"Yesterday, US Senate Republicans
banded together to overturn an
investment rule they deemed
to be too 'woke.'"

sending a giant FUCK YOU
to We, the Stakeholders
of America: 'YOU don't
DESERVE a Healthy
Planet. Earth was
put here by
OUR God

giving to US Dominion
over all but the strongest
and thee most Cunningest.

so Suck it.'

"It passed on a vote of 50 to 46 with Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana voting with Republicans."

It's going to be 2 solid years of this backlash bullshit.

@4: If the Stranger dies I will be very sad. I've been reading it since the early 90s back when Dan Savage was a pup and his column had a NSFW title. But! the silver lining is that I will NEVER have to read another comment from you. So there's that.

Politicizing retirement investments is undemocratic, illiberal, and disproportionally affects poor people as it limits options to create wealth.

Don't bash Justin Bieber Hannah. He has a disease causing paralysis in his face, if you didn't know.

@6 You're a shameless shill. Money is politics. Where you spend your money is a political statement. The Supreme Court said so, and also money is free speech now.

Investments are political, and this law seems to exist only to protect the powerful and bind the powerless.

The picture is from last November, gun control rally at City Hall

@7 there is nothing that prevents you the consumer from investing your money in ESG funds if that is your choice. The argument from the supporters of this is that ESG funds will return greater in the long run because their business are at less risk from climate change etc. If that is true the money will flow to those funds because they will have the best return. The only reason to allow this change is so that money managers can be alleviated from the fiduciary duty and seek out lower return investments in the name of equity and social responsibility. That is biased investing and is rightly disallowed.

Students Rally for Gun Regulations. From the link:

“House Bill 1240, would require permits and training for anyone who wants to purchase a gun, and Senate Bill 5078 would hold manufacturers responsible when their guns are used illegally.”

My understanding is the gun used by the shooter at Ingraham High was stolen and illegally transferred to the student, who then brought it to school illegally. That’s at least three crimes before the trigger was even pulled. How will legislating more crimes help to prevent a repeat? How would requiring permits and training prior to purchasing a gun help when the gun used was stolen? How can the manufacturers even be held responsible when their product was stolen? (Consider 9/11: should Boeing be held responsible for the collapse of the World Trade Center?)

Did the students meet with the “No Youth Jail” activists?

@6: LOL at "disproportionately affects poor people". hilarious.

the north shall rise again!

Wellm, well ... the long awaited dividend from misguided, far left spend thrift programs and policy is coming to roost!

The state just paid out money without question to those claiming unemployment, without verification.... One can understand this to some point as they were too busy paying unemployment claims from Russia. I mean, surely somebody in Russia worked here, actually 10's of thousand of Russian workers appear to have worked here according to the employment security payout register. And the director of the program was promoted to work with Biden.... nice!

Meanwhile the "far left spend it like you stole it programs" is nows out of money... and the shit hit the revenue fan. Due to the brilliant, antagonistic antics of the city counsel....the city has about 1/3 less viable tax paying business.... many wiped out by covid, some left due to the stupid far left labor policies and still others left due to the lawlessness of the city.

Well, time to hit up those who remain... the common worker... pay back is a bitch, but what are you going to do?

Layoff at the cushy government jobs... try making a living in the real world folks.

If you wipe out more business or entice them further with greater taxes or regulations...., your source of sales tax, B&O tax, Fees and permits will be less and less. ... Ah, the worker's paradise is about to get really sad.

Oh... and we have a recession at our door steps... yes its really going to get sad.

@6, 9 The rules in question didn't mandate that fund managers use ESG factors. They gave fund managers the option. So that fund managers could, you know, use some of their expertise in deciding what to invest in looking down the road another couple of dozen years.

You folks would have been mandating investment in buggy whips in 1910.

@19 I never said it was a mandate and there is nothing stopping money managers from using their expertise to invest in ESG funds today, provided they are going to give their clients the best return on their money. If ESG funds really are better long term investments then this rule is not needed. The only thing this rule does is allow money manager to accept lower rates of return under the guide of social responsibility and that is bullshit. Their job is to maximize their clients investments not be their moral conscience and if investors want ESG funds there is nothing stopping them from directing their funds to those accounts.

shorter @18:

"Large bureaucratic institution mishandled allocation of funds in response to deadly global pandemic that's killed millions of people."

Though I'm sure we'd have all been much better off with a right wing institution in charge. Definitely in fact, hopefully that same right wing institutional apparatus that also disbanded the Global Pandemic Response Team two years prior to our societies being crippled by a global pandemic that needed responding to.

It should make you all feel better that the head of this financial fiasco for the state is no longer in charge. She was definitely held accountable for her complete mismanagement of the dept. Oh wait....I think its called failing upwards.

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/economy/suzi-levine-head-of-washingtons-unemployment-agency-to-take-job-in-biden-administration/

@25 - There is definitely a cottage market for would-be politicians who are nothing more than con artists and opportunists, but know that they can play the race/gender/LBGTAGQGC card to further their own ambitions. Because they DESERVE it.

A lot of the endless arguements here and elsewhere could be solved by acknowledging the fact that no amount of White Guilt will assuage the stain of slavery and genocide that this country was built upon. Sins of the father? No thanks. Conservatives tell themselves the same lies so they can sleep at night. Not our fault! The world is cruel battle for survival. Randomly promoting outliers won't ever, ever, get those blood stains off of your hands. No matter how many times you wash them.

This story is a perfect example of why conservatives loathe the government. First, WA State makes getting unemployment an impossible, opaque process for the people that actually need it. Then, Nigerians (look it up) con the state out of half a billion dollars with their fancy computers. Then the people who actually needed and got the money have to pay it back to compensate for Suzi Levine and Rabbi Nussbaum (look it up) incompetence to fund their charity that is a money pit. Incompetence and greed? It's ok. Nice work all around!

When centrists are in charge, Republicans are in charge

@ 25 Conservatives don't tell themselves the same lies so they can sleep at night. They lie because dishonesty is intertwined in every aspect of their lives is an indelible character trait. Dogs bark. Conservatives lie. It's what they do.

They sleep just fine at night, not worrying about their serial dishonesty because they either lack a conscience to nag them, or they think it's perfectly OK- and they think everyone does it, because it's what they, their associates and their media idols do. And they'll keep on doing it, like addicts, until they're held accountabl for it.

"30 employees at its central office that the district might lay them off"
"The office building layoffs could save SPS $33 million"
You'll have to forgive me, I went to a Seattle public school, but isn't that over a million per person?
Sure there is overhead well above base salary, but still...
After they lay the people off are they going to sell the building to developer or something?

@7 and @13: Even for someone who does not own stocks, the city they live in uses as a source of revenue mutual funds. The dividends and gains from which feeds the general revenue and funds city projects and services for everyone, including the poor.

The problem with ESG funds, as @22 notes, is that there's no standardized criteria for what makes an investment sustainable. It's all ad-hoc tangential and nebulous policy, not whether the business is profitable or not. And if it's not profitable it doesn't do anyone any good to keep supporting it. Hence everyone looses money.

@28: Obama was a Republican? Bless his heart.

@5 Lissa for the WIN!

@12: Wow--open mouth, insert foot. Why don't you quit when you're a horse's behind? Maybe check your spelling before making any further hasty retorts.

@32 THAT'S right, raindrop dear. Keep telling yourself that. The Orange Turd and its KKKorprate loyalists are laughing their asses off at you and your ilk.

@33 shoobop: I believe they're not only drinking buddies, but also roomies. Raindrop's bunkmates love the high carb supply and free cable.

@33: Don't worry, I'll get my fix by watching your depravity in its full glory on #LibsOfTicToc on Twitter.

@33: “I worry about the Stranger shutting down…”

I feel your pain, brother. I am right now wasting my otherwise-valuable time worrying what might happen, should you lose (what is certainly) Seattle’s only safe space in which you can rant about your horror at old racist Asians.

That’s how much I care.

You’re welcome.