Comments

1

"Happy Pacific/Asian American Heritage Week. It kicked off yesterday and runs through May..."

Clearly, this is a trap set forth to entice us to comment. And here I have fallen into that trap.

Which raises the question... Don't I have anything better to do? Excuse me while I take this moment for self-reflection to assess what has become of my life.

2

It's not just the Culinary Academy. The Apparel Design program is on the block, too. And while the Seattle Colleges admins will try to say this is because of national trends in enrollment, it is far more the result of building a $23 million dollar/year administration that does not interact with students at all and a parade of 6-figure salary bureaucrats ignoring warnings FOR YEARS not to build the budget on the back of volatile international student enrollment numbers.

Students will suffer because SCD lacks all accountability at the highest levels. In fact, the Board of Trustees will issue letters saying "we support the Chancellor" and when asked if they can therefore hold the Chancellor accountable will shrink back to an "we don't do operational oversight" dodge.

7

the more legal gun purchases, the more gun thefts, the more illegal guns in irresponsible YOUNG MALE hands, the more mass shootings over testosterone-based grievances.

Gunners got the America they wanted.

8

Only a fool would believe the capitol gains/income tax won't make its way down to lower income levels if/when it's allowed by the Supreme Court. Pretending this hurts education is complete bs since it is entirely new revenue and the actual projected amount is a rounding error in the education budget. This effort is and always has been about getting the SC to allow for an income tax in our state. Don't believe me then here's Sen Peterson's own words from his town hall in March.

โ€œThe next step was to do the capital gains tax, which is important โ€“ I mean, itโ€™s not an insignificant amount of money โ€“ but the importance, in my opinion, is less about the dollars that itโ€™s raising and more about the fact that the opponents are attacking it as an income tax, and that gives us a clean shot to go back to the Supreme Court and go back to the root of this entire problem,โ€ Pedersen said at the March 15 virtual meeting.

The legislature knows they can never get a constitutional amendment to pass in the state so they are using the judiciary as a backdoor to circumvent the will of the voters. It's shady but of course since it aligns with TS worldview they have no problem with it and are more than happy to push propaganda demonizing those who oppose it.

10

@9: who are you talking to? yourself?

11

So Trumpy! Harassing signature gatherers participating in the initiative process is not something I would have expected from progressive democrats.

13

I really don't care if the capital gains tax makes its way over to earned income. That would be a long ways off and when it happens it will start at really high levels of earned income, but even after eventually filtering down to the incomes that actual workers earn, it would be a small price to shift WA over to a normal state financing structure. In the developed states, income taxes allow them to lower sales taxes, making the structure less regressive, and also exempt things like clothes and food from that sales tax, making it even less regressive. Also cover access to state parks, that kind of thing.

14

@8: You're a liar.

15

Can the progressives on the city council maybe take a clue from the fact that it's exhausting to change a brick color for public housing, and stop talking a bunch of performative bull shit about how they are going to "solve" homelessness and "defund" the police and replace them with an army of social workers? Are the politicians that stupid or do they just know their base is stupid?

16

Matt should Google "seattle farmers markets." There are some.

17

@12: https://youtu.be/C_R5fK73Eaw

18

@13 if the SC changes the definition of income there will be an immediate effort to institute an income tax at all levels. Don't be naive. We would all be paying that tax no later than 2025. I also find it telling that in all the proposals for an income/capitol gains tax not once has there been an offset to lower either sales or property tax making it revenue neutral. it's always treated as new revenue. This despite the fact it is literally raining money in WA state right now.

I don't disagree with your arguments for an income tax however none of those things are even being discussed right now and the way that leg is going about this is still shady af. If they want an income tax make a case to the people, pass it in the leg and then put it on the ballot as a constitutional amendment. My biggest gripe with this whole thing is the way it is being done.

@14 and you're ignorant

21

@19: These situations deteriorate from "offering more information" into harassment and create an intimidating atmosphere for prospective signers. Conversely, you wouldn't like it for an initiative you support.

24

@22: Mere assumptions, cont'd:

https://ballotpedia.org/Petition_blocking

25

Those videos, the shooting and tornado, were freaking harrowing.

This (abruptly deleted) video accompanying the latest fundraising effort on the part of Rudi Giuliani on the other hand, is the stuff of pure, adorable delight. Please enjoy!

https://defector.com/rudy-giuliani-has-borrowed-a-smaller-mans-khakis-and-is-ready-to-talk-golf/

27

Where there is no law, there is no freedom [of speech]. The end of the law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. ~John Locke

Without liberty, law loses its nature and its name, and becomes oppression. Without law, liberty also loses its nature and its name, and becomes licentiousness.
~James Wilson

28

@26: Harassment != Free Speech

30

@28 Where, precisely, is the harassment in providing information? The anti-I-1929 campaign is planning to distribute literature near the signature gatherers about the initiative. Seems like free speech. If you think it will result in harassment or illegal petition blocking, please cite a Washington state source for the practice actually occurring in Washington. Please also cite reasons why leafletting near a signature gatherer is not legally-protected free speech.

31

@12 blip: Elmer (@11) hates democracy, period. He loves a rigged game favoring liars, con artists, neofascist RWNJs, and cheapskate corporate profiteers---ironically the very ones hellbent on ensuring that he and the majority of us lose everything for the Party of Turd's ill-gotten gain. Somehow, for Elmer, that's supposed to be a "good" thing. The ultra maroon takes "pride" in "taking one for the TEAM", even with Vladimir Putin and its sock puppet, Orange Turd laughing their asses off. In the GOP toilet of life, Elmer's self-destined to go down with his shit.
Methinks Elmer's glue has long since dried, hardened and cracked. He's stuck spinning in a downward spiral, and yet he still won't wise up.

@27 Garb Garblar for the WIN!

@28: Do you wear a mask, Elmer, when sticking your head up your butt?
I'm just asking for a friend.

32

@29: Reread @11 - Do you see 'Free Speech'? I was only referring to harassment. You're the one who took the liberty of extrapolating my point into absurdity.

33

@30: We'll see how respectful they are in not interring with the signature gathering. No need to cite anything at this point.

34

@32 Looking back...
Original reporting: anti-I-1929 people will leaflet around I-1929 signature gatherers
11: Democrats are being so trumpy by harassing signature gatherers.
19: Why do you think giving information on I-1929 is harassing the signature gatherers?
21: Giving information deteriorates into harassment
22: Why do you assume that?
24: Because my link shows right-wingers have done it! [and also tribes on gambling issues]

So you assume that Democrats are just as bad as the worst Republicans because you assume that they will do something that Republicans have done repeatedly. It's a good thing that BoTh SiDeS dO iT.

35

@11: You need to learn some local LGBTQ+ history.

In 1994, anti-LGBTQ+ bigots filed two initiatives to the people, I-608 and I-610. Both would have banned civil rights statewide for LGBTQ+ persons, and one of them (I-610, IIRC) would have prohibited LGBTQ+ persons from having custody of their own children. In response, the LGBTQ+ community and allies (myself among them) organized Hands Off Washington, to defeat these initiatives at the ballot box.

At the same time, a smaller number of LGBTQ+ persons and allies (again, myself among them) noted that just having anti-LGBTQ+ Ballot Measure 9 in Oregon, two years earlier, had provoked violence against LGBTQ+ citizens of that state. So, why wait until the bigots made it to the ballot? Why not defeat them before then, by preventing them from getting enough signatures? So we became the Bigot Busters, hitting the streets and markets and fairs with counter-petitioning handbills and information. This was regarded as a long shot, as no initiative had ever before been defeated during the signature-gathering stage. Still, it felt great to be outdoors, actively playing defense, rather than just preparing for a nasty campaign in the Autumn. (Which we also did, of course, as Hands Off Washington.)

Of course, the bigots cried foul, complaining we were harassing them. Why, how dare the very 'degenerate' people they were trying to shame into hiding instead appear in public, looking them in the eye and telling the truth about their hateful bigotry?!? Then-Secretary of State Ralph Munro took these claims seriously, and investigated, ultimately finding nothing. Meanwhile, whether through the Bigot Busters, the bigots' incompetence, Washington State's natural liberalism, or some combination thereof, neither proposed initiative gathered enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. Thus made history, as, again, no initiative had ever before been defeated prior to qualification.

Please learn some local history. And then stop repeating right-wing lies, lies that have already failed, failed over a quarter-century ago.

36

@35 -- Good for you!

well done.

37

@35: All well and good, but this is about tax policy. But whatever the initiative is about, those soliciting signature have a right to their process without interference.

38

@34: The worst democrats are annoying, while the worst republicans are lethal, so I'll give you that.

39

@37 & @38: Whatever will you do when there's a power outage and your ventilator shuts off while you're still fahtin' fer yer Free Dumbs, Elmer? I predict one last big catastrophic WHIRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrulll and everything in the GOP-misinformed, MAGA-induced apocalypse goes dark. I can just see your epitaph on a tombstone now:

"Wait.......whaaaaaaat?"

40

@37: "All well and good, but this is about tax policy."

So? Differences over tax policy sparked the American Revolution, and LGBTQ+ rights were hugely contentious in the United States of the early 1990s. Your dismissal would therefore seem misplaced.

"...whatever the initiative is about, those soliciting signature have a right to their process without interference."

I would tend to agree, but I can't, simply because you haven't defined what "interference" means to you. As catalogued @34, you seem simply to have assumed (@11) that counter-petitioning (to use the proper term) was automatically harassment, or would (@21) eventually become harassment. Neither is true, as my recounting of the very first successful counter-petitioning effort in Washington State showed. From our freely-chosen name onwards, we Bigot Busters were strident in our defense of civil rights, but we never harassed anyone. (Thanks to our whiny, sore-loser opponents, we even got an independent state investigation to clear us of all charges of harassment.)

If you personally do not like counter-petitioning, that's fine, but just say that; you're entitled to your personal preferences, but they do not stop anyone else from counter-petitioning. @30 concluded with a request, to "cite reasons why leafletting near a signature gatherer is not legally-protected free speech." You haven't done so, and thus I still do not know where you place your distinction between free speech and harassment.


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