by Business Review Board: In a little-noticed court decision Monday, King County Superior Court Judge John Ruhl ruled that Seattle’s recent income tax is illegal. We argued it was back in July, so we’re glad Ruhl came to the right conclusion. “Today’s ruling is a victory for all taxpayers in Seattle and throughout the state, and for everyone who values the rule of law,” said Brian Hodges, an attorney with Pacific Legal Foundation, on behalf of the Seattle residents challenging the tax. “The court performed a service for all taxpayers, and all property owners, by defeating the city’s strategy to undermine their rights.”
As we noted in July, Seattle has hiked its minimum wage, hurting low-income workers by reducing jobs and hours. The city likewise wanted to specifically target wealthier people with a 2.25% tax only on people earning more than $240,000, or $500,000 for couples, annually. Of course, the legal challenge was inevitable. Washington state is one of seven states without an income tax, and state law prohibits cities from levying one — especially one that’s “uneven.” Seattle’s tax was in essence a bill of attainder (outlawed in Article I, Section 9) specifically targeting one group of citizens for the “crime” of earning more money than other people.
The city resorted to some creative rationale to defend the tax. That included arguing it wasn’t an income tax but an “excise tax,” despite the first sentence of the city ordinance calling it … an income tax. But Ruhl wasn’t fooled. “The City’s tax, which is labeled ‘Income Tax,’ is exactly that,” he wrote. “It cannot be restyled as an ‘excise tax’ on the alternate ‘privileges’ of receiving revenue in Seattle or choosing to live in Seattle.”
We’ll see if the same wisdom wins the day if and when the city appeals to the Washington Supreme Court. ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/52629
by Nate Jackson: “Veritas vos Liberabit” — the truth will set you free — has been The Patriot Post’s motto since our inception in 1996. A well-funded group called Project Veritas uses the same Latin word to describe its efforts to expose leftist hypocrisy, bias and lies. Unfortunately, that group failed to live up to its name this week. First, some background. Project Veritas’ founder, James O'Keefe, has made a living with undercover “sting” videos. His first claim to fame was cracking the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) in a series of videos revealing that ACORN would help certain patrons skirt the law. ACORN soon lost government funding and went defunct. O'Keefe, however, learned some of the wrong lessons. It wasn’t long before he was arrested for a stunt involving Louisiana Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu. His shenanigans continued, even if sometimes with rewarding “gotcha” videos against the Left.
O'Keefe’s latest adventure saw him trying to take down The Washington Post for its politically timed hit job on Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore. O'Keefe used a woman to try to plant a false story with the Post so as to discredit the paper’s other reporting. “In a series of interviews over two weeks,” the Post reported, “the woman shared a dramatic story about an alleged sexual relationship with Moore in 1992 that led to an abortion when she was 15.” The Post was already on guard for such attempts to undermine its credibility, however, and easily sniffed out the “inconsistencies in her story.” The game was up when the Post’s reporters saw her entering the offices of Project Veritas.
O'Keefe’s ill-conceived sting actually makes the Post more credible. Unlike the affair with Rolling Stone, the problem with the Post’s stories on Moore wasn’t the credibility of the paper’s reporting or the accounts of Moore’s accusers — which are largely believable and which the candidate has yet to convincingly deny. The problem with the Post’s blockbuster scoop was the timing. We strongly suspect the Post sat on the story, waiting to release its report until after Moore won the GOP Senate primary. O'Keefe’s attempt to discredit the Post and Moore’s accusers, all while theoretically getting Moore off the hook, doesn’t address the real issue.
In fact, conservatives shouldn’t mistake the Post’s bias for a lack of professionalism. There’s a reason why the Post is one of the nation’s leading newspapers — its reporters are good at what they do. That’s true even if the paper is a propaganda outlet for the Democrat Party, courtesy of its owner, billionaire Jeff Bezos.
~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/52619
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