Since 1921, Washington has paid for roads with gas taxes, but that won’t work when everyone has electric cars. A state House bill would replace gas taxes with a 2.5¢ per mile fee by 2030, similar to an Oregon scheme, but a GOP legislator prefers to slap an additional sales tax on cars (read s[...]
Archive for February, 2023
February 21st, 2023 - 8:40 pm § in Politics, Republicans
Nikki Haley, secessionist
Nikki Haley wants to be president, but is struggling to explain who she is, so the media are stepping in. She “defended states’ rights to secede from the United States, South Carolina Confederate History Month and the Confederate flag in a 2010 interview,” CNN reported on Tuesday, Febr[...]
February 21st, 2023 - 6:20 pm § in Misc.
GOP nominates convicted embezzler for state elections board
Maryland’s governor has rejected a GOP state central committee nominee for the state elections board as unfit. William Newton (photo, left) stole his infirm mother’s house and gave it to his girlfriend. He was convicted of embezzlement and sentenced to probation. Newton also is a failed [...]
The politics of resentment
Many of history’s great movers and shakers exploited resentment to build a power base. Lenin and Hitler fall in this category. Each drove a revolution that overthrew an existing order, albeit one weakened by events they didn’t precipitate or control. But their revolutions, tied as they w[...]
Some Republicans bash Biden’s trip to Ukraine
“Republicans … trashed President Joe Biden’s trip to Ukraine, claiming the visit to support Kyiv is an ‘insult’ to Americans,” New York Daily News reported on Monday, February 20, 2023 (read story here). The newspaper continued, “right-wing lawmakers said Biden [...]
February 21st, 2023 - 12:14 am § in Law and Courts
Greasing the rails to death row
Lawyers defending Sayfullo Saipov (photo, left) accuse federal prosecutors of trying to railroad him onto death row. Saipov is an Islamic State sympathizer and domestic terrorist who killed 8 people and injured 18 others by driving a rented truck into a crowd of people on a Manhattan bike path. His [...]
Rightwing dirty trickster reportedly ousted by his group
James O’Keefe (photo, left; bio here) is an unsavory far-right political operative who created “Project Veritas” (profile here), a group that “produces deceptively edited videos” to smear legitimate media organizations and liberal groups. O’Keefe is a professiona[...]
February 19th, 2023 - 2:33 pm § in Misc.
Busted
Where was the docent when the art fair visitor knocked over a Jeff Koons “Balloon Dog” piece valued at $42,000 and shattered it into ceramic confetti (see story here)? “This kind of thing unfortunately happens, that is why the artwork was covered by insurance,” the gallery ma[...]
Racist lunatic to lead Michigan GOP
It feels strange to label a black woman as a racist; but I’ll get to that, and explain it, momentarily. Kristina Karamo (bio here; photo, left) was elected chair of Michigan’s Republican Party on Saturday, February 19, 2023 (see story here). This is the first time she’s been electe[...]
Trump warns pink-haired teachers are coming for your kids
Republicans have a new target: Public schools. They’re turning K-12 education into a culture war battleground. While Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis gets the most attention for his book banning, criminalizing the teaching of black history, and efforts to impose conservative ideology on his state[...]