Get 'em, Will. You're rapidly becoming one of my favorite Slog AM/PM writers.

A politician licking their wounds over some heckling is not a good look AOC. These are the ramifications of public service throughout our history. You knew what you were getting into. Just smile and wave. Don't feed the "trolls".

Considering my current landlord is checks notes me, and I'm not defaulting on my mortgage, I think I'm in the clear to make my own informed decisions about who to vote for. Especially since you're suggesting Kauffman over Kaur, solely for the fact that she voted against new highway construction, and that Kaur's voting record is based on the will of the people she serves, and not the utopian socialist dreamscape that Stranger writers thinks permeates every inch of the county.

I think we can all agree Bill Gates is a piece of shit, but faulting him for donating his money to a foundation (albeit his own) that has a far better track record of producing results dollar for dollar than government does ain't the move. I can't imagine which government-funded programs would be decimated if they had to follow the same financial rules that nonprofits have to in order to keep their status. Both my parents work in state government, and the amount of waste they've both seen is fucking horrifying.

"...spending money on a solution research has told us won't work..."

No, that is not what the research showed. The research -- which contained absolutely no data of any kind whatsoever on the topics of salaries, bonuses, acceptance of employment, or retention in employment for city workers -- collected some anecdotal opinions from heads of city departments, and upon the bases of these opinions, was unable to conclude that offering signing bonuses would result in a larger acceptance rate for certain prospective city employees, including SPD officers. That is a long, long way from "research told us..." From all the way back in last April, here's the Stranger on this topic:

"SDHR found that the city struggled to hire cops, truck drivers, and cashiers, among other positions.

"Overall, SDHR found inconclusive results regarding the efficacy of hiring incentives. But Gulley cautioned that these bonuses do not address the larger issue the city faces in retaining employees, which, according to the report, include noncompetitive wages, unsupportive work conditions, and limited promotion opportunities." (https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2022/04/13/70609336/nelson-continues-to-piss-off-people-with-her-push-for-spd-hiring-bonuses)

As the City Council's "defund" and other nonsense has done plenty to create "unsupportive work conditions" for the SPD, and the Stranger has loudly demanded and/or applauded such actions, the Stranger's false claim that hiring bonuses don't work comes across as an arsonist complaining about the unreasonably high cost and mysterious ineffectiveness of the fire department.

Bill Gates, despite his many and sundry flaws, is a far better judge of where to put his money than any government bureaucrat.

shut the gates
or the animals will run wild

@4: Ahem. I most clearly drew the line between supporting protesting outside the restaurant (even said I'd be one of them) and Brent's suggestion that they confront Kavanaugh at the rear entrance. I was paralleling Pete Buttigieg's comments.

@10: No need to "redistribute" - just make things a level playing field. It's not a pie to slice up you know.

That person harassing Ocasio-Cortez looks like he's going to be busted for child pornography or multiple counts of sexual assault of Sunday school kids in the next year or two.

@4
That commenter does like to lecture women, don't they?

"...just make things a level playing field."

Oh, that's all we need to do? Well, that sounds simple enough! I'm free most weekday evenings if anyone wants to hammer out a plan with me to counteract several centuries worth of tyrannical social and economic subjugation and exploitation.

RE: "...spending money on a solution research has told us won't work..."

That is not true.

This point has been reported multiple times by the Stranger, and in each case commenters have calmly explained the mistake. (Thank you @8). I don't care a ton about police hiring incentives, but I damn well care about the truth, and the Stranger is repeatedly misrepresenting this point. Once might be an accident, but this is a pattern. You can certainly say that it is not great policy to spend money on initiatives that aren't proven to work, but that's a different point. Once the fog lifts I sincerely hope Will acknowledges his mistake.

@15 it’s hardly a mistake. As has been noted many times now TS long ago left the realm of journalism and can now be best described as targeted misinformation mixed with propaganda. The notion that a wealth tax will be some equalizer is as ludicrous as the thought the government can more efficiently distribute Gates wealth with less bias. Government is the most inefficient way to redestibute wealth because it is more concerned about doing what it takes to remain in power than the actual public good and that is true for both parties.

But, what if ones landlord already IS an "enormous, self-entitled douchebag"?

Bill Gates himself has consistently endorsed higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans, including advocating for an income tax in Washington state. This puts the people who are all "the wealthy are the best stewards of their wealth" in a difficult position -- is Gates a sage who knows better than the government how best to spend money to make the world a better place, or a fool who has no idea what he's talking about?

@5:

Go count more bullet-riddled dead bodies, you worthless fuck.

Why does The Stranger attract right-wing trolls like raindrop who insist they're standing up for civility all the time? You're a troll, you don't care about civility, and you will never admit you're a troll, because the point is attracting attention to yourself by misbehaving, not to actually discuss anything.

Once you admit you're a troll, people ignore you because they know the purpose is to stir shit, and talking to you is useless, therefore a troll, even when they're obviously trolling, will never admit it, which just stirs more shit. This describes most of the commenters here.

Basically, the troll strategy is to behave irrationally and hypocritically while insisting you're always 100% rational. (NOBODY is rational. Getting slightly rational involves a lot of difficult, unpleasant work, and the admission that you're going to fail most of the time.) Other people call them out, and the troll gets what they're craving, attention. Starving trolls rarely works, because the bad guys only need a few successes, meaning pissing someone off, to achieve their goals, while the rest of us have to behave perfectly, which nobody can. At that point, you either ban the troll, or you have a toxic community. There isn't a whole lot of in-between.

I don't expect any banning, so The Stranger comments page will always be a wellspring of the worst kind of toxicity. (Raindrop, you can ne horribly toxic without calling people names. It's easy, just be hypocritical and deny it when called out. BOOM! Insta-conflict! Congrats, you're a troll!)

@22: "Why does The Stranger attract right-wing trolls like raindrop who insist they're standing up for civility all the time?"

From the very first print edition, the Stranger's style has been irreverent, snotty, insolent, pushy, and so on -- pick whichever mix of adjectives suits you at any given time. Many readers (myself included) have responded in kind, but some readers go in the opposite direction. Some of these are readers you label 'trolls.'

Also, as a lifelong lefty-liberal (grandma proudly carried an ACLU card), I think the Stranger doesn't so much attract right-wingers, as it does endlessly posture to the left of absolutely everyone else*, thus making every last reader into a 'right-winger'* by design.

*With the possible exception of CM Sawant, due to her behaving in exactly the same fashion.

@22: As with beauty, trollism is in the eye of the beholder. Of course I'm a troll to you.
@26: You're triggered and upset, so I wish you peace.

"Bill Gates.....promising to donate $20 billion to his foundation."
Promising to donate.....????? Isn't that the scam Trump always pulled? PROMISED to donate then never did?
Donates to HIS FOUNDATION????? Last I heard, a foundation is a business in the business of making donations. The CHARITY doesn't ACTUALLY happen until the FOUNDATION ACTUALLY DONATES THE MONEY TO SOMEONE.
This is all just Massa giving gold plated chains to us slaves. If Gates had paid this money to the people who actually made it for him, maybe they'd have been better able to support their families & communities & much of this charity wouldn't be necessary. And yeah, if these gazillionaires were taxed properly, they wouldn't, like the Koch Bros for instance, be able to (1) destroy the economy by having their coal & oil companies buy up & close down alternative energy companies.....like Gates did with all the small innovative software companies.....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Microsoft
(2) seriously influence elections, (3) be Donald Trump, etc, etc, etc,

"At least.....the Democrats played fair and square until the end."
And just what would you like the Democrats to do???? Nuke Mar-a-Lago?? Probably the best hope we have against Trump is that the Jan 6 hearings are so legal, above board, & seemingly not having much effect. The worry that they may come to nothing plus the revelations they are unearthing are causing even any remotely reasonable Republicans to realize they don't dare vote for Trump again. Not voting for Trump is the only hope we have....not some kind of fighting dirty.

@3, Linux is free & Microsoft OS costs $100-200 and you tell me that government is wasteful?? Are you telling me that Enron was a good deal for America? Are you telling me that Dennis Kozlowski's $6000 shower curtain, or $20,000 umbrella stand, or the $2 Mil birthday party for his wife, or the other $100 Million he stole from Tyco were a good deal for us?? (Isn't that him in the white shirt next to Gates?? Kozlowski is out of prison now.) Waste in ANY organization is inevitable. At least in Government the other side of any waste is a paycheck & tax bill for someone. You people with your constant "business good, govt bad" mantra make me sick. Your constant, "We need to elect a businessman who can run the govt like a business" is what gave up Trump! (And while Linux is a true, multitasking, multiuser system, ALL MS OS are still a kludge. That's why they still crash without reason.)

@4, it's even simpler: Kavanaugh lied at his confirmation......because Kavanaugh is a liar (IMHO). Simple as that.

@17, I stand corrected. Rather than gold plated chains for us slaves, it's iron shackles for the 3rd world slaves. Do you really think that Gates is doing anything other than using the Foundation funds to buy outdated Microsoft inventory to donate? Among other things, it's a tax dodge & part of supporting the price of Microsoft stock. It's keeping the students from developing preferences for Apple and Lenovo products.

Raindrop is a delightful breath of fresh air in this fetid swamp of intolerance and mediocrity. Not always right, but always polite.

@11 Let me get this straight.
It's OK to protest Kavanaugh in the public street.
It's not OK to protest Kavanaugh in the (public right-of-way alley out back)
I'm glad you cleared that up!

"I think we can all agree Bill Gates is a piece of shit,"

Wrong.

@19 put it best. Gates was also lucky enough to earn a ridiculous amount of money, most of which he is putting into good causes. As smart as he is, there is no reason to believe he is better at spending that money than the government. To believe otherwise is to essentially say we have a broken democracy. That is a reasonable position, but then shouldn't the focus then be on fixing it? Shouldn't we be trying to be more like Denmark or Norway (https://www.democracymatrix.com/ranking) instead of hoping that some rich dude will spend his money wisely? I don't fault Bill Gates -- but as @19 noted, even he agrees that we don't tax the wealthy enough.

I can't find the quote, but it reminds me of something I read. A big portion of the charitable donations from the very wealthy are to fix problems created by the very wealthy. Gates is a good man, and does a lot of good. But that doesn't change the fact that as a class, the world is worse off because of extremely wealthy people like him. https://jacobin.com/2018/10/rich-people-philanthropy-inequality-wealth

@33 I don't think Raindrop endorses any behaviors of the far right. Seems like a moderate Republican to me, the kind you can share a beer and respectfully disagree with.

@33: Conversely, your rudeness sabotages your ethics by its hostile tones.

Here's a virtual beer for you Swiftness, and one for you too Garb. That's how ethical I am.

I agree that it would be better for all if Bill Gates would pay taxes, but I disagree that he spends his money in a beneficial way.
Bill Gates is responsible for the continuation of the assessment and accountability educational method, otherwise known as "drill and kill" and "parrot and regurgitate." Low income and minority schools have been reduced to test-prep centers because of the pressure of high-stakes testing creating a Jim Crow experience for these children. His extensive lobbying and routine pledges to spend money cover up this travesty.
The U.S. scores near the bottom of industrialized countries on international tests. Only one in four U.S. students test as proficient in math on national tests even though $80 billion has been spent on this methodology. There has been no improvement in academic achievement.
If one works backward and evaluates the intention by the results, then the intention is to transfer money from school districts to stockholders. There has been no improvement in student achievement.
Meanwhile, there is an effective model developed in Singapore where children of all economic levels become proficient. Students of Singapore always score at the top of all countries. Singapore math, as it is called in the U.S. is used by home-schoolers and outlier schools. This method can be used out-of-the-box. But, it wouldn't provide opportunities for investors to get rich.

The solution to Bill Gates isn't to tax him. it's to prevent the emergence of such a monster in the first place.