Andrew at NPI is more than a touch pissed off at our state’s editorial boards, and rightly so, for giving initiative guru profiteer Tim Eyman a free ride. But Andrew fails to ask the all important question, why? Why does the media still pretend that a self-promoter, admitted liar, and insufferably arrogant prick like Tim still has any credibility at all?
Hmm. Well, maybe it has something do with the fact that Tim is a self-promoter, admitted liar, and insufferably arrogant prick? Combine that with his talent for giving good quote, and you’ve got the makings of a good story. And after all, that’s what our media is in the business of selling: good stories.
It’s kind of like the Seattle Times’ vigorous defense of the Sonics’ efforts to extort hundreds of millions of dollars from taxpayers. The Times needs the Sonics, because sports coverage sells newspapers. So the Times has a vested interest in keeping the Sonics in the region.
Likewise, the Times and our state’s other newspapers have a vested interest in maintaining the current initiative process as the corrupt and broken system it is today. Controversial initiatives and controversial sponsors sell papers, no matter how mind-numbingly stupid or insufferably arrogant they might be.
Trust me, I know.
Eyman admits he is a jerk.
“Some sponsors say they could have made it to the ballot box and succeeded if only the media paid attention.
“So our job is to be the most obnoxious jerks you could imagine,” Eyman said. He deliberately goes to hearings in Olympia – what he calls the lion’s den – courting conflict.
“The press loves conflict,” he said.”
http://www.heraldnet.com/stori.....man001.cfm
You really got to admire his ability to tell a bald-faced lie with a straight face:
“The state’s Initiative King from Mukilteo spoke out against bills in the state Legislature that would change how measures like his get on the ballot.
In a talk to Snohomish County leaders-in-training last week, he argued the changes would put special interests with deep pockets more in control of future initiatives.”
http://www.heraldnet.com/stori.....man001.cfm
Are you guys sure that this hatred of Tim Eyman and the initiative process is not a form of envy?
What does Tim Eyman have to do with the Sonics?
You’ve got it wrong. We like the initiative process. We like it a lot. It could easily be considered one of the truest forms of Democracy, something we Democrats are generally in favor of.
Mr. Eyman warps the initiative process. He makes public pronouncements regarding his initiatives that he either knows or has reason to know are false. He takes large sums of money to have paid “signature gatherers” do whatever is necessary to come up with enough signatures to put initiatives on the ballot that are blatantly unconstitutional.
Then his cronies use the fact that his flawed initiative was thrown out by the courts as reason to try to pack the courts with people that care less for the State Constitution than they do for lining their patron’s pockets. Witness BIAW.
He has gotten so blatant about the whole thing that he even lies about signature counts and tries to use some poor clerk’s signature on a false count to try to convince his followers that some vast left-wing conspiracy (sorry, Ms. Clinton, but you may never live that down) is keeping their voices from being heard.
Essentially, I like the initiative process so much that I strongly resent anyone that abuses it. Like Mr. Eyman.
I like the initiative process, but I think it is a very poor tool to use with respect to tax and spend policies. It doesn’t recognize that anything you do with respect to the public budget has other consequences which might (or might not) have been intended. I think those are the types of judgements we elect our representatives to make. If we aren’t happy with their judgements, then vote them out of office.
But I have a particular dislike of any initiative which attempts to create a super-majority requirement for future taxes. What that does is say that 50.01% of the voters who bother to vote for one initiative at one specific time in history have virtual veto power over any other majority of voters who elect their representatives in the future, regardless of the circumstances which occur later. In effect, a vote in 2007 is worth more votes in 2008, 2010, or at any other time in the future.
If you want to create a super-majority requirement for taxing powers, you have to do it by Constitutional Amendment, and meet that super-majority requirement.
What if we were able to pass an initiative which set a “floor” for taxes in Washington State, requiring adequate funding for schools and roads, etc. (and specifying how that is measured), and requiring a super-majority for any cut in those taxes? Would Eyman and his followers agree that such a bill would be Constitutional? Would he agree that the voters who voted for such an initiative should be able to ham-string future democratically-elected (small-“d”) legislatures who wished to cut taxes? I don’t believe he would.
And lets see Eyman’s initiatives for what they are. The voters in this state have elected legislatures that have a difficult job in creating a balanced budget by manipulating taxes and spending using a antique taxing system (the B&O tax, in particular). The voters, after due consideration, have tended to elect Democrats to do this task more often than Republicans in recent years.
But Eyman doesn’t like that result. Despite his rhetoric in favor of “the people’s voice”, he wants to take the effect of that vote (for their legislatures) away from the voters, and put it into the hands of a (usually) smaller group of people who can, in effect, veto those legislature’s votes.
Despite Eyman’s claims that his initiatives have failed because the media ignored them, in fact he hopes that most of them fly under the radar. That’s why he files so many of them each year. Even if some of them get defeated, he hopes that one or more get lost in the debate and slip on through. He is gambling on the fact that if he can create enough smoke and mirrors to convince some voters that the initiative is a good idea, and more importantly, confuse enough other voters so that they will leave that part of the ballot blank, or leave it blank because they don’t know anything about the initiative at all, then a small number of specially-educated voters (those that can be counted to vote on these matters come hell or high water) will be able get the initiative passed. The result can be that a very small number of voters might actually cancel out a much larger vote for the majority of the legislature. Of course, this tactic doesn’t work in a high-profile initiative, so I think Eyman is now filing a lot of diversionary initiatives (like the gay-marriage bans) to conceal the real ones.
And, of course, the gay-marriage initiative which failed to qualify showed that Eyman was not really interested in the subject, but what he really wanted was the names and addresses of those that signed the petition. The pastors he was relying upon to collect the signatures for him balked when he wanted exclusive control of the petitions afterwards. They guessed (probably correctly) that he wanted to add those names to his own mailing list, which he could (a) solicit for future inititives controlled only by him, and (b) possibly sell to other campaigns or for other purposes.
So yes, while I like the availability of initiatives generally, I dislike the abuse of them which Eyman has displayed.
Goldy…. I think you are slipping. Your continuous foul attempts to malign Tim Eyman and the newspapers about the attempts of the Democrats to change a process that does not need fixing shows how little you know or understand about the problems.
‘Trust me, I know’
JB is absolutely right about Lieman’s scam.
Most of these measures are never really meant to go into law. Falling just shy on signatures, leaving constitutional holes large enough to drive his Lexus through, or petition bait and switch are merely tactics to that end.
Why you ask?
So the gravy train never ends.
Tim’s not as stupid as the costumes make him appear. He knows that there’s only so many issues capable of rallying the trogs from year to year. He needs to be able to recycle some of them or his little cottage industry will dry up.
Mike Dunmire is nothing more than living proof that you don’t have to be smart to be rich. The rest of Lieman’s followers are merely tools at his disposal. Lieman doesn’t give a fuck about them or their issues. He just wants their cash. It’s easier and more fun than selling watches to frat punks.
Oh Sure!!! Goldy sees a problem with newspapers and sports. And self interested editorializing by the mwdia.
But what’s his PLAN??????????
We live in a representative democracy. We do not live in a pure democracy, an unachievable ideal that has never existed on a national level anywhere. If our elected representatives do not adequately represent us, then they need to be voted out of office. The initiative process is too prone to being taken advantage of by monied interests (to wit, Eyman) or the passions of the day. I would happily vote yes on an initiative to abolish the initiative process. I do not want to sound elitist, but I do not trust the public to make policy. I’d like to entrust our state’s policies to people who have the time to study issues–our elected officials.
Trust me, I know.
You’ve got to be kidding.
I think supermajorities should be required for all voter-decided tax issues and for all big ticket items: monorail, viaduct, sports stadiums. For any controversial decision, we must have buy-in from a clear majority of voters. Otherwise, you invite continued contention and divisiveness as well as attempts to evade said decision. Any 50.01% victory is meaningless and polarizing.
I am Republican – I lie, steal and cheat when I’m not being a family man (fat whore) or a crying hypocrit. whaaaa, whaaaa, whaaaa. Hail Hitler!
skagit@11….well, i couldn’t agree with you more on this one.
how do you feel about university students voting on bonds and other “tax” legislation in an area that they are not ,most likely, going to be living in after graduation?
@13 The mind-numbingly stupid arguement of the”drive-by voter” rears its ugly head.
Let me see. As a student I contributed enormously to the influx of income to me community through my tuition and living expenses. I paid license fees, and sales tax like any other citizen. And unlike several of my friends who were corporate drones for a tire store, remained in that community for a full four years. . .not two.
Try again, stupid.
Tim Eyman is the Paris Hilton of Washington politics.
Washington’s initiative process – protected from paid petition circulators by a 1914 statute – was sacked when the Supreme Court’s 1988 ruling against a similar ban in Colorado opened the door to permit payment to signature gatherers. Yet another enduring legacy of the Rehnquist Court.
Money has poisoned this tool of the people, like a drop of mercury in a glass of fresh water.
NASA now has its own equivalent of Paris Hilton. Meet their hottest, cheatingest, and top bitch fighter, U.S. Navy Captain Lisa Nowak:
http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/nowak.html
http://www.orlandosentinel.com.....-headlines
@7
You’re either youthful, or a relatively recent arrival in Washington – or both.
Before 1988, activism in the initiative process could not be a career choice.
Tim Media Darling Eyman would still be an obscure fraternity and sorority watch salesman from Yakima, living in Mukilteo.
I think supermajorities should be required for all voter-decided tax issues and for all big ticket items: monorail, viaduct, sports stadiums. For any controversial decision, we must have buy-in from a clear majority of voters. Otherwise, you invite continued contention and divisiveness as well as attempts to evade said decision. Any 50.01% victory is meaningless and polarizing.
Hey we should apply that to the house of representatives for all state tax bills. Good idea Skagit.
Speaking of initiatives… Didja hear about WA-DOMA?
require that couples married out of state file proof of procreation within three years of the date of marriage or have their marriage classed as “unrecognized;”
This is an outrage!!!! Three years!!! Why not one.
It is not just a right to oppose all taxes(especially if democrats are in charge) it is a patriotic duty.
19:
I heard the news story today on the radio and the newscaster had a TOUGH time keeping a straight voice. This is a true classic.
On a half-serious note: for some of my pseudo-Christian work colleagues who were recently all dithered up about gay marriage, I proposed that we TRULY and REALLY fix the broken marriage system.
We need a constitutional amendment to PROHIBIT divorce. My own marriage vows included “what God has joined together let no man tear asunder . . . .”
So let’s PROHIBIT divorce once and for all and REALLY clean up the country.
A few thousand gay marriages versus 50% of all “officially” recognized marriages ending in divorce . . . .
@13 How many university students actually vote? And how do you know where they’re registered? Many use their home addresses. And of those registered at their student housing, and who actually vote, how many simply skip over local bond issues they don’t care about or understand? I don’t think the issue you raise is a big problem.
@19 The initiative is tongue-in-cheek. Its supporters are trying to demonstrate the absurdity of the state supreme court’s gay-marriage ruling.
@21 “It is not just a right to oppose all taxes … it is a patriotic duty.”
Starting with the taxes that pay for Bush’s salary and White House food service, and those that will pay for his trooop surge, in that order.
@22 Legal divorce, despite its many evils, is preferabble to .45 caliber/axe/hammer/sash cord/chainsaw divorce.
@22 (continued0) Or — if your hubby is a Marine — aresenic divorce.
@22 (continued) You aspire to be Pope?
Goldy,
Like you , I resent the expenditure of public $$ to support Paul Allen’s hobbies. If the Sonics are a regional resource, maybe they should WORK for their pay by teaching ion the schools during the off season?
My favorite idea would be to build a new stadium on floats .. the world first floating stadium. That way we could combine a new 520 bridge with the stadium.
The AmazonDome would float in the southern part of Lake W. When ba;l games are about to occur, the ADome would dock first on one shore, than the other. Between games it would span the center of the new bridge. Even a better idea than a hybrid tunnel.
Imagine the neat effects if the pilot spun the Dome as the center laid up a shot!
Furball and and Furballettes: You all claim Initiative 957 is tongue-in-cheek?
How about if a FUWA neocon creates an initiative that forces transgendered cross dressers to have a card on their sleeve to designate if they are a he-she-or it?
How about an initiative that says no more than four gay people can be in a 2 bedroom apartment?
How about an initiative that bans Brokebutt Mountme type movies within 5 square miles of an elementary school?
How about an initiatice that says all gay teachers must fess up before starting the 2007-2008 school year?
How about an initiative that requires sex offenders to reside in known gay areas. Say Capital Hill for instance?
How about an initiative that bans more than 5 gay bars in a 1 mile square area?
See how tongue-and-cheek works Furball? When people try and make STUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUPIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIID political statements, it’s the apologists who clearly set their table!
Furball. Still stupid even in retirement!
Uh, Mr. Puddybud?
If the far-right were to put those initiatives forward, and plainly, directly and specifically make comments (in this case, on the first page of their website) that included comments similar to the ones on the WA-DOMA site:
( Source: http://www.wa-doma.org/ )
Again, if you plainly told your followers and supporter and even your opponents the true purpose behind the initiative, then I certainly would have no problem with it, at least on the basis of honesty.
For example, if you were to propose the initiatives you’ve listed, and then plainly tell us that the reason you’ve proposed them is that homosexuals make you uneasy, and you are trying to return to the days when homosexuals could be jailed just for existing, to be followed by laws banning interracial marriage and then finally laws making the books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus the law of the land, we would still oppose you, but nobody here would question your honesty, integrity or courage.
As it is, we question all three.
@30
“Bring ’em on.”
Even better, I-957 is the first of three initiatives.
Again, from the Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance website:
WA-DOMA organizer Gregory Gadow said the following in a statement to the press:
For many years, social conservatives have claimed that marriage exists solely for the purpose of procreation … The time has come for these conservatives to be dosed with their own medicine. If same-sex couples should be barred from marriage because they can not have children together, it follows that all couples who cannot or will not have children together should equally be barred from marriage.
Delicious.
Slight correction, Goldy.
Newspapers are not in the business of telling stories. That’s one of the first things I learned in Journalism 101 many years ago. Newspapers are in the business of selling advertising. The stories are what gets people to buy the paper that has the advertising in it, so that’s why they tell the stories.
You might think it’s a distinction without a difference, but if the Times could get people to buy advertising with the fish already wrapped up in it and skip the stories, that’s what they’d do.
John Barelli: I really thought you were smater than you pretend to be on ASSWipes.
“By 1890, every southern state except Louisiana had an anti-miscegenation law on its books, and Louisiana re-enacted its statute in 1894. The post-Reconstruction laws demonstrated greater uniformity than the antebellum statutes had. All banned interracial marriage, some banned interracial cohabitation, but no state banned interracial sex. Like their antebellum precedents, the statutes were selectively enforced, targeting public, formal relationships between interracial couples, especially black males and white females. As prior to the war, the appearance of intimacy within a domestic interracial relationship threatened racial assumptions and drew public condemnation.”
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/s.....1102604854
Guess who controlled these states? Moonbat!s when these laws were passed.
smarter not smater… Oops.
From the various state statutes.
state interracial marriage / miscegenation legalized
Ohio 1887
Oregon 1951
Montana 1953
North Dakota 1955
Colorado 1957
South Dakota 1957
California 1959
Nevada 1959
Idaho 1959
Arizona 1962
Utah 1963
Nebraska 1963
Indiana 1965
Wyoming 1965
Maryland 1967
SCOTUS case of Loving v. Virginia ruled that all bans on interracial marriage were unconstitutional.
Alabama 1967
Arkansas 1967
Delaware 1967
Florida 1967
Georgia 1967
Kentucky 1967
Louisiana 1967
Mississippi 1967
Missouri 1967
North Carolina 1967
Oklahoma 1967
South Carolina 1967
Tennessee 1967
Texas 1967
Virginia 1967
West Virginia 1967
Finally removed from the state constitution:
South Carolina 1998
Alabama 2000
From a person who loves to quote the Bible John Barelli, are you for same sex marriages?
In the Bible Moses talked about divorce. Interesting commentary here.
Ah, Mr. Puddybud.
Yes, you are correct in that back in the 1890s, the Democratic Party stood for segregation and racial inequality.
Even as recently as the middle of the twentieth century, there was a strong segregation wing of the party. A few of those members are still alive today.
They, and we, realized that those policies were wrong. Many people fled the Democratic Party when we came out strongly for racial equality, although some of our older members found the strength of character to change and grow.
The rest of them became Republicans.
Not all became Democrats John. Check again
Sorry, Puddybud, I missed this question earlier.
Actually, I’m in favor of getting government out of the marriage business altogether.
The civil contract that government calls “marriage” bears very little resemblance to the religious sacrament that the church calls “Marriage”. Many of the people that enter into that civil contract do so outside of any church, and do not make their vows before God. They may or may not consider it to be permanent, but the evidence seems to imply that it is often a temporary contract.
The religious sacrament of Marriage has nothing to do with tax implications, medical insurance coverage, and only limited application to property rights and next-of-kin status.
I think that the government has no more right to decide who may and may not get Married than they do deciding the brand of wine that must be used for Communion.
So, which “marriage” are you talking about? The religious sacrament of Marriage, done with vows sworn before God and the congregation of fellow believers, or the government contract of marriage, done for a twenty-dollar license fee and “solemnized” by an Elvis impersonator down at the “Little Chapel of Ten Thousand Served” on the Strip at Vegas?
If the first, I find myself quite conflicted. I have deep and serious reservations, and will simply have to leave that decision up to the individual churches and denominations. God will ultimately have the last word there. (I am very grateful that God has told me, in no uncertain terms, that I am not to judge, and I am well aware of the log in my eye. When I’ve handled that, I may revisit that speck in my neighbor’s eye.)
If the second, it’s a civil contract between adults. I’m not sure what those adults may or may not do in bed has to do with whether they should be allowed to make the contract.
Ahhh John Barelli, you are on the road to agreeing with me.
GBS had conflicted commentary until I remined him Jesus Christ said: “I and God are One”.
I agree not all people are religious. But that said, God didn’t bring Adam and Steve together. A man shall leave his mother and father and cleave unto his WIFE! WIFE is a woman John.
Sorry there is no conflict in my mind. Just like abortion, neither of these leftist libtard Moonbat! actions is God sanctioned. Hence my proposal in #30 as an anti-initiative to 957 still stands.
Do you remember David married Saul’s daughter Mychal and was best buds with his son Jonathan? Remember when the Ark of the Covenant was captured by Clueless’s forebears the Philistines and how death and destruction met Clueless’s forebears in all their major city kingdoms? I realize for some Moonbat!s this is a Bible lesson. Remember when the Philistines put the ark on a cart and the two oxen brought it back to Israel without any driver?
David upon receiving the Ark stripped down to his girdle and danced a dance of joy before God. Mychal was ashamed and embarassed his husband the king would dance like that. She thought it was unbecoming. David asked why not dance in front of God? He brought back the Ark. God closed her womb over her embarassment and she NEVER had children.
What did Jesus say? He who honors me before men will I honor before God. He who shuns me will I shun before God. The definitive words!
That would depend on what you are saying.
Should churches be required by law to recognize gay marriage? No. Nor should they be required to recognize the “marriage of the week” of various Hollywood types or the “trophy marriage” of some old wealthy guy to his latest 19 year old girlfriend.
Should the government get to choose who may and may not enter into a particular form of civil contract that has legal implications based on the sex of the parties entering into that contract? Most emphatically, NO.
Would it be a sin for me to enter into a homosexual relationship? Yes. Both my Marriage, and my limited understanding of God’s plan for my life tells me that it would be sinful.
And that is as far as God calls me to judge the situation.
The Bible defines many sins, from dietary, to monetary, to personal, all the way to what types of thread are to be used in clothing.
My personal belief and understanding, backed by discussions with Pastors and other learned Christians, along with a considerable amount of study tells me that many of those rules were given at a particular period of history, for the benefit of the people at that time.
When I was very young, my parents did not let me cross the street if I was not holding their hands. They loved me, and that rule was for my benefit.
As I got older, the rule changed. They still loved me just as much, and the street was still dangerous, but I could cross it on my own. They had not changed, I had.
God doesn’t change. We do. So what do I make of the rules regarding homosexuality? That it is wrong for me. Is it wrong for others? So long as the people involved are mature enough to make their own choices, they will have to take that up with God. It’s not for me to judge.
There is a flip side to this argument, that will put me at odds with some liberals. Some folks feel that I should affirmatively embrace homosexual relationships, openly declaring that they are sacred before God.
I can’t even do that for other people’s heterosexual marriages. That is between the people involved and God. I don’t get a vote.
Oh, Puddybud. This is getting off-topic and into areas not really suitable for this board. Feel free to contact me off line. I will respect your anonymity.
PUDDYBUD REMINDS ME OF THE WHACKO WHO SCREAMS ALL DAY IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE.
SERIOUSLY IN NEED OF MEDICATION.
John, you hit the nail on the head. The whack job libtard gaynesses want the churches to be FORCED to recognize Gay Marriages. Witness the attacks on the Catholic Church by the GLAAD and GLA.
Clueless, you are still Clueless.
Clueless: I am only on this blog at certain times. You are always here.
Puddybud:
You are correct that a few folks on the far left want to force churches to acknowledge gay marriage. If you’re looking for an admission that we have a spectrum of viewpoints, including some that even most liberals find to be more than a bit far-fetched, you have it.
There are also a few folks on the far right that want to outlaw mixed race marriage. Most liberals understand that the vast majority of conservatives have no such desire (although I’ll probably take some more heat from rightequalsstupid for saying so.)
The question at hand is not what churches should do, but what government should do. My call is that they have no business regulating a religious sacrament.
Government has determined that there is a particular form of social contract, that they choose to call by the same name as the religious sacrament we call “Marriage”. (To differentiate the two, I will normally use the upper-case “Marriage” for the religious sacrament, and lower-case “marriage” for the civil contract.)
Government has no business interfering with, or granting benefits to a religious sacrament. The only exceptions I can accept to that overall guiding principle is for extreme cases of personal safety. Sorry, no virgin sacrifices (even if they volunteer), and the folks handling poisonous snakes must be over 18.
Government, among its other functions, can and does regulate certain civil contracts. There is a well-defined civil contract in which two people merge their assets and assume certain rights and responsibilities. Government calls this contract “marriage”, which is a cause for great confusion. As it is a civil contract, I do not see any legitimate reason for restricting it based on the sex of the adult parties involved. Essentially, what, if anything, those adults do in the privacy of their home is not my business, nor is it the business of government.
No, the government should not, and I believe must not tell a church what Marriage it acknowledges and which it does not. (Folks are welcome to picket the Vatican, but I think that they will find it a futile effort.) This holds true for both the right and the left, and has nothing whatsoever to do with the civil contract that government does recognize.
Oh, one more tidbit to chew upon. I’ve noticed that you have never asked my opinion of the Andersen case.
I think that the court was right, insofar as the opinion went. (60 pages of some truly dull reading.)
Nobody made the argument to the court that any regulation of Marriage violated the “separation of church and state” doctrine, and whenever possible, I think that legislating is best done by the Legislature anyway.
Just because I’m not happy with the outcome, doesn’t mean that I think that the court’s reasoning was incorrect. It just means that I think that the Legislature should decide this, not the courts, or if it must be decided in the courts, people need to challenge using the right basis.
I’ve noticed a tendency on both sides to forget this.