For my review of 2021's The Bitcoin Filed Guide, click here.
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I've been inactive in the Libertarian Party for a while now. And it seems I'm not alone.But not a single Libertarian.
Also no one from the American Independent Party, but that's no surprise. They rarely run candidates.
However, Don J. Grundmann is running as "No Qualified Party Preference." In his candidate statement, he says he belongs to the Constitution Party, which is not ballot qualified in California.
So the Constitution Party, which is so tiny that it does not qualify as a legal political party in California, managed to field a candidate. While the Libertarian Party, with all its greater resources and membership numbers, failed to run any candidates.
Now, it's possible that the LP is running candidates in other parts of California. Or not. But definitely no one at the state level. And no one in Los Angeles, the state's most populous region.
I wonder how this happened? I know Top Two has hurt all third parties. But the Green, Peace and Freedom, and even Constitution parties managed to rise to the challenge, while the LP is MIA.
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But consider these facts, taken from the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation website:
* Secondhand smoke from combusted marijuana contains fine particulate matter that can be breathed deeply into the lungs, which can cause lung irritation, asthma attacks, and makes respiratory infections more likely. Exposure to fine particulate matter can exacerbate health problems especially for people with respiratory conditions like asthma, bronchitis, or COPD.
* Significant amounts of mercury, cadmium, nickel, lead, hydrogen cyanide, and chromium, as well as 3 times the amount of ammonia, are found in mainstream marijuana smoke than is in tobacco smoke.
* In 2009, the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment added marijuana smoke to its Proposition 65 list of carcinogens and reproductive toxins, also known as the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986. It reported that at least 33 individual constituents present in both marijuana smoke and tobacco smoke are Proposition 65 carcinogens.
* Secondhand smoke from marijuana has many of the same chemicals as smoke from tobacco, including those linked to lung cancer.
* Secondhand marijuana exposure impairs blood vessel function. Published studies on rats show that thirty minutes of exposure to secondhand marijuana smoke at levels comparable to those found in restaurants that allow cigarette smoking led to substantial impairment of blood vessel function. Marijuana smoke exposure had a greater and longer-lasting effect on blood vessel function than exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke.
* One minute of exposure to marijuana SHS substantially impairs endothelial function in rats for at least 90 minutes, considerably longer than comparable impairment by tobacco SHS. The findings in rats suggest that SHS can exert similar adverse cardiovascular effects regardless of whether it is from tobacco or marijuana.
* Secondhand marijuana smoke and secondhand tobacco smoke is similar in many ways. More research is needed, but the current body of science shows that both tobacco and marijuana smoke have similar chemical composition and suggests that they may have harmful cardiovascular health effects, such as atherosclerosis (partially blocked arteries), heart attack, and stroke.
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Proposition 14 – Brewster’s Billions: NO.
“Brewster’s Millions” tells the story of a fictional character in 1902,
who, in order to inherit $7 million, must first spend $1 million in a
year and have nothing to show for it. In 2004, California voters were
convinced to spend $3 billion on Stem Cell research – or about $260
(plus interest) for every family in California. A recent report found
that $2.1 billion went to beneficiaries with links to the board that
doles out the money. That money is now all but spent, with nothing to
show for it. So, they’re back with another bond, this one for $5.5
billion (about $478 per family). This is amusing only as fiction.
Proposition 15 – How Not to Succeed in Business: NO.
From the “How Tone Deaf Can They Be” file comes this proposal to
reassess businesses annually in order to hike their property taxes.
That’s because the state-ordered lockdowns, the arrests of shopkeepers
trying to keep their businesses going, combined with California’s
highest-in-the-country income and sales taxes and anti-business
regulations, have left California’s small businesses flush with cash. It
is still possible to build a successful small business in California,
as long as you start with a successful large one. And remember,
businesses don’t pay taxes: YOU pay business taxes, as a consumer
through higher prices, as an employee through lower wages or as an
investor through lower earnings (think 401k).
Proposition 16 – Judging People by the Color of their Skin and Not the Content of the Character: NO.
In the Parents Involved Case of 2007, Chief Justice Roberts noted that
“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop
discriminating on the basis of race.” California voters had come to the
same conclusion when they passed Proposition 209 in 1996, which forbids
state government from discriminating or giving preferential treatment
“on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in
public employment, public education, and public contracting.” Prop 16
repeals this civil rights protection for all Californians and opens a
new era of official discrimination based on race.
Proposition 17 – Bank Robbers for Biden: NO.
If there were any doubt of the Democrats’ contempt for the electorate,
this should dispel it. This bill gives felons on parole the right to
vote. Enough said.
Proposition 18 – High School Voters: NO.
Wait, there’s more! Here’s a proposal to give 17-year-olds the right to
vote in primary and special elections. Democrats are counting on their
good judgment, experience and common sense to counter the influence of
their nagging, annoying and totally unreasonable parents.
Proposition 19 – Fire Sale: NO.
Right now, parents can leave the family home to their family without a
crippling property tax hike. This bill ends that exemption, purportedly
to add more money for firefighting. It’s a good bet that more family
homes will be lost in fire sales than in fires.
Proposition 20 – A Step Back from the Abyss: YES.
Long version: This measure repairs some of the damage of Jerry Brown
era laws that have made California less safe. It increases penalties for
many theft and fraud crimes that Brown reduced to misdemeanors,
requires convicts to submit DNA for state and federal databases and
restores the ability of parole boards to keep dangerous prisoners behind
bars. Short version: Jerry Brown opposes it.
Proposition 21 – Rent Control with Nothing to Rent: NO.
There’s an old soviet-era saying, “What good is a free bus ticket in a
city with no buses?” The same is true of rent. Rent controls are very
effective at drying up the supply of rental housing in any community
where they’re imposed. Those currently renting do very well, but they
hold on to their old apartments and landlords stop building new ones.
Presto: nothing to rent – but at a very affordable price.
Proposition 22 – Let My Uber Go: YES.
One of the worst bills ever enacted by the California legislature (and
that says a lot) is AB 5, that essentially ended independent contracting
in California. This measure exempts app-based drivers, meaning
independent contractors put out of work by AB 5 can still take an Uber
to a free state.
Proposition 23 — Bringing Venezuelan Heath Care to Dialysis Patients: NO.
Two years ago, SEIU tried to impose price controls on dialysis. They
lost and are back with this measure that imposes onerous and expensive
requirements to have physicians on duty at dialysis clinics and
prohibiting them from going out of business without state approval. This
will help dialysis patients by assuring higher prices and will help
encourage new clinics to open by forbidding them ever to close. Makes
perfect sense.
Proposition 24 – When in Doubt, Don’t: NO.
This measure purports to expand consumer privacy, but the Electronic
Frontier Foundation, a consumer privacy group, calls it “a mixed bag of
partial steps backwards and forwards.” Here’s what is crystal clear: it
will unleash a new regulatory agency with vast powers to prosecute
businesses that run afoul of the increasingly intricate consumer privacy
laws in California. Another nail in the coffin of the once “Golden
State.”
Proposition 25 – Catch and Release: NO.
When suspects are arrested, they’re jailed until posting bail to assure
they show up for trial. Surprisingly, many suspects don’t want to; go
figure. Jerry Brown and the lunatic legislature did away with this
process in 2018, replacing cash bail with “risk assessments.” This law
was temporarily suspended pending this referendum, but the leftist
Judicial Council did away with bail for most crimes during the COVID
scare, resulting in the arrest, immediate release and subsequent
re-arrests of criminal suspects the same day for different crimes. A NO
vote would repeal this insane law.
"I'll never apologize to smear merchants for doing everything I can to prevent more of my brothers & sisters from being killed/wounded. If it means meeting with a brutal dictator or a 100 dictators, I will do whatever it takes to prevent or end a regime change war." —TeamTulsi
"U.S. presence in Afghanistan costs $4 billion a month. Imagine what we could do with those billions to care for our sick, support our teachers, provide housing & education, & other ways serve the American people. I’ll end wars that waste our money and make us less safe." —TeamTulsi
"As president I'll end the failed war on drugs, legalize marijuana, end cash bail, and ban private prisons and bring about real criminal justice reform. I’ll crack down on the overreaching intel agencies and big tech monopolies who threaten our civil liberties and free speech."
Jerusalem (AFP) - Israeli ministers on Sunday backed a draft law carrying a jail term of up to 10 years for those who film or photograph soldiers with harmful intent, the justice ministry said.
Critics say the law, which will now face a series of parliamentary debates, could be a threat to free speech.The ministerial committee on legislation endorsed the bill against "people who film, photograph or record soldiers performing their duties in order to demoralise soldiers and Israeli civilians".The draft law would give courts the power to imprison those found guilty for five years, although a 10-year sentence would apply to defendants convicted of trying to "harm the state's security".The same prison terms would apply to people sharing such images or recordings on social media or through traditional media.
An Israeli soldier was recently released from prison after serving nine months behind bars for shooting dead an injured Palestinian, an act which was caught on video by a human rights group and spread widely online.
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