Latest on Car Tabs and the WA State Taxpayer Rip-off

Wednesday, May 31st, 2017

To:  Our thousands of supporters throughout the state (cc'd to the media, house & senate members, and Governor, and other candidates for office)
From:  Tim Eyman, Jack Fagan, & Mike Fagan, Fighting for Taxpayers for 18 years, 425-493-9127, tim_eyman@comcast.net, www.VotersWantMoreChoices.com 
RE:  Democrats refuse to stop Sound Transit from ripping us off on car tab taxes

         Taxpayers are getting ripped off by Sound Transit.  Car tab taxes have skyrocketed for each and every vehicle owner and, for many months, the people have been pounding politicians in the Legislature with rightful public outrage.

         Republicans in the House (Mark Harmsworth) and Republicans in the Senate (Dino Rossi & Steve O'Ban) have responded with meaningful reforms:  legislation to cut car tabs and tax vehicles at what they're actually worth, legislation allowing local governments to exempt themselves from Sound Transit's tyranny, and legislation reforming Sound Transit's governance so they are accountable to the taxpayers, not just the vendors.

          House and Senate Democrats have blocked all these meaningful reform bills.  Why?  Because the Democrats are bought-and-paid-for by Sound Transit.  They don't care about the taxpayers -- they don't care about their constituents.  All they care about is the political favors and political pay-offs they get from Seattle's Sound Transit Industrial Complex.

          House Speaker Democrat Frank Chopp and Mercer Island Democrat Judy Clibborn are blocking bills that will actually heal the festering wound of skyrocketing car tab taxes.
          All 48 House Republicans are committed to stopping Sound Transit's car tab tax rip-off.  All 50 House Democrats are standing in the way. 

          All 25 members of the Majority Coalition Caucus are committed to fixing car tab taxes.  The 24 Senate Democrats are standing in the way. 

          The fight over car tabs is central to this year's make-or-break race for the 45th district senate seat (the candidate who wins in November determines which party controls the state senate -- and thus the Legislature -- in 2018).  The GOP's Jinyoung Englund has made "grounding skyrocketing car tabs" a central promise of her campaign (https://jinyoungenglund.com/).

         But the other candidate, Manka Dhingra, is just another income-tax-loving, car-tab-gouging, Sound Transit Seattle Democrat (her backers are all Sound Transit puppets: http://tinyurl.com/y7razuq9).  She'd never get in the way of Sound Transit's gravy train.  With Manka Dhingra, car tab taxes will never be fixed.

         In 18 years of political activism, I've never seen such a stark difference between the Republicans and the Democrats when it comes to taxes, especially car tab taxes.  

Help us fight back against Inslee and the Democrats' tax-hiking obsession.  While they're pushing for tax increases, we're pushing for tax relief -- we're fighting fire with fire.  The Property Tax Fairness Initiative is a bold, exciting proposal that helps everyone.  It cuts property taxes 25% for everyone, caps property tax increases, and eliminates the personal property tax.  It's all about making property taxes fairer.  Help us make it a reality.

          If you support the Property Tax Fairness Initiative and appreciate our efforts on behalf of taxpayers, please send us a donation for $10, $25, $50, $100, $250, $500, $1000, $2500, $5000 or more (there are no limits on how much can be given). You can go to our website right now - www.VotersWantMoreChoices.com and make a secure on-line contribution by PayPal or VISA or M/C. OR, you can print this form, fill it out, and return it with a check or credit card information. 
         We've done so many amazing things over the past 18 years, but that's only been possible thanks to successful benefactors like you. We ask you to please help us help taxpayers.

          Please donate TODAY.
         Thank you.
Sincerely,
Tim Eyman, Jack Fagan, & Mike Fagan, Fighting for Taxpayers for 18 years, 425-493-9127, tim_eyman@comcast.net, www.VotersWantMoreChoices.com

A Letter to the Students at Evergreen College

Update: Here's a follow-up article posted June 1st.

I've taken a recently posted article from Glenn Beck's "The Blaze" and modified it a bit to fit my personal experience as a white person. Here it is:

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Dear Ones, 

Allow me to apologize if my white privilege offends you. The truth of the matter is, I don’t consider myself “white” privileged. 

I identify as “hard work” privileged. My family was so poor while I was going to high school that we had to live strictly off of zucchini in our garden for one summer. When I was a child, my father worked multiple jobs to feed, cloth and house his family WHILE earning his degree from UC Berkeley. (That was BEFORE it became a liberal bastion of socialism and fascism, mind you.

Let me put it in terms you’ll understand: he worked his white ass off. He worked as a teacher in southern California until his colleagues set him up to be "let go" by the principal because he refused to join their teacher's union. After that, he did the best he could to provide for his family by operating his own cleaning business and spent countless hours doing it in order to make ends meet when it came to the bills he owed. He WORKED, and he worked HARD, and didn't complain about it. 

My father worked a lot more than a whiny, self-indulgent, out-of-touch, unrealistic, privileged college "social justice warrior" like you could ever comprehend. And guess what? It paid off. In three generations, my family went from struggling on farms to living comfortable lives. His example inspired me to understand that if I didn't work hard at whatever I decided to do with my life, I would not get far at all.

I served my country for four years. (I would wager that there are very few, if any who've done the same that are students at Evergreen in Olympia.) I worked hard to going to college and getting my teaching degree as well. I worked hard within the public school system, like my father, only to be betrayed by that very system as political correctness and entitlement began to rear its fascist head only ten years ago. (I saw this very type of behavior happening in my middle-school classes as I was ending my career, and am not really surprised to learn this event has occurred at your college.)

I exceeded what my father accomplished in two ways that I know he'd be proud of; one, I pressed on and worked hard to get my masters in education, and two, I managed to work long enough to collect my pension for retirement. That doesn't make me privileged because I'm white, if it makes me anything, it's being able to reap the rewards of my efforts despite the crap I encountered along the way that tried to prevent me from succeeding. As far as I can tell in your case, you apparently "feel" that intimidation, demands laced with obscenities, and pushing a warped sense of entitlement will get you whatever you demand.

That is the promise of America: generational change through hard work. 

You want respect? Be respectful and show respect. 

You want acceptance? Be accepting and accept that others may have differing views. 

You want more out of life? Work harder and you too will reap the fruits of your labor; provided you don't attempt to take over your bosses workplace.

Since these are unlikely outcomes given your entitled worldview, I’ve created a list of demands on behalf of society to counter your own warped list: 

WE DEMAND that you conduct yourselves with dignity and refrain from irrational, emotional outbursts laced with profanity that demean and further marginalize you from society. 

WE DEMAND that you respect your fellow students regardless of race, creed or color. 

WE DEMAND that you treat persons of authority such as professors, administrators and safety personnel with the dignity and respect they deserve. Should you be unable to meet these basic standards of human decency, I’ve created an additional list of demands: 

WE DEMAND that you read and study the following (no doubt something you've never been exposed to in your public school experience), so that you'll understand better how out of touch you are with how much you take for granted: 

- The Declaration of Independence 

- The U.S. Constitution 

- The Bill of Rights 

- Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville 

-The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith 

- The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith 

- Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington 

- Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass 

- The 5000 Year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen 

- The Founders’ Almanac by Matthew Spaulding 

- Lives of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence by Benson J. Lossing 

- Miss Manners’ Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior by Judith Martin 

WE DEMAND that you create a safe space utopia and never leave the campus of Evergreen State College. 

WE DEMAND that you not integrate with the rest of society until you study and understand what real oppression looks like (try Mao, Pol Pot and Stalin for starters). 

WE DEMAND that you immediately retake English 101 to coherently write your next list of demands so we can more fully understand what we’ll be throwing in the trash. 

WE DEMAND that you grow up (and while you’re at it, grow a pair and a spine). 

WE DEMAND that you no longer employ police or safety officers and subject them to your intolerant hatred. Please attend to your own protection and police yourselves on the grounds of your new utopia — the campus of Evergreen State College. 

WE DEMAND that you create and manage a self-sustaining eco farm to grow and harvest your own vegan-based food supply (again, so you will never have to leave the campus of Evergreen State College). 

WE DEMAND that you work and create your own monetary system to support and pay for the Day of Absence, Day of Presence, Equity Center, Vice President of Equity and Inclusion, Trans & Queer Center, Undocumented Student Center, Student Affairs and The Student Code of Conduct. 

WE DEMAND mandatory reality and societal competency training for anyone wishing to leave the newly-formed social utopia of Evergreen State College. 

If you don't make an effort to implement at least some of these demands, the legislators in Olympia - that's right, in your own backyard - then a new bill that one legislator is introducing will privatize your school and end your immature rant.

Yours truly, 

Pretty Much Everyone Living in the Real World

Do White Americans Have White Privilege?

The leftists have recently introduced - the furthest back I can recall ever hearing about this issue was during the previous administration under Pres. Obama - the concept that the reason people of "color" can never get ahead in our society is because white people posses a "privilege" which oppresses them. It's rapidly becoming a "bad" thing by liberals to perpetuate their meme. For anyone who's paying attention to the news stories on a regular basis, this concept has grown and evolved in order to make them feel guilty, shut them up and tear down their sense of belonging in the "new society" of fascism and totalitarianism the leftists are upholding.

Ami Horowitz has produced a new video on this topic for Prager U. Here it is for you to view and consider what is shown. 

I my view the leftists are now pulling out all the "hold-backs" on their propaganda war to use the media and the dominant adolescent mind-set of the country today to push for an Open Society (George Soros promoted) America in order to work within the system of our government to overthrow it from within. Didn't Abraham Lincoln say something about this being the only way this nation would ever cease to be?

What Do We Want? $15/hr. When Do We Want It? NOW!!!

If you don't watch the Tucker Carlson Show on the FOX network, or didn't happen to catch this particular show, then you'll want to check this out. For those not wishing to read such a large quantity of text because it just hurts their brains, I'm also including the video link here. Take your pick. 

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Tucker Carslon Show – May 29, 2017

Interview w/ Mike Rowe, ie: $15/hr. Minimum wage issue

Carlson – Well, two days ago, protesters amassed outside a McDonald's Shareholders' meeting in Chicago. They demanded the company started paying their roughly 850,000 workers in the U.S. a $15.00 minimum wage. Do the protesters really want to get their wish? What would happen if they did? Working at McDonald's is not that complicated. So would a $15.00 wage drive further automation and lead to mass layoffs?

No one really knows, but that's a concern and we brought it up with “Dirty Jobs” host Mike Rowe. Here was his view.

Mike Rowe, thanks for joining us.

Rowe – I wouldn't miss it.

Carlson – So protesters are gathered outside McDonald's across the country demanding higher wages.

Rowe – Huh!

Carlson – And so, on the one hand, I'm always sympathetic to people who want to get paid more, especially for jobs that are hard and long. On the other hand, at what point does McDonald's decide we're replacing you with automation, with robots?

Rowe – Probably this point... or probably soon. I don't have a crystal ball. I mean, but everybody I've talked to is going back again and again, to the uh, well, they call it the threat of automation. I mean the headlines that I'm seeing are how computers are going to “steal” our jobs. And, I don't know if it really makes sense to anthropomorphize it, like, I don't think computers are going around, like, twirling their mustache and laughing maniacally. It's gonna happen. It's gonna happen as surely as the Internet messed up the TV, and the TV messed up cinema, and cinema disrupted radio, and radio messed up the newspapers, and Kindle screwed up the booksellers. And so it goes. But, I don't think it's anything to panic over. I think it's going to happen, but as it relates to the minimum wage conversation, and as it relates to labor and management, the only thing I can add to it is, with my foundation we try and remind people that learning a skill that's actually in demand, negates the whole conversation. If you can weld, if you can... if you're a plumber, if you're an electrician, if you're willing to learn a skill that has a pre-existing demand, then you don't have to constantly negotiate and talk about a few extra dollars in order to stay in a position. But frankly, I don't know how advance in that kind of thinking. [Just demanding a raise because the cost of living is constantly going up.] So our philosophy is pretty simple. Um... if you have a skill and that skill is in demand you can work where you want, and you can write your own ticket. If you don't, you're gonna have to hope the next negotiation works out and the next minimum wage position falls favorably in your direction; which strikes me as fatalistic.

Carlson – That's such a common sense point, and you...

Rowe – No, I can't help it, I can't...

Carlson – No, but it makes an inherent and unassailable sense. So, why aren't our schools teaching some percentage of our kids to do the same thing?

Rowe – As we've discussed before, I think we've got it in our heads that there's a category of good jobs and bad jobs, that there's a category of good education and bad education – we don't call it that, we call it “higher education” and “alternative education” - but look, it's fun with the language, right? But the minute you categorize an entire vertical of education as alternative, you might as well call it subordinate. So the message starts early on. If you go to a trade school, you're going to have to settle for a “second class” job, or some kind of consolation prize. And so parents don't want that for their kids, guidance counselors don't want that for their schools. So, all of these opportunities that today constitute 5.6 million available jobs – open jobs – that are sitting there – they don't get any press, the don't get any love because somewhere back in the reptilian part of our brain we believe they're sub-standard. That's dumb...

Carlson – But they pay well. What I'm confused by is so many of our young people end up in what they're calling the “sharing economy”, where a few billionaires in Silicon Valley exploit them for nothing, to rent their apartment out of a B&B, drive your car for Uber, these are jobs that pay many times that, right? Or am I missing it?

Rowe – Well, look it's hard, it's tempting to take a cookie cutter approach to everything and put... what's a news anchor get? Do you work in Des Moines? Well, same thing with welding. You know, if you've got your certificate to weld and you're in Oklahoma you might start at $45,000 a year. A year later, you might be in say, western North Dakota making $120,000, or in the Gulf Coast doing better than that. The skill goes where you go, and this is another thing schools don't teach. If you have a skill that's in demand, it's innate in you wherever...

Carlson – It's portable.

Rowe – Yeah! I mean, it's inherently mobile. It's not... you don't have to go to the McDonald's – with respect, right? I mean, you don't have to go to the retailer and stand behind the counter and wait for the business to come, you can... No one talks about the path that small businesses that trades represent, there's no talk about it, but, on my old show I can't tell you how many people I ran into who had a small business, who had employees, who had multiple trucks, but started with a skill. So, my thing with the minimum wage and with automation and all of it is that anything we do that knocks the bottom rungs off of the ladder that we all must surely climb is self-defeating. So, if getting to $15.00/hour hastens automation and therefore eliminates thousands of opportunities for kids – who by the way are not just learning how to flip a burger, but to tuck in their shirt and show up at work on time – all this basic stuff, I mean how else do you learn that stuff except by being in your first or second job? We're going to arbitrage logic right out of the equation, and then, R2D2, take a bow.

Carlson – (Laughs)

Rowe – (Smiling says) That's not bad!

Carlson – Good, that's very good. By the way, you're not reading anything, I can assure our viewers. That was... (snapping his fingers).

Rowe – No, I can't read, tragically. (Smiling again.)

Carlson – (Laughing again)

Rowe – I mean, this is something we should talk about in the future.

Carslon – Yes, literacy. Mike Rowe, it's always nice to see you.

Rowe – Likewise.

When the Music Stopped

It's no wonder that leftists hate the military!

= = = = = = = = = = =

(For those who are unaware: At all military base theaters, the National Anthem is played before the movie begins.)

This is written from a Chaplain in Iraq: 

I recently attended a showing of 'Superman 3' here at LSA Anaconda.  We have a large auditorium that we use for movies as well as memorial services and other large gatherings. 

As is the custom at all military bases, we stood to attention when The National Anthem began before the main feature.

All was going well until three-quarters of the way through The National Anthem, the music stopped.

Now, what would happen if this occurred with 1,000 18-to-22-year-olds back in the States?   I imagine that there would be hoots, catcalls, laughter, a few rude comments, and everyone would sit down and yell for the movie to begin. Of course, that is, only if they had stood for The National Anthem in the first place.

Here in Iraq, 1,000 soldiers continued to stand at attention, eyes fixed forward.  The music started again, and the soldiers continued to quietly stand at attention.  Again, though, at the same point, the music stopped.  What would you expect 1,000 soldiers standing at attention to do?  Frankly, I expected some laughter, and everyone would eventually sit down and wait for the movie to start.

No!  You could have heard a pin drop while every soldier continued to stand at attention.

Suddenly, there was a lone voice from the front of the auditorium, then a dozen voices, and soon the room was filled with the voices of a thousand soldiers, finishing where the recording left off:

"And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.  Oh, say, does that Star Spangled Banner yet wave, o'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave."

It was the most inspiring moment I have had in Iraq, and I wanted you to know what kind of U.S. Soldiers are serving you!  Remember them as they fight for us!

Written by Chaplain Jim Higgins...LSA Anaconda is at the Ballad Airport in Iraq, north of Baghdad.

Perpetuating the Myth

The recent budget proposal release by the Trump administration has brought out the typical treatment of perpetuating common myths by the MSM leftists. As usual, they're not telling you all the truth about this budget because it doesn't help their effort to deligitimize the conservative policies Trump's administration is attempting to reinstate for the sake of the nation's health economically.

Read the link here to a Media Resource Center's article which reveals what the MSM refuses to tell the public about the budget proposal. I predict we'll see the usual RINOs in Congress attempt to impede its progress through committees and the floor for a vote in either one, or both, houses of Congress.

Speaking Truth to the Press

Kimberly Strassel (on left).

Last Sunday the Wall Street Journals Kimberly Strassel destroyed the liberal media's Face the Nation panel's argument that back channeling by Trump's campaign staff was evidence of collusion with the Russians; yes, they're still pushing this meme of lies! Use this link to read the MRC article and watch the under 2 minute clip of Ms. Strassel slapping them down.

Suh-weet!