The Washington Supreme Court heard oral arguments Thursday in the case involving KVI radio hosts John Carlson and Kirby Wilbur and whether their on-air discussions in favor of the I-912 gas tax repeal were reportable campaign donations.
Attorney Mike Vaska from Foster Pepper PLLC, which has a pecuniary interest in higher gas taxes and more government spending, argued for stricter regulation of radio shows which advocate political positions that jeopardize his bottom line:
Many radio stations are owned by big national companies, and Washington citizens need to know if those companies start trying to influence state voters, Vaska said.I think I know what Vaska means. Kind of like when the big national Hearst company tried to influence state voters in the 2004 GOP Attorney General primary? Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at June 08, 2006 11:30 PM | Email This
Glad to see that my vote got it right and the P-I was wrong... again.
Posted by: Hoplophile on June 9, 2006 04:16 AMPsst. We already knew.
Posted by: pbj on June 9, 2006 06:35 AMA broken clock is right twice a day.
Posted by: swassociates on June 9, 2006 06:40 AMThey are also "tight" with Washington Association of Cities (and Counties) who also support higher gas (and other) taxes.
It is the old "watch the money", to see why they have taken this to court.
Repeat: There is 5k+ in starting campaign funds available to anyone running against this activist or the other activist judges in Thurston in the next election.
Posted by: Andy on June 9, 2006 07:11 AMStarbucks drinking Coward Loiyer gets a coward county prosecutor from an island and a coward judge from hicksville.....
Just 'cause you wimp loiyers can get a judge and a court order does not make it right....
The Perverter Vaska is right up there with all the other current loiyer perverters that are inventing arguments that have no business in the courts. We see land being taken away and given to another private entity or being condemned only stop development we see McCocaine Finemess assaulting political speech and we see big boys like Mikey hiding behind a stack of yellow legal pads shooting rubber banded stacks of 11 x 14 papers at us.
Way to go tough guy Mike!!
Mike does Joel Connelly vote from your vacation home?
Who gives a crock about the ALCU??? If they "cared" they would have driven a truck load of loiyers to Thurston County and assaulted that judge's court room last year!!! This is just window dressing to try and undo Mike the big boy Vaska's campaign tactic so it does not back fire on Mike's friends at the PI and Times, Jean Enerson, Dan "Big Hair" Lewis or Steve Rabile on a future initiative. When the last decent lawyer comes along and finds a judge in Walla Walla to order the campaign to report the value of the Times and PI advocacy reporting on the campaign to enslave all white people as part of wealth transfer based on the Seattle School Districts year 2007 definition of racism. After all Mike Vaska would want something like that to pass without any hindrance of a pesky precedent of shutting down the press!!! Right Mike?? (Note he would be exempted by the fine print because he would have donated enough money to the "correct" groups and would help fund the new "productivity camps".)
The PDC folded up and ran from this as fast as they could and are darn thankful that they really did not have to enforce this Soviet Stalinist made up garbage! We have a moral obligation to not follow any rulings like this ever. Got to the pit of H E double hockey sticks Mike, ACLU and the rest of you loiyers.
The only question we should ask of those running for office is "What will you do to insure my freedom?" Instead, most of us ask "How much will you take from some other guy to give to me?" Those who ask the latter question deserve no liberty. I sometimes fear there may be too few of us left to resist the temptation of a life of infantile dependency on big brother. Oh well, as the ancient Athenians found out, it was nice while it lasted. Maybe in another 2500 years someone will try democracy again.
Posted by: Steve on June 9, 2006 07:50 AMThat is no different than what the print media does every day for every liberal cause.
What is normal advocacy? Is there something called abnormal advocacy, or too much advocacy?
Is there anything ambiguous about "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press"
"...we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. Oops, not our Fortunes because using our money to promote our political idea of separating from England would be a reportable campaign donation - J. Hancock
And telling people over the airwaves where they could sign petitions! The nerve. "The British are coming...but I can't tell you where or when lest I violate the campaign donation laws" - P. Revere
Isn't this a similar form of advocacy as well?
Posted by: SouthernRoots on June 9, 2006 11:22 AMI'm not optimistic!
Posted by: MJC on June 9, 2006 11:41 AM