tvashtarkatena

Your opinion doesnt matter to me. Never has. And that's OK.

Nope. Not my schtick. I'm not anti-conservative. Pretty fiscally conservative myself, actually. I'm a specific policy guy. The GOP happens to have a lot of failed and stupid policy ideas is all. It grasps for the past, rather than looks towards the future. It's not a data driven problem solving organization. It's relies on promulgating copious amounts of bullshit. It suppresses votes. It sucks religious dick at the expense of civil liberties. It sucks military dick at the expense of social welfare and peace. I don't like any of that. But whatev. Don the partisan mantle and bicker on. All the kids are doing it. In my advocacy work I support partnering with any organization that agree to be an ally for a specific campaign - even if that organization opposes us on other fronts. The Catholics, for example. They are against the death penalty - common ground. They are also against providing family planning services in their hospitals. We oppose that. Politics are less partisan than the reinforce-my-myth blogs and media would have you believe in practice, particularly at the state level. Fighting sells. Compromise is dull. The news is all about the feds, but life really isn't. What offends us may vary by partisan proclivity - that's a genetic thing, but we all share a lot more values than many of us are willing to admit.

its not a partisan issue. its a nationwide issue. we all own it.

Statistically, Milwaukee's criminal justice system is the most racially biased in the country.

As well as an impressive pile of petropoop. Lincoln is many things to many people.

I was straining through a massive Lincoln log delivery when I typed that inspirational manifesto. Thinking about the GOP can do that to ya. I'm just relieved I didn't require sutures afterwards. It's times like that when the Exalted Warrior really comes into its own. Nightsoiling neither bumstick nor manponytail during such tectonic events...how do the chaivampires do it?

Or posting with overlarge gray manponytails. Asshole before manponytail or the other way around? cuz the correlation sure is high.

Nate Silver's Five Thirty Eight provides an excellent statistical analysis of partisan sweeps in recent years. Surprise, surprise: they are highly stochastic. In other words, gloat as you need to, but don't count on gloating next time around. This stuff turns on a dime.

Your assertions with regards to the effect of the Marysville shooting on I 594 are not supported by any data, and some are just plain wrong. For example, polling support 3 days before the shooting was 60%. The day before the election that had slipped to 56%. Furthermore, money did not come 'pouring in' after the shooting. The campaign had secured nearly all of its funding long before (that amount of funding takes a lot of long term planning and relationship building). With a 20 point victory, its hard to buy the story that the public was somehow misled or swayed by 'big money'. More accurately, the intelligent voters of WA are clearly sick of the gun violence and the BS arguments to keep loopholes for gun trafficking open for the sheer convenience of a minority of gun owners. Even the NRA recognizes that the "100% unfettered" schtick simply doesn't wash anymore with our voters here. We drove that point home, in no uncertain terms, on Nov 4. Ridiculously, opponents to I594 cited its '18 pages' as somehow being a bad thing. Anyone who's ever been involved in an initiative knows that 18 pages isn't long - at all. Quite the opposite - I594 was well written and thorough - one of the many reasons why voters overwhelmingly supported it. By comparison, I 502 was 65 pages - I had no trouble reading and understanding it, and I'm neither lawmaker nor attorney. If 18 pages confuses your legislator - be afraid, be very afraid. In terms of providing an example - OR, AK, DC. More states will certainly follow quickly in their footsteps. Prohibition 2.0 is a loser, and its been one of the most damaging policies to civil liberties, particular to people of color, in our nations history, even if some progressives haven't quite gotten that memo. With the worlds highest and most discriminatory incarceration rate, and the War on Drugs being, by far, the largest driver of that, ending Prohibition 2.0 is key to becoming a better nation. Major Witts lawsuit against the Airforce - the one that brought an end to Don't Ask, Don't Tell, was filed in WA. That, in turn, played a major role in the DOJ abandoning its legal defense of DOMA. WA was the 5th state to grant full marital equality. This is also one of the most salient civil liberties issue of our time - effecting the right to pursue happiness for over 25 million Americans. WA's successes are being closely scrutinized and replicated around the country. Our advocates work with a variety of jurisdictions out of state and abroad to spread the love. The results - for ending Prohibition 2.0 and discrimination based on sexual preference, speak for themselves. Rest assured, we are far from a backwater.

While the Battle of the Titans rages back and forth across the same battered ground, WA moves forward, leading by example.

A popular defeatist mantra. Too cynical for my tastes. The good fight must be fought.

Why don't you put together an initiative to ban them? Good luck getting the signatures with just volunteers. Plan on getting 5% of the required 300,000 or so, because that's what you'll wind up with. 8% of the total votes cast in the last gubernatorial election is what's required - plus 15% extra to make sure all the signatures are valid. The days of all volunteer signature gatherers are looooong gone. Like it or not, that's today's reality.

It's 2014. Initiatives have been part of our constitution for over a century.

A vote of the electorate is mob rule? OK. So much for democracy.

Initiatives are difficult, risky, and expensive. It's very difficult to get one passed - the long term planning and execution is daunting. I 502 came at the tail end of a 12 year effort - public education, lobbying, legislative reform, polling, meetings with law enforcement, donor relationship development. The campaign was staffed with the best. The initiative was written by 2 of the most experienced constitutional lawyers in WA. It took over 8 million bucks to get it passed. Not every campaign can put all those moving parts together successfully. It's hard.

po lil NRA, outgunned by da Evil Big Money

Politically, OR and WA are as similar as it gets.

"I thought, for some reason, I would get a rational debate from you... but you're just a vindictive anti-gun dick." You probably get this a lot. Good luck in your new political career. Bye.

The future will unfold and answer all, as it do.

And here's what you'll be up against in 2016: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/11/the-gun-control-movement-is-learning-how-to-win/382407/ Success breeds success. Supporters outspent the NRA 20 to 1 on the I594 campaign. Good luck getting money from the NRA next time after that wire brush treatment. BTW, you'll need $10 million, not my previously mentioned lowball figure of 5. Or you could work through the legislature (chuckle), since the initiative process is so wrong.

NRA of America Washingtonians Opposed to I-594 Amount raised: $489,331 Amount spent: $373,704 They pocketed the remaining $115K LOL. If you can come up with a million bucks to put a repeal initiative on the ballot in 2016, and another 5 million to get it passed by voters, go for it. Given the 20% margin of victory (that's a slaughter), good luck with donors. By 2016, of course, folks will have realized that the world didn't end because of I594. People tend to move on to the next big thing, ya know? Ah, real politics. It's just not like the internet.

My bro was the chief public defender of Humbolt County - he handled A LOT of weapons charges cases. Your dead wrong if you think that criminals are a) unaware of gun laws and b) don't care about them - particularly in a state where 3 strikes/mandatory sentencing can put you in prison for life for them. The bulk of WA law enforcement doesn't agree with your assertions, either. In other words, spare me the usual unsupported drivel.

Not really. The two states are substantially similar with regards to gun rights, although WA does recognize reciprocal concealed carry licenses from other states, and OR does not. Anyway, few in WA care all that much that gun owners have to sell their used equipment through federally licensed dealers. Not a heavy burden for a few in exchange for closing a known, gaping loophole in gun trafficking - something which affects all of us. Welcome to the modern world.

For now. What happens successfully in WA tends to migrate south, as two copycat OR initiatives would indicate. Given its overwhelming support among both citizens and law enforcement, background checks for private sales are a known loophole in criminal gun trafficking and a pretty easy sell at the ballot box. Stay tuned....

Gotta sell your guns through a gun shop now. You'll live. If that means even one less mass shooting or gun crime, call me unfeeling, but I'm going to find it pretty hard to shed a tear for that extra trip down to Butch's Guns. The majority of voters in WA are breathing just a little bit easier this morning. In the balance, the initiatives passed this election drastically unburden the common citizen of needless prohibitions. They greatly simplify our laws, or simply update existing ones (minimum wage, for example). They also clarify some ambiguities or missing protections that have resulted in much litigation - voter suppression, illegal surveillance, discrimination. This will, in turn, unburden our courts, freeing them for more important business. Now, adding a personhood amendment would sure complicate things - but voters wisely rejected that nonsense. Initiatives exist because most legislatures find themselves out of touch with voters with regards to certain issues. They are an important part of enacting reform sooner than later. When things don't go their way, there are inevitably some short sighted citizens who blame the process and beg to have a large chunk of their democratic power taken away from them. I take a bit longer view, even if it doesn't make for a tasty sound bite.