Pluted Pup <plutedpup@outlook.com> wrote:

California's legislature written Proposition 5 near-abolishes
Recall elections, like for Governor, by elimination of
elected successors, replacing them with appointments or
in-line successors, like successfully recalling the
Governor automatically appoints the Lieutenant Governor as
Governor.

This is just the entrenched machine trying to insulate itself from the democracy they're always saying is so important and needs to be protected
from the evol Orange Man. But the moment the people try to actually
practice that democracy, the reptiles do everything they can to stop it.

Vote no.

I'll probably vote for Proposition 39, supposedly a voter
ID measure, but am not sure. It ignores the most urgent
fault of California Elections which is the compulsory
absentee balloting sent to every voter since 2020

It may not solve every problem but it will add a sorely needed layer of election security that is currently lacking. There's no rational
non-criminal reason to oppose it.

Vote yes.

call it what you like, but it is an absentee ballot, and it is
compulsory, there is no Opt-Out or Opt-In.

You can't opt out of receiving the ballot but you don't have to use it. I
go in person to vote out of principle and to forestall the day when Newsom
or his mini-me replacement, that doorknob Javier Bacaria, decides we don't
even need polling places anymore and tries to eliminate them.

Proposition 40 is the opposite of a "graduated income tax",
which I support and may as well start, and would perhaps have
if the issue wasn't so universally taboo in the media,
whether by Bernie Sanders or the The Wall Street Journal. A
step down from Progressive Taxation is asset taxes, and these are
well accepted, like with Real Estate taxes. But this so-called
"Billionaires Tax" are not even asset taxes but more like
fines. I guessed this correctly when I saw the pro and con
arguments that referred only to "whys" with no references to
"how". The state mailing confirmed this although it tells me
that there's a buffering between 1 and 1.1 billion dollars but
basically it's like this: own 1 dollar less than a billion and
no tax is incurred in this Proposition, but with one additional
dollar a tax of 50,000,000 dollars is assessed. That's a fine,
not a tax. I figure this proposition is deliberately badly
written so as to be successfully fought off in the courts, so
it can serve as Symbolism rather than as actual activism, as it
is already doing. As a member of the Public I'm being told
that opposition to Prop 40 means I don't think the rich should
be taxed, but I do, which is why I oppose Prop 40. This is
a corrupt means of taxation. As a machiavellian proposal to
corrupt the tax system, moving from taxes to fines, spurring
opposition to any tax for the sake of opposing taxes itself?
Not even the picture of the teary sad face of opponent Sergei
Brin has convinced me I should vote for this deliberately badly
written law.

There's also language buried in Prop 40 which quietly gives the Assembly
the authority to expand this asset tax to anyone they like-- not just billionaires-- with a 2/3rds vote and no requirement of voter approval.

So basically once they get their foot in the door by taxing billionaires,
as their insatiable craving for more and more of our money grows, next
it'll be millionaires, then everyone. Especially as those high earners
leave the state to avoid the tax, they're going to need to expand it to everyone else to make up for the loss.

Vote no on 40 and yes on 41 and 42.

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