Someone's about to get away with four murders due to to bumpkin cop bungling.

know how to say Fuck
YOU in copspeak?

"To be honest, you're
going to have to trust
us on that at this point"

mind the
Double veracities!

Again with the "capital gains tax"... which is an "income tax".... its based on the taxable gain from the sale of a capital assets which results in "income to the owner of said asset".

This is a very long and storied tax, steeped in history in the halls of the IRS. Its income! It walks, talks and quacks just like income...because it is income.

The State of Washington needs to either stop the stupidity or have the voters... vote for a state income tax. Do this the right way and quit trying to cut the corners.... its simply stupid.

.

There is no need to "stay at home today".... there isn't any fucking snow on the roads, baby. You Gen Zers really are soft, aren't you?

@3, you would never get enough statewide votes. the people in the east are more than happy to mooch off of the revenue generated in the puget sound region

There has to be something in between “it’s either a free apartment for everyone” or “camp wherever you want and be a public nuisance (or worse)”.

It’s not an affordable housing issue - a huge percentage of the vagrants could never afford ANY rent or properly keep up a place. I know the stranger likes to put forth the notion that they’re all just unlucky families trying to get by but anyone with eyes and a functioning brain knows that is far from reality.

At some point the greater good needs to be considered and regular old hard working citizens and small business owners need a break from the street madness that’s been allowed to flourish in Seattle, Portland, etc., baby!

"decomodify real estate"? Do you even stop to think how stupid that sounds? Why stop there? Decomodify everything!!! Everything is free!!!!

@7,

She didn't say to "decomodify real estate," dummy.

Here's a quick primer on how quotation marks work.

https://www.thesaurus.com/e/grammar/use-quotation-marks/

No need to thank me, I'm happy to help!

@1,@2,

You guys rightly piss all over the cops for arresting people when they don't have enough evidence that they committed a crime.

Now you piss all over the cops for NOT arresting a person because they have insufficient evidence a person committed the crime.

You rightly piss all over the cops when they use evidence that doesn't exist to arrest someone.

Now you piss all over the cops for not making arrest, because their isn't evidence of who committed the crime.

They can't, and shouldn't, act on evidence that doesn't exist.

They have taken what fingerprints exist at scene, DNA evidence, etc. canvassed for video evidence and witnesses, all around the murder scene. They are interviewing friends and associates that knew the students to try and figure out if anyone had it out for one or more of the victims. Standard investigative procedure. Given the high national and international profile of the case, they have the full resources and assistance of Moscow P.D., the County, the State of Idaho (their evidence is at the head of the line at the State's Crime Lab), the ATF, and the FBI. All the resources to find all the evidence there is.

They also are protecting the civil rights of the public by not arresting someone without sufficient evidence. They aren't manufacturing evidence, or making an arrest on speculative belief or because someone "looks good" for the crime (E.g. Richard Jewel, Atlanta Olympics Bombing) to feed the public's desire for resolution, preferably by the end of the hours, so one doesn't have to tune in next week. At least they aren't doing that yet. We will see if, or when, they do make an arrest.

So which way do you want it? Cops looking for all the evidence that exists, and making an arrest ONLY when there is sufficient evidence, or feeding the public's lust for resolution of the case within their one hour attention span, and providing the public a perception of security (illusory if they have the wrong suspect)? You two are all over the map.

I suggest waiting for the Moscow Idaho police to finish their investigation before drawing ill-advised and premature conclusions that is only fodder for generalized cop-hating commentary. One would think that changing from "targeted" to "random" and vice versa would be expected as facts come in and are later disproven.

Their doing their jobs. Their only human.

@3/5 of course its an income tax. That was the whole point of the legislation and why the cap was set so high that it impacts a small number of people (for now). Democrats have supermajorities in the WA legislature, if they wanted to do this correctly and transparently they would pass a constitutional amendment regarding the uniform taxing of property. However they know voters overwhelming hate the idea of an income tax, which is why they don't put it forth as an initiative and why they are too cowardly to do it themselves. Instead they are hoping the court will use this case to revisit the original ruling and overturn it. Ironically of course most progressives have spend the last few months complaining about the SC overruling a prior precedent in Roe V Wade however in this case I'm sure they will be loudly cheering if/when it happens. There are 3 possible outcomes for this case:

The WA SC allows the capital gains tax to move forward and finds some legal wrangling to declare it an excise tax without revisiting the income as property ruling. If so I would expect the legislature will immediately move to drop the threshold for this tax to a much lower amount.
The WA SC overturns the income ruling in which case the capitol gains tax will be lowered and the legislature will move to institute a state income tax by 2024. They will not lower other taxes as part of that.
The WA SC upholds the lower court ruling and the legislatures sleight of hand is foiled forcing them to actually do what they should be doing in the first place.

While most of us hope for the final choice I fully expect 1 or 2 to happen by mid next year and WA will join the likes of CA, IL and NJ as one of the most taxed states in the nation with the least to show for it. Don't believe that? Just look at the outcome of McCleary. We had a massive spike in property taxes in order to "fully fund education" and the only thing that happened is teachers salaries spiked. Kids are still failing, Seattle is staring down a budget hole in 2023 and many programs are being cut. The money ended up being a huge union giveaway.

@9 brevity is your friend

"You guys rightly piss all over the cops for arresting people when they don't have enough evidence that they committed a crime."

truly? SHOW me when
Faxxy. if you please…

"Now you piss all over the cops for NOT arresting a person because they have insufficient evidence a person committed the crime."

wrong. but Not your first time.
I referenced Mendacity
@2 & here it pops
up yet again.
fuck off.

"de-commodify housing"? you have no idea how "housing" works, Hannah. "lazy" has nothing to do with it.

you should bone up. https://www.housingconsortium.org/

@7 -- the USofA's
commodification of its
Citizenry the Harvesting
of all we Do is Capitalism
unfucking hinged. Education?
Indentured Servitude. Child care?
more Expensive than fucking WORKing.

Advance nations on this Planet
know Better than attempting
to extract every last cent
from its Populace.

but not Here.

good to know
you're On Board.

@11 Based on GDP, California's economy is 1st in the nation, Illinois is 5th and New Jersey is 10th. That's pretty much in line with their populations. Somehow they've managed to overcome the outrageous burden of a state income tax. Looking ahead to 2023, California is poised to overtake Germany as the 4th largest economy in the world.

@5

I could be wrong but I think an income tax could be passed if it was a flat tax on all incomes.

The reason Washington voters would be hesitant to approve a progressive income tax is because the legislature has not demonstrated a willingness to repeal any regressive taxes.

This Capital Gains tax is a perfect example. They could have used it to reduce a sales, property, or B&O tax. Instead they used it for new spending.

Are you inferring there is a correlation between tax burden and economic activity? If so what happened to Maine and Vermont? They are 3rd and 4th on the list of most heavily taxed states (higher than CA) and it doesn't seem to be working for them. Kudos to CA for being in a well desired geographic location with a host of natural resources that enabled them to birth many industries leading to the economic growth. That has nothing to do with the tax structure.

I'm not arguing the pros/cons of a state income tax. My issue is the backdoor and shady way the legislature is going about this to get something voters have repeatedly said they do not want. Beyond that if you think having a state income tax will lead to better outcomes good for you, I don't share your optimism. I have zero faith that the WA legislature would use that money to effect change in this state or reduce the burden of other more regressive taxes but we can save that debate until the time when the income tax becomes a reality next year.

“Decomodify housing” - did progressives learn nothing from “Defund Police?” There’s probably a very academic, grain of truth principle behind it, but everyone will misconstrue it as socialist takeover of an asset that actually serves as a way to finally accumulate some wealth for some families. Can we skip the buzzy word salad in favor of practical, transparent ideas, plz?

@19 -- Excellent Point.

De-commodify the
fucking Citizenry

when Billionaires pay
their Fair Share. our
Country doesn't
have Human
Being on its
streets and
in parks

what we see now
does NOT Gotta BE.

Trillion$ have been
re-Allocated Upstairs
and we Tolerate it. WHY.

@18 I am inferring that there is no obvious correlation between state income tax and economic activity. At least I don't see one in the three states that you mentioned earlier.

@9. Thanks for the engaged response to the issues raised. The factual information and insights you brought challenged my assumptions and presuppositions to bring my beliefs into better alignment with the empirical world.

Cops should not arrest without evidence? Agree? So why would you criticize the cops investiating this case for observing that civil right?

BTW the closure rate for criminal murder investigations in the US and Europe is in the mid 50% range. So there is a nearly 50% chance this case will remain unsolved because the cops didn't invent evidence in the face of public pressure for an arrest.

@20 great, glad we agree on that. Then the leg should do the right thing and make a case for this tax to the people via a constitutional amendment instead of letting the court do their dirty work.

Is there any correlation between state income tax and a state's ability to solve homelessness and other problems? Having moved from WA (no income tax) to OR (income tax) I don't see a huge difference. If The Stranger advocates for an income tax to solve problems, what does the sister paper Portland Mercury advocate for? A higher income tax is my guess.

OK,this is starting to feel like NextDoor ... or maybe Twitter/FB. Same thing.

"it only affects 7,000 Washingtonians": But they're rich people, so they matter, doncha know.

"Decomodify housing, you lazy fucking liberals.": But unhoused people are poor, so they don't matter, doncha know.

Just follow the money, and practically everything about American politics and government will make hideous sense.

6 and 17 You obviously do not understand why People cannot afford housing and why there should not be a flat tax.

The working class and poor pay plenty of taxes and have little or no assets.
Yet what we want is largely ignored by those in power.

The clerk at the store, the drivers that deliver the goods could be near homeless or homeless because they CANNOT afford housing.
Many need services that could save their lives or put them on their feet.

Yet we have billionaires fleecing us right and left and NOT paying their fair share and causing workers to die on the job. And apparently, that is ok with you.

6 Stop the hate speech it can and does cause people to die. This city is not yet a duplicate of a nazi controlled area but you are helping it to become one.