Comments

1

Or maybe more likely Timmy they don't appreciate those who don't pay the tax telling them how to spend their money.

2

If it's a choice between Bloomberg and Elizabeth "everything will be free!!" Warren, I'll vote Bloomberg.

4

So you can sue to overturn certified winning election results? You mean we could have sued to keep Trump out of the White House?

Shit. Why didn't somebody tell us elections can be overturned if you have enough money to pay for the lawyers?

Even though I didn't support the initiative, when you lose an election fair and square you abide by the results. Apparently the City of Seattle and King County believe those election results shouldn't apply to them . My, how Trumpian.

6

ST3 passed, and this initiative would overturn the will of those ST3 voters, so it's really a question of whose votes are going to be overturned

9

@4 @6 There's no test for constitutionality before an initiative goes on the ballot in WA, and the courts won't hear a case against a proposition that hasn't been passed into law yet. So constitutional review can only be applied after the vote.

Ballot Initiatives can not supercede the state constitution. It can be a little confusing to people new to state initiative systems, but it's working as intended. There's a different process in place for amending the constitution, if that's what you want to do.

Eyman has been doing this for decades, long enough to know perfectly well how to craft a bill that can survive constitutional review. The fact that he isn't even trying to do that is something most WA citizens have learned to take into account when voting on his initiatives.

10

@4 The state constitution requires bills and initiatives to address a single subject. This is why many of Timmy's grifts have wound up in the dumpster where they belong. His business model probably depends on this cycle of file-dupe-sued-repeat playing out every other year. Filing suit against it isn't a"do-over"; it's adhering to the law of the land. But the "opposing the will of the people" tack being flirted with here can make for a handy Trumpian talking point, since it requires throwing nuance and context out the window.

Ideally, there'd be some sort of vetting of these things before they waste ballot ink. I don't know what is stopping that now.

11

@10 What's standing in the way of constitutional review of ballot measures prior to the vote is... the state constitution. The idea was to put minimal state interference in front of getting an initiative on the ballot; the highest hurdle to clear is getting the signatures of enough of your fellow citizens in support.

It's well-intentioned. Nobody forsaw a guy abusing the system for decades of grandstanding, with no regard for the constitution. It was assumed everyone would write initiatives more or less in good faith.

14

So what does it say if Tim puts this back in the ballot in 2020 or 2021 or 2022? will the politicians get the message then? Of course not.

Kind of sick and tired of the amount of taxes Seattle wants us to pay for little show...

Want taxpayers to pay for the homeless? build mother .. housing and put the homeless in it and don't fuck them over in the process.

Utah is proving how much waste there is here https://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chronic-homelessness-by-91-percent-heres-how

Although most of this recent homelessness is due to insane rent prices and low wages.

My rent went from 750$ a month to 1800 in the past 12 years and if it wasn't for my job I'd be homeless too

Oh I have single pane windows and my power bill in the winter surges up to 650$ every 2 months Feb is the worst and I don't think there is ANY insulation in the walls.... and there's holes in the walkway to the front door and the stairs are falling apart.... I'm hoping to save up and move this year because I don't think the walkway can hold up another year.

15

@14 poor folks in WA pay a higher percentage tax than the richest people in California. Meanwhile the two richest people in the world pay a lower tax than they would in any other State. There is a reason they are still here. There is a reason you feel tax burdened. Republicans do not want to fix that, they want taxing to hurt you so they can dismantle our government. Washington has plenty of money to fix all of its problems, and build an infrastructure that facilitates future growth. Income tax is the only solution.

16

Value Village is neither a value nor a village. Are they closing their Crown Heights location? (I have an ad blocker that doesn't let me go onto the Seattle Times website)

18

@9 Right on target. Funny how the Fascist Right are strict Constitutionalists when the popular vote goes against their goals, and scream "Judicial Activism" courts rule against their legislative or ballot box wins.

19

I just wish I understood his technique well enough to apply it to ballot initiatives favoring Left wing causes.

Can you imagine what it would be like if we had someone as talented as he is pushing an initiative for a graduated statewide income tax? A ballot measure to end the gay panic defense? Or a referendum to fully fund a high speed rail corridor that working people could afford?

As much as I hate the manā€™s political positions, I do admire his skill. If you can say nothing else about him, you still have to admit he knows how to wield power. Heā€™s never held public office, and yet he has gotten more of his ideas into the law books than most electeds do in their career.

That said, Iā€™d still deport his office chair flattened ass, and he needs to wash that damn shirt.

20

Voters were looking for blood after that fraudulent Sound Transit bait and switch that taxed residents in three counties sums some couldn't afford just for renewing their car tabs. Not everyone who lives in the tri-county area is an over-compensated techie riding blocks to work on a $10k imported bike. It was a true hardship for some residents.

This vote was the reaping of all that anger and resentment that was sown by the misrepresented by the ST funding proposal they voted for in good faith. Meanwhile, those who don't own cars, yet would be the primary beneficiaries of the greater Seattle metro area public transit expansion were getting off without coughing up an extra cent. Talk about rubbing salt in the open wounds of those presented with those outrageous car tab bills.

The voters have sent a very loud and clear message that they won't stand for being lied to ever again about the true cost to them of a tax proposal they're asked to vote for. The state is as guilty as Eynman of misrepresenting an initiative..

21

ā€œJeff Goldblum defended Woody Allen today: and the internet set fire. ā€œI think there is a presumption of innocence until proven guilty,ā€ he said, referring to the accusations that Allen molested his daughter Dylan Farrow when she was a child. Are libertarian contrarians foaming at the mouth? "Still find Jeff Goldblum sexy now, liberals!?!?!?" I can hear the wings of these tweets.ā€

What a despicable blog post. I have no idea if Woody Allen is guilty of the accusations against him or not. Even members of the Allen/Farrow family vehemently disagree on what really happened. So what is the actual truth here, and how do we proceed when the truth is so hazy? These are the questions that Goldblum was attempting to grapple with.

But it would seem that actual guilt or innocence is irrelevant to Chase Burns and other armchair activists of the Twitterverse. Allen must be made an example of, and thatā€™s that. And anyone who dares to call for fairness to the accused must also be destroyed. Weā€™ve seen the results of this sort of mentality before, from the Salem witch trials to Joe McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Absolutely despicable.

22

@19
Most left-wing causes don't get voters in a lather as the right-wing causes do.
The GOP's mantra has been; "We'll lower your taxes, and keep those brown people off your front lawn" And it's worked for decades.
The one left-wing cause that had widespread support was legalization of recreational weed in 2012.
Eyman is great at promoting these 'get the government off your back' initiatives. He will get paid either way.

23

Itā€™s the great at promoting things part that Iā€™m jealous of.

We need to be great at promoting our ideas, too.

How do we use the tricks evil people use to promote the greater good?

24

@19 "his technique" is the use of demagoguery to prevent 20th century governance through weaponizing prejudice and economic insecurity, thanks to deep "Libertarian" pockets in Washington state that want to make sure government doesn't work (by breaking it). Unlikely that any true left winger would reproduce these methods.

25

@23 Since process determines outcome, you can't use the tricks that evil people use to promote the greater good.

He has been able to gum up the works thanks to financial support and without significant activist involvement. No left winger can do that.

26

You guys didn't even have a photo of Value Village in your archives? You had to pull a generic thrift store image from Getty? That's just sad.

27

The idea that people voted on the merits of the latest Eyman con is hilarious. Statewide, anti-tax measures almost always pass. Within the Puget Sound region targeted tax increases also pass. Fucker has made a name for himself using statewide initiatives to counteract the will of the Puget Sound voters. Rinse and repeat.

And, no, they can't be checked for unconstitutionality before they are put on the ballot. Courts have ruled that that is not allowed. There have actually been cases about this, about fucking Eyman initiatives, where the agencies that were going to be affected tried to head them off. They had to wait until after the election to challenge them. That's the way it works.

And Fucker knows this so he usually crafts unconstitutional initiatives which will be overturned so he can pass them again in a couple years. It's how he earns his livelihood. He can't steal everything he needs from Staples.

29

Woody Allen's whole schtick is that he's a sex perverted creep. In one of the least shocking revelations of all time we discovered that he really is a sex perverted creep.

Luckily, there's kind of a built-in karma. Go see the next Woody Allen movie. There's your punishment.

30

@28 Some corporate PAC funded the opposition but Eyeman got a large amount of money somewhere and he is beyond broke so you do the math.

32

Just shows how leftist double standards work. Behar in blackface = pass. Whoopie defending rapist = pass. I am glad Don called them out on their hypocrisy.

33

@30 It shouldn't surprise anyone that big business in Seattle loves the idea of some kind of sales tax to fund the development of a modern mass transit system in Puget Sound

34

@33 Puget Sound region

36

How would the state tax from the Kelly blue book anyway? Hire a couple thousand auditors to come check on everyone's paint job once a year? I guess they'd have to raise the car tabs tax to pay for such a huge new bureaucracy.

37

@35 Good point, although one shouldn't ignore that like housing, owning a car is an expensive economic necessity in almost all of Washington state. Need for transportation is already one of the major cost facing working families (one of the reason for the decline of the middle class according to EWarren). Increasing that cost without offsetting its effect on the poorest is likely to produce a populist response easily manipulated by rightwing demagogues.

38

@9 That makes sense. I dont know why Durkan just didnt say something akin to that instead "we're suing". The latter makes Eyman look like a good guy.

40

And Bloomberg, want to run, Jesus. Who the hell would vote for that? If he was the Democratic nominee that would hand Trump a second term. Would Democrats be so stupid as to elect a person who would rather hand Trump a second term than face a candidate who wants a wealth tax?

41

I never understood the piles of donations outside the Value Village building on Lake City Way, as if it were the equivalent of Goodwill. The one on LCW was a dump, good riddance. And it reeked of chemical air fresheners.

42

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZCztBJMqXc

43

@8 What we think is your argument is a crock of shit. The Eyesore initiative passed because troglodytes in eastern WA can be counted on to vote against taxes that they are not even paying, imposing their will upon the voters of this region who were rational enough to see that it makes perfect sense for car owners to pony up for transit given the impact car owning has. Seems, I don't know, anti-democratic?

45

@20 There was no bait and switch. ST3 had a calculator on it's website where one could figure out their taxes. Looks like it's up. http://soundtransit3.org/calculator

My guess is you probably opposed it to begin with so you never bothered to do research.

46

@44 There was an initiative to raise taxes genius. And however good it makes you feel, this idiotic spin about deceptive car valuation does not change the fact that everyone who voted for Eyehole's initiative is a greedy selfish piece of shit.

47

When did innocent until proven guilty become an anti-liberal sentiment?

48

24,

If Eyman is successful because he pushes emotional buttons, say, by exploiting the natural suspicion of government that any reasonable human has, why donā€™t we exploit the suspicion of the industries that benefit from killing mass transit? The asphalt industry, the automobile industry, the insurance industry, the oil and gas industry, look at all these capitalists milking the working class for the highest dollar amounts they can squeeze us for.

Tim Eyman is good at naming the enemy. He points a finger at the state, calls them pigs at the trough, and it works. We could name the enemy too. We could point a finger at Wall Street, we could call these businesses vampires sucking the life out of Seattle and making it too expensive to live in. And it would work, too.

It would be cliche to suggest that the status quo is one where Eyman brings a gun to the fight and we insist on bringing a knife. The pathetic attachment to ā€œfighting fairā€ is why we lose so much. He kicks us in the crotch, and we insist on fighting by Queensbury Rules. Fuck that. He has a crotch too. Donkey punch his ass.

49

Ban the Upper Class: the average Earthling is Middle-Class, but most of this planet is owned by a minority of Anti-Socialists in government and business. --- full-spectrum-dominance.com & broadleft.org & akpress.org. šŸ˜‘.


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