I heard an interesting argument about Scott's proposed payroll tax on the radio yesterday. His proposal excludes any companies that are paying a local tax to a city to basically carve out the jump start tax. If his proposal goes forward that would mean Seattle keeps all the revenue it collects while other jurisdictions would have to provide it to the state. If you are Bellevue, Redmond or another city why wouldn't you pass your own version of this tax and keep the money for yourself? To be clear this is a horrible policy and will only slow job growth in WA leading to less revenue than predicted but you are also incentivizing behavior that will also undermine Scott's purported goal.

Can't say I like the food at Situ because the staff was so rude to us before we ordered that we walked out, something I've heard from others as well (and their Yelp has a few of these types of reviews as well).

@2

had
you been
a Proud Member
of Cadet Bonespurs's
Gang of Insurrectionists
you might've left your Re-
View on the floor, just Lying

there, steaming. our 'president':

the Role
Model.

@2 The owner also has a bizarre habit of writing insulting online replies to unfavorable reviews.

@1, your charade that this progressive tax will "slow job growth" is tiresome. The charade is that if Washington State dares implement progressive taxes employers will skip out of our state and go to another state. This loses all validity when one asks where will they go? Perhaps the state with the second most regressive tax structure? This faulty line of thought can only work if Washington wasn't already over-reliant on its regressive sales tax. Even then the "slow job growth" charade falters since people make choices on where they work and live due to quality of life. Furthermore, this argument completely fails because those people and corporations that base their location decisions on favorable tax policy use more services than they pay for (i.e. they are cheapskates) so taxpayers are better off if they do leave.

@1, At least Seattle might stop exporting tech jobs to Bellevue every time a tech company's Seattle lease comes up for renewal. It would even the playing field.

The solution to Washington's regressive tax structure, which Progressive's oppose, is a statewide income tax, where every dollar in income taxes collected must be used to rebate property and sales taxes. It's the only way it will pass, but Progressives won't support it because they don't give a shit about fair taxation or lightening the tax burden on poor people, they only care about more tax revenue and creating centralized economic planning and control.

Most other states have income taxes. It isn't slowing economic growth. New York has some of the highest income taxes the country. It has not slowed or unseated NYC as the nation's economic capital. Amazon even selected NYC for its HQ2 (before AOC derailed it). Virginia has an income tax. What drove Amazon to those locations? Availability of a high-tech workforce at those locations.

"Amazon will pay $3.7 million in a settlement for labor violations they allegedly committed."

A rounding error in Amazon's cost of doing business. It will deter and remedy nothing moving forward.

@Lol, you have sure drunken the Kool-Aid. Considering this is the path Seattle is going down and the state in general (seems like Scott's is DOA based on Ferguson's response) I guess we'll both find out. Fwiw the jump start tax collected less than expected this last year but I guess that was just coincidence.

https://publicola.com/2025/03/26/jumpstart-revenues-flatten-and-council-questions-plan-to-mandate-earplug-sales-at-venues/

@3
You just can’t help yourself can you?
Everything has to be about Trump.
Would you say it’s an obsession or has it become a fetish?

@8, Of course the jump start tax is flattening. When one of the knowledge-work firm's (e.g. tech, law offices, engineers, etc.) lease expires, they close the Seattle office in favor of Bellevue or work from home. That isn't evidence that such a progressive tax slows economic growth. It is evidence that, all other things being equal, a firm would go someplace without the tax, rather than someplace with it.

All other things aren't equal. Amazon discovered that they could not convince all the tech talent they need and want to move from anywhere in the country to Seattle where there is no corporate or personal income tax (all the Jump Start Tax is an indirect one). It seems that the some of the talent they want is willing to pay Virginia's income tax to stay on the East Coast. Amazon is willing to pay Virginia's income tax to be where those workers are willing to be.

So the theory here is that grocery stores added expense to their bottom line in the form of security devices / security staff (that are probably far more expensive than regular staff) and made things more inconvenient for their customers ultimately leading to lower sales because no reason at all? Sure Jan. So weird they don't do the same things state wide since apparently they just want to be pricks.

I look forward to Katie showing us how much better things can be with her city run stores.

@11. I for one, can't wait for Katie "StayFresh" Wilson opens up the public grocery stores. I'm gonna fill my cart, skip the checkout, and while loading my trunk will be happy to explain my backstory to anyone who followed me out.

TS, who dedicates this week to complaining about Seattle (when don't they?) suffers from dementia. 25 years ago the city was cleaner, safer, and had a chiller vibe. Decades of anomie matched with a policy outlook of maximum permissibility and minimum personal accountability is precisely why restrooms are locked, stores sheves are plexi glassed, and our public parks are instead private encampment.

The Fallen Generation are like Visogoths staring in bewilderment at the vestiges of a once mighty civilization as they pillage the realm.

@1 if that’s accurate (that Seattle would be exempt - thus leveling the field across the state) then Scott deserves more credit than I initially thought. The flaw is nothing would stop Bellevue, Redmond, etc. from adopting their own flavor of the head tax (presumably at a lower rate than Seattle), making Scott’s proposal moot.

And as @6 pointed out today (and I pointed out yesterday), adding progressive revenue only impacts our regressive tax system if said regressive tax system is phased out (if not then we’re still the most regressive but we have additional revenue).

@9
the Olde
Adage -- Shit
Rolls Downhill? you-
've Heard that one, right?

@16~for
Someone who
"Never Reads my Shit!"
you Surely have a Lot to unload on me

maybe you Oughtta
get that Checked,
eh, Shanky?

@19: ya know eventually Slog’s comment section is just going to be you (in whatever iteration) ranting like some poor soul in a locked ward re litigating Waterloo with their imaginary frenemy Napoleon.

@13, Hence my stipulation that a State Income Tax MUST be contingent on income tax revenue being rebated to sales and property tax payers.

ya know,
it's kinda Cool,
having a Dedicated Fan-
attic, one Devoted to some Bizarre,
what he Believes MUST be a nasty schmear campaign.

I give you
el Shiv or
aka, The
Shank:

kristofartian is really Calvin Priest
Kshama Sawant's husband. count on it

--@Knife on November 16, 2025 at 5:34 PM

I know, Calvin Priest.

It must suck to be married to Kshama Sawant.
You have no balls so you come here
on Slog to take out all
your frustrations.

kristofartian is Calvin Priest.

Very well done on my part, indeed.

--@Knife on November 16, 2025 at 6:33 PM

kristofartian is Calvin Priest,
Kshama Sawant's cuck
husband everybody

lol!

--@Knife on November 16, 2025 at 10:31 PM

kristoFARTian
is Calvin Priest, Kshama
Sawant's beta cuck husband

--@Knife on November 18, 2025 at 10:28 AM

Everyone
needs to understand
that kristofartian is, in real life,
Calvin Priest, Kshama Sawant's husband.

--@Knife on November 19, 2025 at 1:19 AM

Wow, this place certainly
has turned into a haven for
bigots, xenophobes and Israeli influnce peddlers.

--Jexpat on November 18, 2025 at 7:11 PM

not to
Mention
RWNJ Trolls*
but, yeah, that'd
be a Bingo, Jexpat.

That IS a fucking Bingo.

*Liars, too
fantasyland
fanatic fascists
making it all Up to
suit their RWNJ agitprop

"Why do they Do that?"

Why are they
even Here?

@20

when one
HATES Progressives
and ALL THINGS progressive
what Better Way to resolve Their Issues

than to Destroy
a Progressive
Outlet?

@18 - I'd be fine with that.

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation/lawmakers-to-hear-from-navy-admiral-who-ordered-attack-that-killed-boat-strike-survivors/

"Many European states imposed arms embargoes on Israeli companies during the war, fully or partially limiting military imports and exports, in opposition to the humanitarian cost of the conflict, which has killed more than 70,000 in Gaza, according to Palestinian health authorities, who don’t distinguish between combatants and civilians."

Looks like Russian drones flying over Western Europe have convinced the governments there that Israel might be onto something:

"On Wednesday, an Arrow 3 air-defense system that Germany purchased from Israel for about $4 billion became fully operational, becoming the first Arrow system to be deployed outside of Israel and the U.S., both countries said. It was the largest arms deal in Israel’s history.

"Israeli arms exports broke a record in 2024, after the outbreak of the war in Gaza, reaching $14.8 billion despite calls to boycott Israeli weapons. Europe was the biggest buyer of Israeli defense technology last year, accounting for 54% of exports compared with 35% in 2023, according to data from Israel’s Defense Ministry."

Immediately after the end of the IDF-Hamas war, Hamas began openly mass-murdering Palestinians in Gaza. This allowed virtue-signaling purity posturers worldwide to recall they never actually cared in the slightest about Palestinian lives, and their thunderous silence on the topic of needless violent Palestinian deaths has allowed Western European governments to act, once again, in the defense of their citizens. Israel and the United States now enjoy the financial benefits of our strong alliance.

(https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israels-latest-military-tech-tested-in-gaza-wanted-by-the-west-3d9add02?mod=wknd_pos1)

How many Palestinians have been killed by the IDF after the 'end of the war'? Hint: more than Hamas has killed.
If Hamas and/or the current government of Israel continue to exist, it is just on pause.

@25: as long as Gazans EXIST
wormmy'll use 'Hamas!' as
an Excuse for the IOF to
Do as it damn Well
Pleases.

wormmy's just Lying
when he call the "Peace
Plan" or "Ceasefire Plan"
or Whatever the Fuck 'the
END of the "War!"' Ignore him.

@24 -- so, one of your
rants got published.
bravo?

speaking of 'self-hating Jews,'
'Anti‑Zionism is Antisemitism, and
criticizing Israel is a form of Jew hatred!'
and 'the IOF's 'War' on Gaza started on 10/7/23!'

oh, and also as a counter to your (thumpfnsorna
T. Wormtongue's and Wormtongue
thumpfnsorna's) pro-Genocide
Narrative that's Darkened
the Stranger's door non-
fucking Stop ever since
October 7, 2023

from 'the Progressive Jew':
the Biggest Zionist Lies of All Time:

Zionism has always relied on myths, distortions, and falsehoods to maintain support among Western audiences. ZBS (Zionist bullshit) has kept generations of Jewish Zionists and goyishe backers of that racist project thoroughly misinformed.

After two years of live‑streamed genocide on smartphones, we’ve seen what happens when Jews with open minds and hearts that Zionism hasn’t hardened finally confront the reality of that dishonest, racist, violent, and morally bankrupt movement: they tend to walk away. And once they leave, they rarely come back.

I was brought into Zionism at a young age, when I generally believed what authority figures told me. As a Baby Boom Jew, I didn’t have easy access to quality information about Palestine–Israel. We never heard Palestinian voices, and I don’t recall ever speaking with an anti-Zionist Jew. The story I received was entirely biased, one-sided, and, in retrospect, deeply offensive.

Due to the persuasiveness of Zionist propaganda, I spent more than half my life defending Israel. When I finally learned the actual history, I was appalled – and furious.

After years of making excuses for what I now know are Israel’s crimes against humanity, I want to help set the record straight. What follows are what I consider the biggest Zionist lies ever told, in reverse order, with #1 being the most destructive lie – the falsehood that has caused the most harm.

--by Robert Rosenthal; Nov. 25, 2025

https://theprogressivejew.substack.com/p/biggest-zionist-lies-of-all-time

here's a Taste:

(here's one of district13refugee's Favorite Tropes):

17 – “Jews and Arabs have been at war with each other for thousands of years.”

This is a fine example of intellectual laziness.

It treats a modern (and anachronistic) settler‑colonialist project as if it were some timeless desert blood feud that magically excuses whatever Israel does today because, “Hey, they’ve always hated each other.”

In reality, Jews, Muslims, and Christians have lived together – mainly in peace – in that region for centuries. The current situation is rooted in an ethnic‑nationalist‑political movement, not some ancient DNA‑coded grudge.

The “ancient hatred” myth is convenient because it tells Zionists the status quo is eternal and nothing can ever really change about Israeli oppression of Palestinians, so why bother condemning or even questioning it?

12 – “In 1948, Palestinians voluntarily gave up their homes.”

Sure, and people just “voluntarily” leave when militias are shooting over their heads, massacres are taking place in nearby villages, and they’re told if they cross a certain line, they’ll be killed.

Calling this “voluntary” is like calling a mugging “charitable giving.” The Nakba wasn’t a rebranding of the Holy Land; it was mass expulsion backed by organized violence.

Growing up, I was told demonic Palestinians had been instructed to depart temporarily while Arab armies drove all the Jews into the sea, and that radio broadcasts urged the Jew-hating Arabs to step out for a brief spell while their leaders did the job. I’ve checked and checked and never seen credible substantiation for that claim.

It’s a made-up story used by racists to reposition victims of ethnic cleansing as hateful house‑sitters. Denying Palestinian refugees the right of return is cruel, immoral, and un-Jewish.

8 – “The problem began on October 7th.”

This is the lie that tries to hit the “Reset” button on history. It pretends everything before October 7, 2023 – the Nakba, occupation, apartheid, siege, decades of massacres and expulsions – was just background noise, and “the conflict” magically started on that awful day.

Erase nearly eight decades of Israeli violence and dispossession, and you can rebrand genocide as “self‑defense.” On October 6th, Gaza was already widely known as “the world’s largest open‑air prison,” the UN had categorized it as “unlivable,” and award‑winning Israeli journalist Gideon Levy was calling it a “concentration camp.”

An 18-year-old Gazan would be unable to recall a time when he wasn’t forcibly confined inside that fence under subhuman conditions for the “crime” of existing while Palestinian.

Pretending that hellscape was
peaceful normalcy the day before
is gaslighting on a genocidal scale.

5 – “Anti‑Zionism is antisemitism, and criticizing Israel is a form of Jew hatred.”

This is the gag order dressed up as protection.

It insists that a 19th-20th-century political ideology and current apartheid state are somehow fused to the core of Jewish identity, so any serious criticism of Zionism or Israel automatically becomes hatred of Jews.

In practice, it’s been used to silence Palestinians, punish Jewish dissenters, and shut down nonviolent movements like BDS.

Worst of all, by insisting Israel speaks and kills “for the Jews,” it actually increases the risk to ordinary Jews around the world, then points to the backlash it helped create as proof that Jews “need” Zionism.

The idea that “good” Jews support oppression is itself antisemitic, and with growing numbers of Jews openly identifying as anti‑Zionist, the claim that anti‑Zionism or sharp criticism of Israel equals Jew hatred looks more absurd – and more desperate – by the day.

[as I've Been saying
& been Always Contradicted
by Wormtongue and wormmy, Jr

this is one of the Zionists' Favorite Tropes
used for Shitting on and Shutting
DOWN Any condemnation
of Israel's genocidal
"War" on Gaza]

"the claim that anti‑
Zionism or sharp criticism of
Israel equals Jew hatred looks more
absurd – and more desperate – by the day."

BI-fucking-NGO.

1 – “Israel hasn’t committed genocide.”

When you systematically kill, maim, starve, and uproot a trapped population while political and military leaders talk openly about erasing them, that’s not a tragic accident of war; it’s a project of destruction.

Denying genocide in the middle of live‑streamed mass killing isn’t a neutral position; it’s complicity. One of the more popular Zionist deflections is, “Hamas hides in civilian areas,” as if that somehow makes every home, hospital, school, mosque, and apartment block in Gaza fair game.

Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on earth – there’s no such thing as a “non‑civilian area” – and international law doesn’t say, “If fighters are nearby, you’re free to erase entire neighborhoods and starve everyone left alive.” Even in urban warfare, an army must distinguish between combatants and civilians, use proportionate force, and avoid collective punishment.

And if placing military infrastructure near civilians automatically made those civilians expendable, Israelis might want to explain why the IOF’s own headquarters, the Kirya compound – Israel’s “Pentagon” – sits in the heart of central Tel Aviv, surrounded by offices, malls, apartment towers, and dense civilian life.

Bombing refugee camps, targeting journalists and medics, and cutting off food, water, and medicine to two million people isn’t self‑defense; it’s the deliberate destruction of a people’s ability to live.

Major human rights organizations – including Amnesty International, a UN Commission of Inquiry, and B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights group – have concluded that Israel is committing genocide or acts that meet the legal definition of genocide in Gaza, and the ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Israel’s prime minister for using starvation as a weapon against civilians.

To deny all this is happening is
to deny the reality Palestinians
are enduring every single day."

--by Robert Rosenthal; Nov. 25, 2025

oodles:
https://theprogressivejew.substack.com/p/biggest-zionist-lies-of-all-time

@30

"The idea that “good” Jews support oppression is itself antisemitic..."

here's your Opportunity for a
Million, or so, of your Laughing Emojis,
thumpfnsorna, the lying little Anti-Semite that You are.

Isn't it about Time
we Stopped giving Credence
to these 'two,' perpetually-lying liars?

@25: “How many Palestinians have been killed by the IDF after the 'end of the war'? Hint: more than Hamas has killed.”

Can’t wait to see your sources for those figures. (I couldn’t help but notice you somehow forgot to cite any.)

I’m guessing your actual source, as always, consists of the vast space from which you pull all of your ‘facts’ — you know, the place where you routinely keep your head?

@25 ~ Ignore
the Wormtongue:
if he's not lying he's
Most likely sleeping or
cashing those AIPAC checks,

@34

or -- thinking of New, Exciting
Insults, or dredging up the
Olde ones that're Just
Almost as Good as
his Latest zingers
& Humdingers

notice how he Ignores
when his Tropes are
all easily dismissed

his
Narrative,
a House of Cards?

@25 -- Bingo.
Hamas killed 1,300
on 10/7/23 -- since Then
Israel's killed at Least 70,000

but wormmy Demands
'Sources' or it MUST
NOT BE TRUE.

pay him No
nevermind.

@25: Awwww, cat got your tongue? Stating your 'gotcha' of an opinion as if it was fact came quite easily; finding any evidence, at all, of any kind whatsoever, to back it up proves impossibly hard -- as it always does with your beliefs. Ever wonder why? (Nope, didn't think so.)

Here's another thought which hasn't occurred to you: if Hamas mowed down civilians in Gaza in broad daylight, right out in the open, in full view of Western reporters, then how many Palestinians has Hamas murdered under fog of war? Two years could hide a lot of killings, every last one of which you'd obediently blame upon the Israelis. Ever wonder just how badly you got played by jihadi terrorists? (Nope, didn't think so.)

Have a nice life.

RICH
as Fuck
You wormmy
playing the 'Fog
of WAR! card when
Israel's killed More Journalists

here, this from the Guardian

The Israeli military has prevented international journalists from entering and reporting on the war, and has decimated Gaza’s own media community. Under international law, journalists should be protected civilians, yet the CPJ says that Israel is “engaging in the deadliest and most deliberate effort to kill and silence journalists that CPJ has ever documented”.

“Palestinian journalists are being threatened, directly targeted and murdered by Israeli forces, and are arbitrarily detained and tortured in retaliation for their work. By silencing the press – those who document and bear witness – Israel is silencing the war,” the organisation said.

"the Fog of War"?

is the Pink Mist
that is the Blood of
Murdered Journalists

Relatives also targeted

Nasser Abu Bakr, Chairman of the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, reported that more than 255 journalists were killed in Gaza, representing 18 per cent of the overall number in the Strip.

More than 500 were wounded and Israel arrested over 200 others who were subjected to extreme torture in prison. Additionally, relatives of journalists also were killed or targeted.

He said the syndicate and the International Union of Journalists are ready to cooperate with the Secretary-General in submitting a report detailing the systemic crimes perpetrated against journalists in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Moreover, the time has come to implement UN Security Council resolution 2222 (2015) which condemns impunity for crimes against journalists.

“We want this resolution to be implemented on the occupation, and those in the occupation State to be held accountable for these crimes against our journalists,” he said in a video message.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/12/1166481

and
B. well
fuck YEAH
Hamas won't hesitate
to kill Gazans -- they had
Gazans Under their Iron Fist ever
since they were Elected -- in 2000 fucking Seven

so whilst you claim
Hamas Hides behind
Gazans, they're using the
Population as fucking Shields

but that
doesn't matter to
the IOF nor You Wormtongue

kill 'em ALL.

monsters.

like water off a duck's back.

Pardon
bibi. END
this Fucking 'War.'

@25: It's so much easier to run you cowards off these threads when you no longer have the fog of war to obscure what you're really supporting. What's it like, being so miserably subservient to jihadi terrorists, such a craven failure at basic human morality, you can't even criticize state-run extra-judicial mass murder, unless you can somehow (groundlessly) claim the Israelis did it too?

For two years you had your fun, publicly posing and preening as purity perfectionists, ascribing every last death in a war zone to only one side, the side of a multi-ethnic democracy trying to eliminate a criminal gang on its border. Now, as the ugliness of what you really supported bursts out into the open, appearing in so many forms at once you can't even hope to staunch the flow of damning information, you have no option but to retreat into that dead silence which always immediately envelops you whenever you're asked to raise your voice to support a true moral cause.

The thunder of your silence has now drowned every one of the empty, meaningless words you ever emitted. Good riddance.

wowser
Wormtongue
your psycho projections've
nearly reached fever pitch rewriting
History to fit your genocidal narrative

with the Ease of a Master.

wowzer,
wormmy.

Hey, Felon Mu$k's Mein Trumpf----a lot of us here in Washington State, myself included, hate you too!
Here's hoping you choke and die slobbering on your next Big Mac Pig Trough Meal just in time for KKKhristmas.
Wishing you and your MAGA ilk a very KKKrappy New Year---fittingly in front of a firing squad.
You love guns, right?

@20 Lissa (re: @19): I usually just scroll past anything ol' SillyPutty rants about.
His longwinded rants likely are a weak coverup for something else severely lacking.

@38: Ya gotta stop chugging the hydroxychloroquine, tensy, before you go over the side with the rest of
Felon Mu$k's Mein Trumpf's MAGA lemmings, too.

@39 kristofarian: At this point, I think tensy (a.k.a wormmy) needs serious professional help. He's gone completely over the edge.

@12: Thanks for writing all of this, especially the last: "The Fallen Generation are like Visogoths staring in bewilderment at the vestiges of a once mighty civilization as they pillage the realm." Brilliant!