This election is extremely important. The country is just plain jacked up. The Republican controlled Congress is completely dysfunctional. The civil war we're trapped in the middle of over in Iraq is keeping us from pursuing Al-Qaeda and dealing with nuclear proliferation. Our Governor isn't getting hardly anything done for us. And when he does get something done, it's usually against us. It's time for change in Washington and Sacramento. Good thing we get to have our say on November 7th.
My recommendations are below he flip.
Candidates: State.
I won't go through them all. These are the most important to me.
- Phil Angelides for Governor. Simply put: Phil's been doing an outstanding job for Californians for many, many years. He's been at the top levels of ` our state government for ages and has never let us down. He's a pro at this. Arnold, on the other hand, has been governor for a while now and he's still a n00b. He's been largely ineffective in a time when we need real leadership the most. He's fired. Vote for Phil.
- Debra Bowen for Secretary of State. Here's what happened. Diebold made a bunch of voting machines that are so flawed, they've been dubbed "Auto-fraud" machines. It's been proven that elections have been tampered with using these. We figured that out and decided not to use them unless we'd have a paper record of the vote we could recount if things were fishy in an election. Then Bruce McPherson became Secretary of State and undid that. He made sure the voter fraud machines were back in place. So we don't know if the vote we're casting is the vote they're counting. Debra Bowen wants to make the elections secure against this type of fraud again. That's hardly a choice at all. A vote for Debra Bowen is a vote for Democracy. She's the only sane choice for California.
Candidates: Federal.
We let the Republicans run the Congress and they failed miserably. Abramoff bribery, Foley stalking children while they turned a blind eye and completely ignoring their duty to hold the President accountable for Iraq, Katrina, Torture, Illegal spying on Americans and countless other disasters. They're incompetent and stubborn. It's time for grown-ups to be in charge for a change. It's time to flush the toilet that is the Republican controlled Congress. Here are some of the more important Congressional races:
- If you live around Pleasanton, Tracy, Stockton or Manteca: Vote for Jerry McNerney and get rid of Pombo. This is a no-brainer. Richard Pombo was so in bed with Jack Abramoff for his dirty money, you'd think he was a prostitute instead of a congressman. And he took a kings ransom from big oil while you continued to pay steadily rising prices at the pump and they made the highest profits in our nations entire history. Jerry McNerney on the other hand is a polar opposite of Pombo. He's not in bed with Big Oil. He made his money as a small businessman designing wind turbines so we wouldn't have to be pushed around by those guys. And he's fed up with the lack of integrity and honesty in the house. He wants to restore some dignity to his community's seat in Congress.
- If you're from Roseville: Vote for Charles Brown. Short version: Doolittle, the incumbent, is the subject of a federal corruption investigation involving Jack Abramoff. Another crook. Charles Brown retired from the Air Force a decorated Lieutenant Colonel. Then he cleaned up a community credit union, got his teaching credential and provided leadership and professional skills to the local police. Charles Brown is like the citizen equivalent of a superhero. His opponent, John Doolittle is a superZERO caught up in a corruption scandal. Vote for Charles Brown. Drop the zero and get with the hero.
- If you're from sunny San Diego: Vote for Francine Busby. Bilbray is one of Abramoff's buddies. And he's following in his footsteps. Francine Busby isn't mixed in with of all this corruption. She's served her community teaching college and serving as a trustee of her local school board. She's a grown-up who's ready to take serving her community to the next level. Vote for Francine Busby. Congress needs more adults and fewer crooks.
Propositions
- 1a - N We spend $20 billion a year on maintaining roads and stuff. The gas tax doesn't nearly cover that. The shortfall is made up for by the general fund. And this new proposition doesn't stop the revenues from being borrowed by the general fund. Just seems kinda pointless. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
- 1b - Y By the time we'd save up the money to fix our roads, they would have crumbled into nothingness. And getting the money World Bank style is for suckers. But the work needs to be done, so I'm gonna swallow my pride and endorse issuing all these bonds.
- 1c - Y Same reason as 1b, but this is for low income housing and women's shelters.
- 1d - Y Same reason as 1b, but this is for school facilities.
- 1e - Y Same reason as 1b, but this is for avoiding a katrina-style post-disaster clusterfuck.
- 83 - N This would mandate that people be fitted with GPS tracking devices that stay with them for the rest of their lives. If our society believes in rehabilitation as the goal of our criminal justice system, then this measure it too extreme. That being said, there is a global industry of tracking device and RFID manufacturers lobbying hard to implant said devices under people's skin. We already put them in our pets. The Mexican government requires high level staff to have them. If we start down this slippery slope, eventually we'll all be implanted with tracking devices. Maybe it'll be our employers. Maybe it'll be the cops. But it's not the America I want to live in. This lobby is using the stigma of sexual predators to lube up this slippery slope. And I don't swing that way.
- 84 - Y If you don't have good water, you don't have a good life. Yes on 84 means freedom from gagging on the cup and freedom to live.
- 85 - N When states have enacted laws requiring parents to be notified when their daughter wants an abortion, what invariably ends up happening is that a father rapes his daughter, finds out about the abortion then murders his daughter. Vote no on murder. Vote no on 85.
- 86 - Y Cigarettes killed my father. I believe they should be too expensive for children to buy with their allowance.
- 87 - Y If we don't kick our oil addiction, there will be a world war over the stuff in about 15 years. Only thing is, in WW2, nobody had nukes till the very end. This time everybody involved will have them. We need to wean ourselves off the petro-smack now or die in a nuclear hellfire. Let's be the first state in the union to have the balls to do it.
- 88 - N There are better ways to fund our schools. And this one has crazy tax bits
- 89 - Y Clean money so regular people like you and me can run for office against evil millionaires* or corporate sell-outs and have a real chance of getting elected. Admit it: we need more people like you and me in office. Vote for it. (*not all millionaires are evil, but the evil ones are hard to out-fundraise.)
- 90 - N This is just a ploy rich landowners thought up to dick around with eminent domain. It benefits them and weakens the majority of us. Screw 'em. They don't need our help.