Given the democratian's anti-voter bent, is it any surprise they opposed I-517?

Lefty Lou Brancaccio is a driven man.

Of the many things that drives him, fear of verified and complete irrelevance for him and his newspaper must be at the top the list.

What, for example, will this newspaper do when its positions that they fought so long and so hard for over the last decade, are soundly trounced at the polls?

What will that mean in terms of the newspapers relevancy? As the voters verify the fact that the newspaper has been long out of touch, and generally worthless to the local populace... what will that mean in terms of the rag's bottom line? Will lefty Lou get also all sepuku on our behind's?

It is rare to find any organization, group, newspaper, or individual who is so fearful of the will of the people.

The democratian has even gone so far as to support the city of Vancouver's lawsuit(s), to silence the people in their efforts to force a vote on downtown redevelopment, an effort that wasted tens of millions of taxpayer dollars on the Pollard Hilton, and various other redevelopment projects in the downtown area that have been, and will be, abysmal failures.

Most recently, the newspaper has done absolutely nothing to fight for a binding vote on issues confronting this community. Additionally, they have done absolutely nothing to hold those accountable for the waste of tens of millions of dollars and the policies set in place, that were designed specifically to ignore the public.

Where the demands for the investigations? Where the demands for accountability?

In fact it's astounding that this excuse for a newspaper, wastes so much time and energy on the very minor issue of the hiring of Don Benton for County Environmental Services Director instead of drilling down on the CRC Scam; it's supporters, those who would stand to benefit from this rip off, or any of the other myriad of things that a newspaper supposedly engaging in journalism would be interested in doing.Those issues would include the CRC scam, light rail, bus rapid transit (BRT), and the like.. areas that, when even a nonbinding advisory vote is offered, the newspaper comes out against.

There can be only so many reasons for this basic insecurity. Primarily the embarrassment of discovering that, in fact, the people actually do not support or otherwise want the agenda of the Downtown Mafia, the various groups to come under that umbrella, and, of course the democratian.
Most recently, the rag embarrassed itself with its bizarre editorial wherein they attempted to convince the reader that the advisory vote on light rail was meaningless, and that therefore, we should all vote no.

That of course begs the question: if it was meaningless, then why would they care what we voted?

These types of things are far from meaningless. The will of the people can be a mighty sword when properly wielded.

As a result, our daily waste of pulp's position on Initiative 517 is not particularly surprising.

Initiative 517 actually expands the ability to increase the public's right to use the initiative process. Naturally a fearful newspaper will deliberately misread and otherwise exaggerate the impacts of this initiative, since they are dramatically opposed to the rights of the will of the people to be expressed through the initiative, or for that matter any other process.

I must admit, that I actually find it laughable when opponents to initiatives, or the initiative process, come along with their objections which are nonsensical on their face and in fact hide their true intent: which is to reduce or eliminate the right of initiative altogether.

These people are simply not interested in our positions particularly when those positions may interfere with their agenda.

There is absolutely nothing in this editorial that were it even true, couldn't be addressed through legislative action.

Under the rules of this state, the legislature can immediately modify any initiative that passes the will of the people, by a two thirds vote of both Houses.

After a two-year period, a simple majority can change any law.

Of course the newspaper that's basically opposed to the right of the people to redress government is going to lie and exaggerate and generally attempt to paint a horrific portrait of this or any other initiative or law that they happen to oppose… Completely overlooking the fact that government has the right to address any issue that's too distasteful.

Most recently for example, the illegal and unconstitutional actions of the C Tran board come to mind. The newspaper doesn't care that those actions were blatantly illegal, or unconstitutional, because those actions support the newspaper's agenda.

While this "ends justifies the means" argument might work well with the Jesuits, it doesn't work well with our system, which is supposed to be responsive to the will of the people. That newspapers are fearful that the people will be coming out of this in an even stronger posture... well, it's not surprising then that they are opposed to this initiative.

I strongly support initiative 517. I support it because the people have been ignored for far too long both at the state and local levels. Any effort made to increase the ability of the people to express their view at the polls, is an effort that I support… And nothing written in this editorial provides any justification to vote against it.

As your typical leftist rag, the use of Tim Eyman's name in this initiative, as irrelevant as that is at this point, is typical of the democratian's hate list.

The last thing that people should be thinking about when they're voting on an initiative is not who wrote the initiative or who worked to get it up on the ballot. What they should be thinking about is what the impacts of the initiative are; certainly ascribing the motives of the individual and/or organization that brought this to the ballot through acquiring the requisite number of signatures, is not unlike pondering the motives of what this newspaper does when they go to war for their agenda by lying, exaggerating, and twisting information concerning the CRC scam… And how much does the newspaper like it when that happens?

Generally, given this newspaper's lack of integrity, the fact that they're opposed to Initiative 517 is a major and powerful argument in support of that very initiative. Much like their other endorsements are typically a major argument opposing those positions and candidates in competitive races.