYONE.

American citizens (who happen to have white skin) are being murdered by ICE and some asshole in the comment section of SLOG wants people to believe the people in this country are ALL FOR IT!

The one thing that the white supremacist terrorists and traitors in every branch of the federal government have done in the last year is expose all of the people in this country who are nothing but hate filled, racist pieces of shit whose depraved indifference to life knows no bounds. And Democrats, who chose to do nothing about Trump and send hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to Israel to commit genocide and turn GAZA into a bed of rubble and dead bodies (while taking everything from anyone in this country who needs something - rights, housing, health care, livable wages, education, etc.) believe they deserve to be reinstated to power when they have and continue to do absolutely nothing to stop anything.

This country deserves to be destroyed.

PS Kristofarian, you can probably guess, I won't be back. Thanks for the shout out and it's always nice to see you.

@29: Sorry to see you didn't get the memo during your yearlong absence, but hipster performative virtue-signaling has moved on from GAZA. As you hinted, once the path to peace shifted from "Disarm Israel!" to "Disarm Hamas!", all of your friends (except an equally memo-less kristo', natch!) immediately and completely lost interest in even bothering to pretend to make it look like they could somehow ever possibly have cared. Sorry to read you're still slogging (ha!) away at that has-been pastime of the radically chic turned callously unconcerned.

Thanks again, for helping to describe the Stranger's abject hypocrisy on who suffers repercussions from unpleasant speech. Freedom of speech belongs only to those who agree with the owners of the press!

This article needed to be written and should not be taken for more than what it is. The journalist was asked to write about a shop she loves, which had to be difficult to do, and did an excellent job. Matt has put his foot in his mouth numerous times, as have we all, but these problems needed to be addressed, not to distract from the real issue at hand, which is the abuses of ICE and the current regime.

Matt made multiple dumb errors, though I don't care for how he handled this or the follow up un-apology or basically anything else, we should not punish the store itself (including the staff of the cafe, bar, and retail). I've witnessed Matt's condescension and entitlement firsthand multiple times over 20 years but I shop at ESR because the people that work there and who shop there: my community, my friends. Do not punish the innocent, or you are no better than those you claim to hate. Many business owners are utter wankers, and if you knew everything about all businesses you shop at, you'd be hungry (food, music, all art...+) and would eventually compromise your so-called beliefs. What he said was despicable and poorly handled. No doubt. But let's not get distracted here, but call on him to show what he will do to make it right. With proof. Photos of checks of past payments to organizations he said he donated to, including this round. Let's take a breath and demand actual action from the owner of ESR, beyond funds, to show that he will not allow his staff to suffer for his wrongdoings. Then we can move one, surely, we've all fucked up and wish to be absolved of the guilt. This is not to excuse his poor comments, please don't try and make it about that, but see the real story here. C'mon, let's band together and not be forced into smaller factions, making our voice less strong. Matt, show us the money, and treat people right, now is an opportunity you have that many won't ever have. We don't want ESR to go away or any of y'all to suffer, lead by example, not for the sake of possibly losing your business but because it is the right thing to do, which you've known all along.

@30 ❤️

"More Americans support than oppose abolishing ICE"

put another way:

More Americans Support abolishing ICE
than do
Americans Oppose abolishing ICE

@ 32 - 'Let's not get distracted here,
but call on [Matt] to show what
he will do to make it right.

With proof.'

Matt's got more than enough
Signage available to Do
the Right Thing*

@31

"Freedom
of speech belongs
only to those who agree
with the owners of the press!"

--@The Wormtongue
seen here, Proudly casting Him-
Self! in the role of "Persecuted Victim!"

gosh, wormmy, no one here could
Possibly BE More fucking
DISAGREEABLE than
your lying ass,

so that makes you~either
A. a Liar or B. Stupid
as Fuck. I'm gonna
hazard a guess &
go with: Both!

*a suggestion:

"Just say 'NO!'
to ICEStapo."

@33: "Let's not get distracted here, but call on [Matt] to show what he will do to make it right."

Sounds too much like the confessions and apologies demanded by the CCP under Mao. No, let's not go there.

@34

in "the 'Free' Market"
one must sometime bow
to one's Clientele -- shades
or Repression and Overreach?

then let's make
Everything
free.

otherwise we're
Already There.

@29: "people in this country who are nothing but hate filled,"

But you inadvertently highlighted your hateful rage in the last sentence:

"This country deserves to be destroyed."

I don't think "Abolish ICE" has the same potential for backfire that the ridiculous "Abolish the Police" slogan did, but in all things, we should strive to be level-headed about this. Just as we need some form of law enforcement, we also need an agency that handles border issues, and I think that is the key.

Whatever we replace ICE with should have jurisdiction limited to the first 500 feet of the border, excluding cities where the border is land or sea (local Law Enforcement can handle that). Also, the Department of Homeland Security needs to be eliminated, and the agencies returned to their original framework.

@36

'this country'
driven by a reckless
wannabee Emperor with
a psycophantic police force,*
reminiscent of Germany, c. 1933
is wrecking the alliances WE champ-
ioned, strong-armed & initiated post WWII,
giving us a relative Peace for most of the Planet
for the last 60 years, which's rapidly coming to its End:

"Considering your
Country [Norway] Decided
NOT to Give ME the Nobel Peace Prize…
I No Longer Feel an Obligation to think Purely of Peace."

--a petulant and spiteful
cadet Bonespurs, no
longer chained to
his 'humanity.'

but
as many'd
argue, thedjt isn't
The Cause -- he's merely

a symptom of the disastrous
System that worships Growth, at ALL
Costs, punishment as Sport and 'personal
responsibility' for things well-Beyond our control

that is what
needs to
die.

*ICEStapo:
Mestoppa
Youstoppa!
BuhByeuGo!

@35: in "the 'Free' Market"
one must sometime bow
to one's Clientele

If the Cientele asks me to put up a sign to the effect that [certain group] is not allowed on premesis, is that "Free"?

You are all allowed in my business. But you must use the same drinking fountain.

"in 'the "Free" Market'
one must sometime bow
to one's Clientele -- shades
or Repression and Overreach?"

--kristo, above

"If the [[Clientele]]
asks me to put up a sign
to the effect that [certain group]
is not allowed on premesis, is that "Free"?

--@Holmes on February 7, 2026 at 9:32 AM

Literally, they can Ask you
for Anything they
Wish. that's
What's
Free.

but do you mean, if Matt were to
Put Up signs Banning ICEStapo
from Easy Street Records?

Banning outta-Control heavily-
Armed masked Thugs with
NO Identification who'd
likely come in and beat
your Customer's heads
and whisk them Off
to God knows
Where, tF?

I wish
MORE Bizzes'd
put Up such Signage

"You are all
allowed in my business.
But you must use the same drinking fountain."

will
you
at Least re-
move Most of the Blood?

however, ask-
ing for public ack-
nowledgement, that ICEStapo,
a well-Known terrorist organization,

that has No
Business, in their
present Incarnation,
as an OUTTA Control
Police Force in America,

wreaking havoc,
causing chaos, and
creating pandemonium. a-
mongst the Citizenry of the USosA,

seems like a rather
nominal request
in light of past
Comments
& 'likes.'

but
knowing
our Short At-
tention 'Spans,'
this'll likely blow
over in no time flat

if it
hasn't
Already.

@41 "Sir. This is a Wendy's."