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It's voting time again! Thankfully, a short ballot...
President - Cynthia McKinney
Four years ago I briefly became a Democrat so I could vote for Dennis Kucinich. Dennis would still make an excellent President. Not only that, but now we'd get a First Lady with a tongue stud. That alone would restore 90% of the goodwill the US lost by letting Bush steal the election twice. If you happen to be a Democrat, vote for Dennis!
But I don't think I'll be a Democrat again. It's tough to support a party that takes impeachment off the table. George Bush wears the crown, as the Worst President Ever. He opposes a world criminal court for obvious reasons - under a real justice system, he'd be behind bars for life. So the Democrats are simply spineless, sorry but it's true.
It's time for a leader who speaks out both for peace and for impeachment Not only that, but she's black AND a woman - Obama and Hillary combined. Yeah! Go Greens!
Proposition 91 - Transportation Funds - No
Didn't we already vote on this one? Even its supporters are opposed, go figure. It's not about the legislation, it's about the deal...
Proposition 92 - Community Colleges Funding - Yes
Ahnold has once again come up with a budget "crisis" that could have been easily avoided by making smarter choices. We pay enough taxes, the problem is they are misspent. So what you have are situations where good (read: popular) programs go to the voters to carve out exceptions to preserve their funding. Which worked for the community colleges for a while, but the formula linked them with K-12 funding while enrollment grew at different rates. I'm in favor of education (duh!) although there's certainly plenty of waste there. Still, it beats prison. So I'm voting yes, somewhat lukewarmly.
Proposition 93 - Term Limits - Yes!
Term limits are one of the dumbest political ideas ever. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Intelligent people have a responsibility to do a little bit of research (it's totally easy now that we have the Internets!) and get to know something about who they're voting for or against. Term limits are a way dumb people avoid this responsibility. But they can't avoid the law of unintended consequences.
Legislators may become old and corrupt after many years in office. Term limits rids us of these people. Unfortunately it also rids us of the seasoned legislators who held encyclopedic knowledge about what worked and what didn't. People who understood complexities, whether you agreed with them or not.
Instead, California now has younger corrupt legislators, who additionally don't know diddily about the history and rationale for government programs and policies. Term limits were a machete that took out the bad and good all at once. Combined with another initiative that cut legislative staff, it created our clueless state legislature, full of members who have only lobbyists and moneyed interests to turn to for campaign funds and ideas. Of course that was the lobbyists' intention all along. Stupid voters, screwed over once again...
Figure it out. Is your legislator a turkey or not? In Siskiyou County answers are easy. Yeah, they're all turkeys. We should throw everyone here out of office, but I want to do so intelligently, because I actually do know that they all vote like Genghis Khan. This initiative doesn't go nearly far enough, but it's a start.
Proposition 94 to 97- Indian Gaming - No!
Gambling means you flunked math, right? Face it, you won't win. Really. You won't.
I don't have a moral objection to gambling. If it's entertainment, all well and good. If you lose your house, maybe not so good. Still that's a personal choice, maybe. There's two sides to this one, but I'm comfortable making a decison.
I'm sure there are a few Native Americans who've done well from gambling, and I'm all about making amends for America's genocide of its native people. Yet accomplishing this through gambling strikes me as more than bizarre. Same people are running the Indian casinos as are running the Nevada ones. So it comes down to zoning. Casinos should be subject to all the environmental and land use controls applicable to the rest of us. I have no idea why this industry continues to grow, perhaps it has to do with the education cuts?
Enough already. Get outside, do something physical for entertainment. Get the Nevada mafia out of the reservations. I don't want to make gambling like an idiot illegal, but I certainly wouldn't encourage it...
Other people who sometimes agree with me:
More information resources:
Smart Voter - lots o'links
Project Vote Smart - even smarter?
Around the Capitol - lots o'information here
Fundrace - find out who your neighbors gave money to in 2004
Open Secrets - another place to follow the money, which is really the only way to understand politics in Amerika...