In California: Does your vote matter?

Oy vay. Once again, it's the last minute and I'm writing about propositions and candidates. Some day, I'll write ahead of time. The following are just my thoughts-- you're welcome to share, disagree, ignore :)

Prop 1: The Water Bond

You'd think I'd be thrilled. Have you read it? Here's my problem with it: (1) costs to taxpayers- $360 MILLION a year annually for the next 40 years. (2) the repeated refrain of "funds to be used for wildlife, habitats, restoring watersheds." Why does that just sound like a huge boondoggle, which does nothing to actually build storage systems for water? Oh wait, of the $7.1 billion bonds, $2.7 is for new storage except that funds are to be used for (and I quote) "only to be used to cover costs for "public benefits" such as restoring habitats, improving water quality...improving recreation."  $810 million for regional water projects intended to improve water supplies such as "habitat for fish" and flood protection etc etc. All the earmarked $$ amounts say the same things.

AT WHAT POINT IN TIME IN OUR DROUGHT DO WE STOP WORSHIPING THE ENVIRONMENT and start SOLVING THE PROBLEMS?

I predict it will pass because no one has bothered to read it. Years from now, we'll still have no water storage and a ton of debt, but at least the fish will be happy.

Prop 2: Rainy Day Fund

How is this possibly a "rainy day fund" when the Proposition states specifically "add 1.5% of general revenue into the Budget Stabilization Account (BSA, the existing rainy day fund) until it reaches 10% of general fund revenue except: from 2015-2030 50% of deposits must be used to pay for fiscal obligations such as budget loans and unfunded state pension plans, permits the legislature to suspend or reduce the deposits to the BSA or withdraw from the BSA when the governor declares a "budget emergency."

So how is this a rainy day fund again??  How about we just QUIT SPENDING MONEY WE DON'T HAVE ON things like puddles for fish??

Prop 45: Insurance Company Rates

I don't know about you, but I am really over the government telling my insurance company what to charge, what to cover, blah blah blah.

Prop 46: Medical Malpractice

Really? Call me old-fashioned, but I figure in the unlikely event your doctor actually commits a crime by performing a medical procedure on you while intoxicated or high...well...maybe jail is a better alternative for him/her than a bazillion dollars for you?  I mean, wouldn't the public good be better served by that than by a money payout? I just see malpractice rates for the good  doctors skyrocketing which will incline them to set up shop somewhere else in the USA.

Prop 47: Reduces penalties for "some crimes"

Translation: let the dopers go free. Trying to figure out (and failing) how passing this law will result in an increase in revenue of $150-250 million, of which 25% will go to the Board of Education, and that somehow, releasing 10,000 inmates into the population due to their sentences being reduced will make our (and I quote) "schools and neighborhoods safer."

Prop 48: Indian Gaming Compacts

Originally gambling was supposed to be restricted to reservation land (Morongo et all.) Somehow Hawaiian Gardens (near Los Angeles) is "tribal land" and that city now looks like a ghetto. This proposition would allow building MORE of these casinos on citified-land which can be traced back to a tribe. NEWSFLASH: that's pretty much the entire state of California, meaning there would be little or no restriction on where casinos could be built.

People running for office:

Here's the standard against which I am measuring candidates this year: does the candidate believe that Government should be concerned chiefly with providing infrastructure and security to its citizenry or does the candidate believe that government's role is to micromanage every aspect of our daily lives?

Jerry Brown, Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsome believe in the latter (someone explain to me how a statewide plastic bag ban, which Moonbeam signed and Harris supported, improves infrastructure or provides for the common defense?) I believe that Jose Solorio is cut from that same cloth, more importantly, I know that electing JANET NGUYEN to the California Senate will change the balance of power and break the stranglehold of the dictatorship we have been living under. Here in Orange county, as much as I'll hate to lose him from Huntington Beach City Council, Matt Harper has a proven track record of adhering to the former. So does Alan Mansoor, but the RINO machine for Michelle Steele is outspending him 4:1.

Here in Huntington Beach, Erik Peterson and Lyn Semeta believe strongly in the former. There are a host of great candidates to back them up: Alexander Polsky, Mike Posey, Barbara Delglieze, Billy O'Connell. If you are looking to put Huntington Beach back on the right track, you will not go wrong voting for anyone except for the dictatorship of Joe Shaw, Connie Boardman and their shadow Mark Bixby.

For the record: Maryland! PLEASE ELECT DAN BONGINO !!

Your vote matters. There are too many idiots in California who will vote in Brown, Harris and Newsome, but you CAN stymie them by changing the balance of power in the Senate and sending good, honest people to the State Assembly. You can take back your city one council at a time. And you can use common sense when voting for propositions and stop the government micromanagement in your lives.