Coming Back Soon

I've been gone for a while, but I plan to start blogging again real soon. One thing I'm considering is doing a series of posts on specific California state court judges that I have either appeared before or heard about. Suffice it to say, if I decide to do this series, most of these posts will be critical, and several will outright recommend throwing a judge off the bench via the ballot box.

There's a whole lot of incompetence in the California judiciary that has resulted in the needless harming of lives and which has cost all of us untold millions in taxes. The best way that I can think of to help reform this pervasive problem is to expose it on this here blog.

Kobe Bryant and Political Correctness

The NBA recently fined superstar basketball player Kobe Bryant $100,000 for calling a referee "faggot" during a nationally televised game. Kobe uttered the vulgarity basically out of frustration with the referee's perceived incompetence.

There is certainly no defending Kobe's potty mouth and lack of civility toward the referee. However, the swiftness and excessiveness of the fine imposed by the NBA over a vulgar word illustrates just how successful the Lavender Mafia and their enablers in the leftist media have been at normalizing an objectively disordered sexual orientation, as well as same-sex intercourse, in our popular culture. All this week, I've been hearing sports talk radio hosts like Dan Patrick praising not only the NBA for quickly reprimanding Kobe for his so-called "anti-gay" remark, but Kobe himself for basically kowtowing to the Lavender Mafia and the lie it perpetuates that homosexuality is the equivalent of race and ethnicity. Every time I hear this stuff, I want to call the radio shows and inform the hosts that since they are characterizing Kobe's remark as anti-gay, it must then mean that not only do they think homosexuality is not disordered (i.e., biologically unnatural) but also that they must not have any moral objection to same-sex intercourse (i.e., it's something they would do themselves).

Seeing as that these talk radio show hosts are likely informed about most non-sports issues from the leftist media (Dan Patrick is a longtime friend and former reporting partner of the execrable Keith Olbermann) and aren't very much accustomed to critical thinking, I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised that they would mindlessly parrot the false assumptions about homosexuality the Lavender Mafia propounds in our culture. It is exceedingly annoying, though, as is the slavish adherence to political correctness by both the NBA and Kobe Bryant.

Chinese Soldiers in the Civil War

On this day, 150 years ago, the first shots of the American Civil War were made in Charleston, South Carolina. Regardless of one’s sympathies for either the North or South, this era of history has had, and continues to have, a great deal of fascination for most people, including myself.

Thanks in large part to the Internet (or its “inventor,” Al Gore) I’m even more intrigued by the Civil War, as I’ve recently discovered to my pleasant surprise that there were some ethnic Chinese who had fought in the war as Union and Confederate soldiers. A few details about some of these men can be found here, which is where I pulled the pictures that are imbedded in this blog post.

As you read through the above linked to site, which really could be better formatted, take notice of the distinctly non-Chinese last names used by some of the profiled soldiers: Joseph Pierce, Thomas Sylvanus, Charles K. Marshall, Edward Day Cohota. Kind of odd, right? Then again, the Confederacy’s greatest general had a Chinese-sounding last name, so maybe not.

You Might Be A CINO College If You (Heart) Planned Parenthood

The Cardinal Newman Society, which is kind of an orthodoxy watch dog group of self-identified Catholic colleges and universities, has just published a report that I'd like to say is shocking, but it really isn't. The report, which can be accessed here, discloses that at least 150 so-called Catholic colleges and universities in the United States have some sort of direct connection to the nation's largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood.

Despite the Catholic Church’s unambiguous teaching on abortion and contraception, we discovered referrals to Planned Parenthood for “health” services, internships and fellowships with Planned Parenthood, seemingly boastful disclosures of employees’ past work with Planned Parenthood, and other ties to this and other “pro-choice” organizations. The problems are spread across dozens of institutions, with occasional concentrations at highly secularized institutions like Georgetown University and Seattle University, two leading Jesuit institutions.

What is publicized on the Internet often indicates more extensive concerns hidden from public view, so while the information contained this report is shocking and scandalous, it is only based on a rudimentary search of college websites and likely does not capture all ties to Planned Parenthood at Catholic colleges and universities.

Doing a quick glance through the report, it almost seems as though most of the offending colleges are Jesuit based (e.g., Georgetown, Seattle University, Gonzaga, University of San Francisco, Santa Clara University, Boston College, etc.). If this is true, it's got to be more than just a coincidence.

Making lemonade out of lemons, Catholic parents with almost college aged children can at least use this rather depressing report as a guide of where not to send their kids to school.

From the "Soylent Green is People!" Files

According to LifeSite News, a biotechnology company called Senomyx, which is headquartered in San Diego, has been using aborted fetal cell lines to test food flavor enhancers.

“Using isolated human taste receptors,” the Senomyx website claims, “we created proprietary taste receptor-based assay systems that provide a biochemical or electronic readout when a flavor ingredient interacts with the receptor.”

“What they do not tell the public is that they are using HEK 293 – human embryonic kidney cells taken from an electively aborted baby to produce those receptors,” stated Debi Vinnedge, Executive Director for CGL, the watch dog group that has been monitoring the use of aborted fetal material in medical products and cosmetics for years.

Some fairly well known food and beverage companies have partnered with Senomyx. They include PepsiCo, Kraft Foods, and Nestle (which makes a brand of instant coffee I now used to buy). Campbell Soups had been a Senomyx partner, but not any longer. It's unclear whether the relationship terminated because of Senomyx's alleged use of dead human body parts for its food tests.

SEIU Members = Raider Fans?

Well, at least several of those who show up at "protests" like the one in this video. I dunno, maybe some of these people get all violent because they realize nobody is going to give their hyperbolic rhetoric any credibility. Or maybe they're just fanatics. h/t Gateway Pundit

Trump Hits Back

Donald Trump doesn't hold anything back in his response to New York Times columnist Gail Collins, who criticized Trump over his possible campaign run for President and recent focus on Obama's seeming lack of a U.S. birth certificate:

Even before Gail Collins was with the New York Times, she has written nasty and derogatory articles about me. Actually, I have great respect for Ms. Collins in that she has survived so long with so little talent. Her storytelling ability and word usage (coming from me, who has written many bestsellers), is not at a very high level. More importantly, her facts are wrong!

As far as her comments on the so-called “birther” issue, I don't need Ms. Collins's advice. There is a very large segment of our society who believe that Barack Obama, indeed, was not born in the United States. His grandmother from Kenya stated, on tape, that he was born in Kenya and she was there to watch the birth. His family in Honolulu is fighting over which hospital in Hawaii he was born in-they just don't know.

I'm not entirely certain Trump has the temperament to be an effective President, but he might make an entertaining Press Secretary. If the incorrigibly left-wing Helen Thomas was still in the press pool, I can only imagine what sort of exchange Trunp would have with her.

It Depends On How You Define "Services"

So the latest argument against those, like myself, who oppose taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood is that abortion only makes up 3 percent of Planned Parenthood's offered services. As you might be able to see in the table graphic I've embedded (click it for a larger view) of all the services offered by Planned Parenthood, 70 percent are allegedly directed toward providing contraception and screening for sexually transmitted diseases. These figures are from 2009 and were generated by Planned Parenthood.

In taking a closer look at the table, however, one notices a couple of curious and questionable things. Unlike the other listed categories like "Contraception" and "STI/STD Testing and Treatment," the abortion category contains only one activity. Also, I'm willing to bet the activity of abortion does not include the distribution of abortifacients, like RU-486.

It's also unclear what exactly Planned Parenthood means by "Reversible Contraception Clients." Does it mean the number of visits by individuals seeking contraception, or just the individuals? If a woman goes to Planned Parenthood and obtains birth control pills and condoms during the same visit, is she counted as just a female Reversible Contraception Client?

So even if it's true that only 3 percent of Planned Parenthood's activities involves abortion services, the claim is, at best, misleading. The claim ignores the fact that in 2009, Planned Parenthood performed over 330,000 abortions nationwide, a disproportionate number of which probably involved American Blacks, and that abortion services alone were responsible for approximately 40 percent of Planned Parenthood's income revenue. For an activity that's allegedly just 3 percent of Planned Parenthood's offered "services," that's pretty significant. Indeed, one would be justified in concluding that abortion is Planned Parenthood's proverbial bread and butter.

Supreme Conflict of Interest?

As the various lawsuits against Obamacare, particularly those filed by over half the States, make their way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, questions abound as to whether Justice Elena Kagan ought to recuse herself from any proceeding in the matter. The principal reason for these questions come from the fact that prior to ascending to the Supreme Court, Kagan was Obama's Solicitor General when Obamacare was being formulated and debated.

The Bench Memos blog hosted by National Review Online has just started a series of posts analyzing the extent to which Kagan may have a conflict of interest:

The timeline of [Kagan's] nomination meant that she was already aware she was being considered for an anticipated Supreme Court vacancy by March 5 -- before the House voted on the Obamacare legislation on March 21 and the major lawsuits against the law were filed on May 23. Neal Katyal, her chief deputy, has stated that she was walled off “since Day One” on that lawsuit.

But what we have recently learned (and many suspected beforehand) is that the administration’s defense of Obamacare was under way even before the bill became law and any lawsuit was filed. On January 8, Tom Perrelli was already organizing a meeting of DOJ bigwigs to “get thinking about how to defend against inevitable challenges to the health care proposals that are pending.” Katyal agreed that the SG’s office should be involved, adding candidly, “Let’s crush them.” He then consulted with then-SG Kagan and reported that “Elena would definitely like OSG to be involved in this set of issues.” While Katyal was to be point for the office on the issue, he added that “we will bring in Elena as needed.”

Given the significant negative ramifications Obamacare has on the economy and our individual liberties (we can be penalized by the government for merely making a mental decision not to purchase health insurance), this conflict of interest issue with Kagan is important to follow.

Presumptively, Kagan would vote to uphold the constitutionality of Obamacare along with Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, and Sotomayor. Since one would expect Justices Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito to strike Obamacare down, the fate of the legislation comes squarely down on Justice Kennedy who, despite having been nominated to the Supreme Court by Ronald Reagan, is a wild card. Removing Kagan from the equation effectively nullifies Kennedy's unpredictability.

Is It Torture To Tickle?

It can be, sure. But obviously, it isn't always. Anyone who stubbornly believes otherwise shouldn't be taken seriously. Right?

Leland Yee Demands Rush Limbaugh Apologize for Not Knowing Chinese - UPDATED

California State Senator Leland Yee, who in addition to having his beady little eyes on the mayorship of San Francisco, has his panties all up in a wad over Rush Limbaugh's recent on-air mimicking of the Chinese language. Limbaugh did the act in relation to a complaint he had about nobody at the White House translating the speech that the president of China, Hu Jintao, had given. Not knowing or understanding Chinese, Mandarin specifically, Limbaugh proceeded to make a bunch of meaningless noises of what Hu's speech sounded like to him.

Obviously not one to pass up an opportunity to mindlessly play the race card, Yee suggested he was deeply hurt by Limbaugh's "comments" because they hearkened him "back to when [Yee] was a little boy growing up in San Francisco and those were hard days, rather insensitive days." Yee, accordingly, demanded Limbaugh apologize, which Rush has rightly refused by omission to do. Again, all Limbaugh did was express what someone who is speaking Chinese sounds like to him when there's no one around to translate.

Instead of letting it go, however, Yee has doubled down on his tenuous position by making the outrageous suggestion that Limbaugh has caused him to receive racist messages and threats. Personally, I tend to doubt Yee is telling the truth about getting these messages, but even if he is, he can't prove Limbaugh caused them to be sent. For Yee to make this suggestion without direct proof is a testament to his total lack of character and integrity. Which is to say Leland Yee is a perfect match for most of the voters of San Francisco.

This is just speculation on my part, but I think if Hu Jintao had given his speech in, say, German and Limbaugh had done the same mimicking of it that he did with the Chinese language, there would not have been any sort of uproar by Leland Yee and his fellow travelers on the Asian-American liberal left. Indeed, I don't think there would have been an uproar if Limbaugh had been politically liberal like, oh, most of the writers and cast of Saturday Night Live.



Update: I wrote this blog post after seeing the story posted by a "friend" in my Facebook news feed. A commenter there, who has expressed his abject hatred for Rush, attempted to dismiss my point about the hypocritical lack of uproar among liberals to the above SNL skit by saying that unlike Rush's radio show, which is serious news commentary, SNL is a comedy. In other words, comedy is an apparent exception to the otherwise unsubstantiated presumption that it is racist for a white person to mimic a Chinese speaking person of East Asian descent. Yeah, it's stupid logic, but seeing as how there was probably nothing I could say to change this Facebook commenter's hostility to Rush, I didn't bother posting a response there. Better, I thought, to expose this self-admitted Rush hater's lunacy here.

Borrowing From Dan Aykroyd on Classic SNL: Andrea, You Ignorant Slut!

So NBC's Andrea Mitchell thinks Sarah Palin is ignorant for using the term "blood libel" to characterize the charges that she caused Jared Loughner to commit murder. Mitchell, it seems, is of the belief the term is only ever used to describe the historical claim that the Jews had once engaged in the ritual killing of children so that their blood could be consumed. Oh, how incredibly ignorant Ms. Mitchell, and anyone else who has parroted her belief, is:

Andrew Cohen of CBS News, May 7, 2008: “So-called “judicial activism” occurs, in other words, when it’s your side that lost the case and it is nothing short of a blood libel against judges to accuse them of operating by fiat.”

(...)

AP, July 28, 2008: “Just before Obama spoke, Newsday editor Les Payne had called “blood libel” the argument that African-American journalists could not objectively cover Obama’s candidacy.”

(...)

Frank Rich, New York Times columnist, October 15, 2006: “The moment Mr. Foley’s e-mails became known, we saw that brand of fearmongering and bigotry at full tilt: Bush administration allies exploited the former Congressman’s predatory history to spread the grotesque canard that homosexuality is a direct path to pedophilia. It’s the kind of blood libel that in another era was spread about Jews.”

On the chance that you may argue that Mitchell might say the above noted uses of "blood libel" are also steeped in ignorance, bear in mind that Alan Dershowitz (no ideological conservative is he) has come to the defense of Palin by confirming that the definitional scope of "blood libel" has become much broader than its historical context.

The WaPo's Big Fail

It's bad enough that Al Sharpton would actually have the chutzpah to write a column suggesting that he is a supporter of "being passionate toward what we believe in without also being poisonous." This from the guy who lost a defamation lawsuit for accusing a New York Assistant D.A. of raping a black female teen (Tawana Brawley) and incited a race riot in the Crown Heights area of Brooklyn ("If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house.").

No, what's worse is that a major "mainstream" paper like The Washington Post would give Sharpton a highly visible forum for his laughably disingenuous pontification. Borrowing from a blogger named Just Karl, I suppose we should next expect The WaPo to run a column on healing and reconciliation by Fred Phelps.

h/t

Obama's Commitment to Political Hackery on the Bench

After being returned to the White House last year with no action by Congress, President Obama has renominated 42 candidates to fill vacancies in the Federal judiciary. Among the list of renominated candidates is the Associate Dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall), Goodwin Liu.

As I previously asserted and posted here, here and here, Goodwin Liu is nothing short of a radical leftist ideologue who condones judicial activism. For those reasons alone, Liu's nomination to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals should be opposed. In terms of objective qualifications like years of practice as an attorney, Liu isn't even eligible to serve as a temporary (i.e., fill-in) judge in California small claims court. Kind of tells you something about Obama's underlying motives in nominating and renominating Liu, doesn't it?

Arnold Shores Up His Disastrous Legacy as Governor

Last year in June, the 21 year old son of former California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez was sentenced to 16 years in prison for the role he played in the killing of a college student in San Diego. In one of his last acts as California governor, Arnold commuted the sentence:

Schwarzenegger announced the move in a batch of eleventh-hour press releases e-mailed to reporters...

...Fabian Nuñez, a Democrat, grew close to the governor while speaker. The two worked together to pass the state’s landmark global warming law, which was a signature achievement of Schwarzenegger’s time in office. Fabian Nuñez is a business partner of the governor’s chief political advisor at the consulting firm Mercury Public Affairs.

I'd like to say I'm surprised by this, but I'm really not. The list of outrageous and idiotic things Arnold has done as governor is lengthy and extends back to the early days of his term. In 2004, for example, Arnold not only tried to give driver licences to illegal aliens, he signed a bill which basically protects pedophiles. More recently, of course, Arnold enacted the above mentioned global warming law, which is a job killer and based on junk science, and refused to defend the clear lawless striking down of Proposition 8, the California constitutional amendment which limits legally recognized marriages in the state as between one man and one woman.

All in all, Arnold's abuse of his authority for a political crony like Nunez is par for the course, which I guess is good if you're a left-wing political ideologue. For everyone else, it just confirms how much of a disaster Schwarzenegger's tenure as governor of California has been and will be remembered.

h/t

Being Smart Doesn't Immunize From Stupidity

In addition to being a long time judge on the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, Richard Posner is a prolific author of several high-minded books on the law and economics. Education-wise, Posner has a Bachelor's degree in English from Yale and he finished first in his class at Harvard Law School. Posner has also taught law at Stanford and the University of Chicago.

Outside of his impressive background in the law, Posner does not appear to have any formal education in theology, religion or religious history. I can't even find any information as to whether Posner is an adherent of a particular religious faith. With all this in mind, it wouldn't seem that Posner would be dumb enough to attempt to provide any public insights about the specific doctrines of Catholicism without at least doing some cursory research. Yet, Posner did exactly this with the comments he posted a couple of weeks ago on his blog. (See John Breen's excellent take down of Posner's attempt at being a theologian here.)

As much of an intellectual as Judge Posner obviously is, why would he do something so stupid as to discuss a topic that is clearly outside of his scope of knowledge? It's hard to be certain, but hubris and a condescending attitude toward the Church are probably significant factors. I haven't always agreed with Posner's conclusions on various issues about the law, but I at least respected him as a serious academic. The ignorant laden comments Posner has made about Catholicism has caused me to lose a great deal of that respect.

h/t

Ninth Circuit Panel to Hear Prop. 8 Appeal Announced

There are probably only a couple of living judges I can think of off the top of my head who could have written a worse legal justification than the one Judge Vaughn Walker wrote in striking down Proposition 8, the California constitutional amendment which limits legally recognized marriages as being between one man and one woman. Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is one such judge. I say this on the basis of a previous decision Judge Reinhardt once wrote where he proclaimed a constitutional right to physician assisted suicide, as well as his joining an opinion that basically found the Pledge of Allegiance to be unconstitutional.

Now comes word that Judge Reinhardt has been selected to be on the three judge panel that will hear the appeal of Judge Walker's asinine Prop. 8 ruling. This, despite the fact that Reinhardt once opined in another case that the Federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional. Think his fly might be just a little bit open here? Don't expect Reinhardt to exercise some integrity and recuse himself, though. When you're a liberal hack jurist, political ideology is king and it is indistinguishable from the law.

h/t

Update: As reported by Ed Whelan, Reinhardt's wife, Ramona Ripston, was not only a campaign contributor to the No on Prop. 8 campaign, she directly consulted with the plaintiffs who brought the lawsuit to challenge Prop. 8. Solid grounds for Reinhardt to self-disqualify, but again, don't expect it to happen.

Don't let that discourage you, though, from writing the court to let it know just how wrong it is that Reinhardt is on the panel to hear the Prop. 8 appeal.

Whoopi Poop

Rank hypocrisy by politically liberal celebrities is nothing new, as is their penchant for making mindless and unsubstantiated charges against people they think they disagree with. But I wanted to share Whoopi Goldberg's recent rant against bloggers (presumptively conservative ones, but maybe also liberals), because of the underlying homage it makes to one of the greatest fictional comics (in my slightly warped mind, at least) to grace this Earth - Triumph the Insult Dog.

They don't have to find out if they are even current in their information. They don't have to do any of that. And then that is picked up and made into some other story on another station, and it becomes the truth. See, I think fact outweighs assumption. So if you have facts in your hands, then you can talk, then you can have a conversation and say I hated what you did, blah, blah, blah. And I want to know who’s saying it so I can say, well, I think you're wrong here, you missed this. But you can't do that. People just, they poop on you and they walk away.

On a side note, I've seen an episode of Conan O'Brien's new show on TBS, and it seems really lacking.

Power Line's Unbecoming Self Righteousness

Shortly after TEA Party favorite Christine O'Donnell won the Delaware Republican Party nomination for U.S. Senate back in September, several prominent center-right blogs like Power Line persistently complained that O'Donnell was a bad choice and Delaware Republicans/TEA partiers were giving up an almost certain pick up of Joe Biden's old Senate seat with the "moderate" (i.e., liberal) Mike Castle.

Now that O'Donnell has since lost the election to self-described "bearded Marxist" Chris Coons, Paul Mirengoff at Power Line just can't refrain from basically wagging his finger at and telling O'Donnell supporters, "I told you so." Although the tone of self-righteousness is a bit subtle, it's nevertheless noticeable. But lost among the veiled condescension by Mirengoff is his failure to recognize the impact that he and his Power Line cohorts might have had in O'Donnell's predicted loss in the general election. It didn't help, for instance, that they lent legitimacy to the idiotic troll that O'Donnell had once dabbled in witchcraft - while she was in high school. Power Line also conveniently fails to mention the fact that Mike Castle acted like a complete sore loser and refused to back O'Donnell after she won the primary. Had Castle done so, I don't think it would have been unreasonable to believe that O'Donnell's chances of winning would have increased significantly.

Mirengoff concludes his blog post by expressing hope that conservatives don't repeat the "blunder" of nominating another Republican candidate like Christine O'Donnell. I just about wanted to punch through my computer screen when I read that.

2010 California General Election Recommendations

As I've previously blogged, this is the very first general election that I will not be voting as a registered Republican. Without any sense of obligation to support a a candidate just because he or she won the Republican primary, I can vote for whomever I want. And believe me, there are a few elected government positions where the Republican candidate is less than desirable from a conservative standpoint.

So, without further adieu, here are my recommendations for selected state-wide offices and ballot initiatives (I might add to or change the list if more information becomes available):

Governor - Meg Whitman Although Whitman is not really all that conservative, e.g., she is pro abortion rights and against Arizona's illegal immigration bill, she at least is pro-business and is the only viable alternative to Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown, who as far as I know, never held a private sector job in his life. I'm personally looking at my vote as not for Whitman, but against Moonbeam.

U.S. Senator - Carly Fiorina Almost a clone of Meg Whitman with a dash of the questionably conservative John McCain, a political mentor to Fiorina. A lot of state GOP establishment types, including Fiorina herself, have disingenuously claimed Fiorina is "pro-life." Fact of the matter is that all Fiorina has ever said is that she is personally against abortion. Fiorina has never said she is against abortion rights, and in fact has suggested she supports them as long as the voters of California do so. A cop out to be sure, but since the only alternative is Barbara "Please Don't Call Me Ma'am" Boxer, this is a another "hold your nose" ballot cast.

Lieutenant Governor - Karen England You're going to have to write England in, as she only recently got her campaign going for this almost useless office. The Republican nominated candidate, Abel Maldonado, is pretty much a Democrat in Republican clothing.

Secretary of State - Damon Dunn I think Dunn is a former NFL player. Anyway, a couple of friends are big supporters of his, so that's why I'm making this recommendation.

Treasurer - Mimi Walters Walters is a former Assemblywoman from Orange County who was very effective, and Bill Lockyer is a career political liberal hack from, if I remember correctly, the East Bay.

Attorney General - John Eastman Like England, you'll have to write Eastman in. He doesn't have an active campaign going, having lost in the primary to the Republican nominee Steve Cooley, but I'm writing Eastman in anyway because Cooley is liberal and Democrat Kamala Harris is even more of a liberal hack.

Superintendent of Public Instruction - Diane Lenning Another write-in candidate. Just do it.

California Supreme Court - Vote 'No' on Everyone (Cantil-Sakauye, Chin and Moreno) Cantil-Sakauye is untrustworthy in light of the report that she presided over a same-sex marriage during the period of time before Prop. 8 was approved by voters. Chin voted to strike down the law requiring parental notification when a minor seeks an abortion. Moreno is a flat out liberal political hack in a black robe.

Prop. 19 (Marijuana Legalization) - No I've actually kind of struggled with this recommendation, but because the initiative would be in direct conflict with operative Federal law, I can't support it.

Prop. 20 (Congressional District Drawing) - Yes If this passes, the drawing of district lines is taken out of the hands of the politicians whose main objective, of course, is to make sure they always have voters to keep them, and their party, in office.

Prop. 21 (Vehicle License Surcharge) - No Sounds like a tax hike.

Prop. 23 (Suspends Implementation of Air Pollution Control Law) - Yes The law this initiative would suspend is based on global warming junk science.

Prop. 25 (Simple Majority to Pass State Budget) - No This initiative states that the two-thirds vote requirement to impose and raise taxes would remain in place. However, not all taxes are called "taxes." Many are called "fees" for the specific purpose of avoiding the two-thirds vote requirement for taxes. You can bet there will be "fees" stuck in a state budget that requires only a simply majority to pass.

Prop. 26 (Fees Approved by Two-Thirds Vote) - Yes See above on Prop. 25.

Prop. 27 (Eliminates Commission on Redistricting) - No This is basically the exact opposite of Prop. 20. Not having a Redistricting Commission would perpetuate the existence and entrenchment of career politicians. That has obviously not worked well for California.