https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-035lzG_m0

Yes, Rep. Jayapal and CM González, criticism happens. That in no way justifies attempted censorship of your critics. (Maybe if you hadn't voted to tax our jobs to feed our Homeless-Industrial Complex which you helped to build, you wouldn't now be facing such harsh criticism.)

Amazon is a local company; half of CM Sawant's money comes from outside Seattle. Her campaign has "volunteers" who clearly do not live here -- and may have been paid to come here. Apparently none of that external interference is in any way "disrespectful" to Seattle's voters.

'“I’m just struggling with why this would be, to be honest, constitutional that we are setting different classes of speech at some level,” said Eileen Norton, one of the SEEC commissioners. '

She's right; the proposal is obviously not legal and will get us sued; we will lose. Just like 'saving' The Showbox went. Slow learners, this Council.

4 gets it and saves me some typing time.

Reading articles like this in The Stranger makes me feel disrespected by Seattle's leaders AND this paper.

@3 " if you hadn't voted to tax our jobs to feed our Homeless-Industrial Complex"

How does taxing your boss amounts to "taxing your job"? Are just another trickle down zealot really into demonizing services for the homeless?

@4 are you claiming they just spend all that money for no reason at all? Do you have any idea how much money is spent on propaganda (commercial or not) for no reason at all?

While I am not a fan of Amazon and big corporate donations, this framing is a distraction. It is logical that Amazon executives like many Seattle residents are fed up with Seattle City Council. This election is a referendum on Council’s failed leadership in addressing Seattle’s two main challenges, the drug addiction/encampment crisis and the housing shortage/affordability crisis. Yes they are separate issues. Until we elect pragmatic progressives rather than clueless, virtue-signaling ideologues, the problems will only get worse.

'How does taxing your boss amounts to "taxing your job"?'

OK, are you ignorant, or are you just blatantly lying? From Wikipedia, because I'm lazy:

"The approved version of the $275 per-employee head tax would generate $47 million from businesses with gross revenues of over $20 million, affecting about 3 percent of businesses in the city. Amazon would provide an estimated $10 million of the annual revenue, due to its 45,000 employees in the city."

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_head_tax)

Since you apparently cannot do math, you'll just have to trust me when I note these numbers indicate over 125,000 jobs NOT at Amazon would have been taxed, and plenty of non-Amazon firms would have paid these taxes on our jobs. The very name "Amazon Tax" was a blatant political distortion, propaganda which you seem to have swallowed so deeply you still regurgitate it upon command, over a year (!) later.

"...into demonizing services for the homeless?"

Seattle's spending on which has increased in real terms since repeal of the EHT. The number of homeless persons counted in Seattle has also declined since EHT repeal. (So much for needing the EHT to reduce homelessness...) Thus, we are spending more -- and more per homeless person -- since we repealed the tax on our jobs. If we wanted to "demonize services for the homeless," then we're going about it all wrong, I'd say.

"@4 are you claiming they just spend all that money for no reason at all?"

There's an old joke in advertising: half of the money spent is completely wasted, but nobody knows which half. Just because propaganda works spectacularly well on you doesn't mean the rest of us are as pathetically gullible.

I can see your dirty pillows.

Millions are spent on criminalizing the homeless not providing services and decent emergency housing for them. The sweeps are most likely ordered by the mayor.

That tax was targeted to large corporations who don’t pay their fair share. The main reason for the unsheltered population is greed. Not choices. People are dying on the streets because of the policies of greed. And ignoring the most destitute people. Forty years ago housing was accessible it is not now. Those in power need to stop lying about it but unless there is pressure they won’t.

@11: Seattle spends tens of millions of dollars per year on homeless services. The sweeps are most definitely ordered by the mayor, and should continue until every encampment is gone and every homeless person is on his or her way into stable housing, either around here or wherever they came from.

"That tax was targeted to large corporations who don’t pay their fair share."

I work for a company which employs fewer than 200 persons, and my employer would have paid a tax on every one of our jobs.

"The main reason for the unsheltered population is greed."

According to King County, the majority of our homeless persons are addicted to opiates.

"Forty years ago housing was accessible it is not now."

Forty years ago, Seattle was still recovering from the Boeing Slump, and more housing was available than needed. Now we're a boom town and showing it.

"Those in power need to stop lying about it but unless there is pressure they won’t."

Finally! Something on which we can agree. Please tell Rep. Jayapal and CM González to stop lying.

Amazon and their allies are destroying lives. i.e. Workers cannot afford to live here because of the increased cost of living due to Amazon drinking up the resources. Homelessness has increased due to the presence of huge corporations getting huge benefits by being here and not paying for those benefits.

Same ones whoring for Amazon's corporate influence now will rail against that same influence when it suits them to complain about rapid growth or redeveloping South Lake Union. Same ones screeched over Sawant's outside fundraising. Don't get them started on unions (as long as it's not the cop union). Developer money is bad, waterfront money is good. They want local autonomy and "states rights" except when local control means income tax and rent control. Lunatics.

That's the problem with not standing for anything: you're 100% for sale and will turn on a dime whenever a short term advantage is dangled in front of you.

Also, wipe your chin before you post again, OK? Gross.

@8 so you acknowledge that your boss is the one being taxed, not you. What's you fucking problem then? Are you a moron?

13 Are you having a problem with understanding corruption? When candidates take $ from the very wealthy they are normally beholden to them. They usually make a deal. They usually lie to the public on the behalf of their owners. Most people don’t trust that behavior. This nation is already a plutocracy.

It is important to distinguish between PAC money and donations accepted by candidates. A PAC is spending money to promote a candidate (or against an ineffective incumbent). Neither candidate has any coordination or control of PAC spending.

The first step of fascism is enforcing misogyny and gender roles.

The goal is inherently Social Darwinism. Once the mechanisms of eugenic reproduction are assumed, they can selectively cleanse the populations of any they deem unwantable or unfit.

They coopt the WW2 vets who fought against the antithesis of fascism, which is freedom. And they call a bunch of boogeymen in masks, infiltrating a scapegoat and inflicting property damage to discredit and supplant the sacrifice of millions who died before their time or lived in the horror of the aftermath until this day. You cannot conflate a rabble of unknown ne'er-do-wells to the great cause of true anti-fascism. It is inherently American to stand against fascism, and we will not stand for it here if we must kneel in honor of the true spirit of America and not for your empty idolatry and genetic isolation.

@7 I think "this framing is a distraction" is your way of saying "this political tactic on the part of the wealthy and megacorporate interests backfired, hard, so you should just shut up about it already. Shut up. Everybody shut up!"

12 You don’t get around much do you?

The police when they sweep have little or no options for unhoused people. Period. But they do have jail.
They destroy the encampments and peoples belongings leaving them more destitute than they were before. Yes there are issues but the main cause is GREED.
This is a decision made by the police state mayor. Housing was easier to get forty years ago across the nation and here after the Boeing setback.

@22: Sweeps are conducted by the Navigation Team and social-services agencies, not by the police. All campers are offered shelter space; few accept. The camps are cleaned, ending threats to public health.

You don’t get out much, do you?

Tensor you're full of shit. Most of what the Navigation Team does now is sweep "obstructions", which is conveniently broadly defined. No requirement for planning, contact, offering shelter, or preserving property. It's the same old sweeps, shuffling people around and leaving them in worse straits, even less likely to find a better life.

You're thinking of what Durkan promised in her campaign. She assured us it wouldn't be like this.

(she was lying)

The outcomes are all right here, the city's own data.
https://performance.seattle.gov/stories/s/Homelessness-Response/w79s-qyv8

Even when they make referrals, they never approach the goal of 60% actually getting shelter. They don't even shelter 30%. And if it's an "obstruction" (wink wink), there isn't even a referral.

@8

"125,000 jobs NOT at Amazon would have been taxed"

40,000 Amazon jobs would have been taxed, which is ~25% of the total and an order of magnitude more than any other Seattle biz subject to the head tax. Amazon was largely responsible for the tax format taxing number of employees rather than revenues. Amazon spent heavily against a state income tax initiative thereby making the Seattle Amazon tax necessary. Amazon bears an outsized responsibility in Seattle affordable housing crisis. I can see why it was called the Amazon tax.

12 So you agree that it was your employer that would have paid the tax and not you. Shame on the shameless pandering to the privileged against the unprivileged.

24 Thank you. The mayor is/was lying about the sweeps. Many have been to the sweeps and spoken to unsheltered people and social workers.

There are little or 0 services for the unsheltered swept. It is brutal and cruel a violation of basic human rights. It must be stopped. Finland does it so can the usa. NO MORE DEATHS ON THE STREETS,

The navigation team is now only made up of police.

@17: The EHT was a tax on our jobs. I never said I would pay it personally. @12, I was very clear that my employer (not my "boss") would have paid it: "I work for a company which employs fewer than 200 persons, and my employer would have paid a tax on every one of our jobs." (See? "[C]ompany that employs" was the antecedent for "employer". I did not mention my boss at all. You're welcome.) Just because you can't understand simple English does not justify your lashing out in name-calling rage against those of us who do.

@24: Please do again tell us about how CM O'Brien will "sail" to re-election, and sneer that anyone who tries to stop him will fail.

Then, with the time you won't spend on planning his victory party, please get yourself some treatment for your intractable case of logorrhea.

My CPU is a neural-net processor. A learning computer.

@30 You are clearly pandering to trickle down zealots and you won't even own up to it, which shows even you believe it's a rotten argument.

@25: The last time you tried this, you claimed, "simple arithmetic indicates that more than half the revenue from the Amazon tax would have come from Amazon itself." (https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2019/10/03/41578756/whats-their-issueegan-orion-vs-kshama-sawant/comments/18) When that turned out to be -- literally! -- 100% wrong, you simply redefined your criterion downwards to the actual figure, ~25%. (Children call this, "changing the rules in the middle of the game.") So, instead of calling the EHT, "The Amazon Tax," the supporters should have called it, "The 3/4 Not-Amazon Tax," "The Mostly Not-Amazon Tax," "The Overwhelmingly Not-Amazon Tax," or some such. The rest of us could see this, and unlike you, we have pride sufficient to resent hearing such blatant, propagandistic lies from our elected officials.

Amazon wasn't responsible for our City Council's wretched drafting of the EHT; our Council was. It was their fault the tax was so broad, and the projected revenues to be so obviously wasted, as to provoke a citizen revolt.

"...an order of magnitude more than any other Seattle biz subject to the head tax."

Please cite the employment figures to show this.

"Amazon was largely responsible for the tax format taxing number of employees rather than revenues."

The trigger wasn't "number of employees," it was gross revenues. You don't even know what you're talking about:

"...making the Seattle Amazon tax necessary."

Homelessness has declined after repeal of the EHT, so in what sense was this tax "necessary"? It clearly wasn't, and lies like yours helps provoke the citizen revolt which got the EHT replied. Thank you.

"I can see why it was called the Amazon tax."

That's the problem when extreme gullibility combines with unearned vanity. Not only do you get taken easily by obvious propaganda, you then can't ever just admit your error and move on.

@30: Whatever, dude. Tell us again how my "boss" was going to pay for the EHT's tax on my job.