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If you want proof for the absolute insanity that has taken over our world especially among many individuals identified as the liberal left, there is no better example than what happened to the liberal Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept yesterday.
Like many people, I have been slowly moving away from The Intercept as a respectable online journalistic institution. Glenn Greenwald, in doing his job as any responsible reporter would do, had his article on the Hunter Biden fiasco censored by his editors mostly related to the fact that they believed the article was ‘election interference’ or ‘Russian disinformation’ and would harm the candidate that they all personally preferred. They said this to Glenn without providing any factual evidence. After this occurred, Glenn Greenwald resigned from the website. Not too long after, Glenn released a ton of information related to the actions of The Intercept and how this is a symbol of the increasing liberal censorship that has infected our online discourse. These articles need to be read to understand the tremendous change that is rapidly changing our culture for the worse. I believe this is an era where authoritarians intend on capturing this country and eliminating our financial, personal, and social freedoms while creating a surveillance technocracy over every citizen of this planet. You may have no interest in politics in your daily life. I have always believed that politics means nothing ‘Most of the Time.’ But there are moments in our life where paying attention to politics is vital to push back against forces that are trying to control or destroy you. This is one of those eras in American history. Here is his article on Joe Biden that was censored. His resignation from The Intercept. His email communique with his editors about the article. His interview with Tucker Carlson which is eye opening where he talks about the merging of the intelligence services, neo-conservatives and the liberal left wing Democrats. I updated my recommended websites and entertainment sections of my blog due to the rapid changes undergoing the journalism profession and the internet because of this ongoing censorship. Enjoy!
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Before beginning my first technology security blog, I want to reemphasize the importance of constantly being aware of the changes that are ever present in the technology industry. Data is the new currency in this 21st Century world. Whether personal, business, or social, your every online action creates some form of data. It is absolutely essential that you read the extremely long privacy policies and terms of use and find out what is being collected while using these “free” services.
I try to use text messaging services that are open source, encrypted and privacy focused. While it is possible that a corporation or government can still get a hold of these conversations through my phone, most of the text messaging services I have been used has been honest about the information they collect. Since many are open source, you can audit the code to confirm their claims. After getting my first phone which was a Motorola G2 in late 2014, I used the default Google Messenger application. After reading up on Google’s business model and watching WhatsApp get swallowed up and changed by Facebook earlier that year, I decided to find an alternative. I started using Signal which is the most famous privacy text messaging service in the world. But getting my friends and family to download and use it properly was an impossible task. So Signal was out. I did convince my wife and daughter to download Telegram which at least has allowed internal family conversations to remain private. But I needed a text messaging service for my friends, extended family, and work acquaintances. I came across Textra owned by the app maker Delicious. Their privacy policy states that they do not collect any personal data, but they do collect browsing information, your IP address, and any address you choose to link inside of a text message. While this is not a perfect system, I found Textra to be effective. The problem was that Textra was constantly causing me problems. I would get advertisements in the messenger. Paying a $2.49 cent fee eliminated that. But family members and friends were also informing me of technical problems like multiple text messages being received from one tweet. Others reported no text messages coming in at all. So with all the problems I had with this service, I had to change again. This brings me to Pulse Messenger. Created by the Klinker Brothers from Iowa, this application was perfect. With a privacy policy stating no collection of personal data along with encryption and the move to open source in 2019, I found my text messaging service. It worked perfectly from the first time I downloaded it on November 15, 2016. I quickly bought the lifetime subscription and had been religiously using this text messaging service on all my phones up to October 26, 2020. Then, something changed. I received this email from Pulse SMS yesterday with a new privacy policy and terms of service. If you use any application or program from a major technology company, then this privacy policy should be familiar. It has the same insidious surveillance capitalism tactics inside of it that you have come to expect from these tech behemoths. Besides collecting Log Data, Cookies, IP Addresses and many other forms of tracking, the sharing of my information with 3rd party service providers is just immoral. Read this part of the privacy policy below. “These third parties have access to your Personal Information only to perform these tasks on our behalf and are obligated not to disclose or use it for any other purpose. Service providers with whom we share your personal information include:
If you are concerned about your data going overseas, Pulse is no longer a viable option. Because: “Business Transfers. Klinker Apps, Inc. may sell, transfer, or otherwise share some or all of its assets, including your Personal Information, in connection with a merger, acquisition, reorganization or sale of assets or in the event of bankruptcy.” And this: “We may be involved in business activities in a variety of countries. You agree that Klinker Apps, Inc. and those with whom we share your Personal Information (“Recipients”) may disclose, transfer, process, and store your Personal Information outside of your country of origin to our affiliates, sponsors and partners, and any other third party service providers for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy.” So this was the nail in the coffin for me. I immediately deleted the application and downloaded the open source text messaging application QKSMS off F-Droid. This text messaging service caused me problems in 2015 and 2018 when I used it mostly revolving around their MMS service. But as of today, I have had no problems with the app…so far. So, who was the company that ruined my favorite text messaging application? The company is called Maple Media and was created as a private equity firm to buy applications that have at least 50,000 users. With the changing of the privacy policy and terms of use, they have every intention of mining as much data they can off consumers and selling it to advertisers. They were given 30 million dollars by Shamrock Capital to start with this type of business model. When you Google the purchase, it can not be found online. For some reason, Maple Media does not want anyone to know the applications they have been purchasing. The only resource I could find to confirm this was on Reddit. As I have mentioned previously, it is important to keep up on the changing nature of the technology companies. Especially in this day where online censorship is increasing and surveillance is ubiquitous, the online world is becoming fraught with hazards to your personal privacy. Be aware of everything and may peace be with all of you. Before closing this post, I have two things to add. A few months back, I had a post about the politicization of science and how we live in an era where multiple different scientific viewpoints can be seen as ‘true’ depending on who is presenting the information even if they are contradictory to each other. Well, this has happened again in relation to this virus. It is not my purpose to tell you which one to support. But these two petitions are in direct opposition to each other. First is the Great Barrington Declaration signed by hundreds of scientists and epidemiologists that want the COVID lockdowns to end and society to move forward with more responsible safety protocols and the protection of the elderly. The goal is to reopen society and our economies and create a sense of normalcy again in countries throughout the world. The second is called the John Snow Memorandum. No, this has nothing to do with fixing the ending of Game of Thrones and putting Jon Snow on the throne where he belongs. Even though when he led the Night’s Watch at the Wall, his leadership skills got him stabbed. This is a memo in direct contradiction to the Great Barrington Declaration that wants to maintain these lockdowns on every member of society until a proper vaccine can be created and distributed. Information on both of these petitions can be found here. Finally, congratulations to the Los Angeles Dodgers and their 2020 World Series title. That is two championships for the city this year counting the Lakers NBA title from earlier in October. Los Angeles is truly the city of champions. We need to talk about three important things: philosophy, the education system and technology.
In this current political climate, nothing I can tell you will likely sway your personal opinion. We are living in an age of post-structuralism where there is no defined truth, no creators and every experience is perceived through your own personal bias. Here is what Wikipedia says about post-structuralism, “Post-structuralism rejects the structuralist notion that the dominant word in a pair is dependent on its subservient counterpart and instead argues that founding knowledge either on pure experience or on systematic structures is impossible, because history and culture condition the study of underlying structures and these are subject to biases and misinterpretations.” A better definition of post-structuralism to me is deconstruction. While some elements of post-structuralism can be defended like personal perception, applying the philosophy to the entire world is very problematic. Post-structuralism is fatalistic and nihilistic. As a person who is a humanist and rationalist (Or Rational Humanist), I have a more ‘positive’ viewpoint of our world. According to Wikipedia, the definition of humanism is, “a philosophical stance that emphasizes the value and agency of human beings, individually and collectively. Humanism refers to a perspective that affirms some notion of human freedom and progress. It views humans as solely responsible for the promotion and development of individuals and emphasizes a concern for humans in relation to the world.” Rationalism is “the epistemological view that regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge or any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification. More formally, rationalism is defined as a methodology or a theory in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive.” Most importantly though, “rationalists assert that certain rational principles exist in logic, mathematics, ethics, and metaphysics that are so fundamentally true that denying them causes one to fall into contradiction.” I don’t believe in a post-structuralist viewpoint. The reason is that human beings have evolved over thousands of years by building upon basic truths found through discovery, experimentation, and the human experience. No matter what the education system tells me about mathematics being racist, 2.0 + 2.0 = 4.0. Can you get to five by adding the number 2 twice? Absolutely. Mathematics states that adding a decimal to the number two can get you to the number 5. For instance, 2.3 + 2.8 = 5.1. But it is also mathematically impossible to get any combination of 2 + 2 to equal 3. As another example and using societal ethics instead of mathematical logic as a basis for my argument, what country on this planet has not outlawed murder in some form? As citizens of this Earth, we have evolved to understand that taking another person’s life with a malicious intent is a crime that deserves some sort of punishment. These are basic rules that gives everyone an underlying structure to build their own lives. Again, the idea of post-structuralism is valid when it comes to artistic creation. Films, poetry, paintings, music, and any other artistic creation has a meaning that is very personal and objective to the person experiencing it. But outside of the “Arts”, Post-structuralism is extremely dangerous. Marxist websites fundamentally support this idea that was created by French philosopher Michel Foucalt in the 1960s. Understanding this aspect, it puts the motivations of the practitioners of this philosophy into context. Post-structuralists deconstruct society with the motivation of creating their own utopian ideals with the hopes that societies will alter their beliefs in the ways that are acceptable to them. Pivoting to the education system and since personal identity is so important to 21st Century educators, my personal identity is as a Croatian/Polish/English/French/German American seen as “white” who is a firm believer in the political ideology of ethical egoism (With a 21st Century belief system), the religious philosophy of agnosticism with a touch of Buddhist influence and a personal philosophy of rational humanism. Since I am 'white', my opinion on education probably means nothing. But according to documents you can find online, many educators are fully supportive of this post-structural concept as the future of education. But what is this system going to teach these children? How are important institutions relating to government, media, religion, and culture going to function if there is no defined ‘truth’ and every possible issue can be seen as each person's objective reality? This type of world is going to create chaos and insurrection for eternity while making it impossible to educate our children with any integrity, moral structure or a defined state of beliefs that is necessary for any child to find their 'path' through life. So what is the motivation for this push towards this new philosophy? That is the question that is difficult to answer since there is not much evidence to create a conspiratorial viewpoint. But there are a few pieces of evidence that can create a conversation. This is where our conversation diverts into technology. How long have we been told (Since at least the late 1990s) that technology was going to create ‘more opportunities’ for everyone, create ‘more freedom’, and be the tool that eliminates the oppressors from our planet? I have been hearing this nonsense since my daughter was born back in 1998. I never trusted technology. Like any technological evolution, you always have to weigh the good with the bad. So what has technology done as a positive? Well, it has given everyone a voice. This can also be seen as a negative. It has exposed some of the worst individuals on the planet and in one instance (The Arab Spring), it tried unsuccessfully to change an entire political climate. Until recently, the negative aspects of this technological change were actively ignored or dismissed while we allowed these monopolistic swamp creatures to accumulate immense power. The trillion dollar company Alphabet (Better known as Google) was partially created with CIA money. This has been known for decades. Why did anyone not think that surveillance and censorship were going to be the result of that partnership? The New York Post just exposed that many of the people who monitor Google for hate speech are Chinese Nationals who do not have the tradition of free speech that the United States has had. Since this post jumped around to so many topics, you are probably asking yourself, “ExpertofSome, how are you going to write yourself out of this mess?” I don’t really have that intention. I can just try to put a few of these puzzle pieces together but there is no hard evidence for the basis of my belief. If I add in my own blog from a few months back on the World Economic Forum’s attempt at global governance called The Great Reset, you can start linking together some of these ideas. Whether through a cultural philosophical change, a push to control our politics through censorship and outright blacklisting of stories, a social revolution like Black Lives Matter, a philosophical change in our education system, and what appears to be possible outside foreign influence on our country’s politics, there is an attempt being made to fundamentally alter our society. There are entities with power and money that are trying to impact and influence the United States by attacking our shared historical and cultural past. Tying back to my philosophical argument from the beginning of this post and linking it with these findings, post-structuralism cannot work as a structural philosophy. But if you need a philosophy to sow confusion and doubt about all of our institutions which can lead to revolutionary change of a system that you are opposed to; post-structuralism is the one. This philosophy was never about creating more ‘freedom’ and ‘diversity of thought’ as the media and our education system continue to tell us. This is about submitting to a new power structure that the globalists with the help of the Chinese want to enforce on the entire world. I believe this because the exact instance that the people who want control feel comfortable enough to exert their power, these philosophical and social revolutionary tools will disappear and be replaced by the propaganda tools that they will forcibly impose on us. Corporations have bought into this new world. Hence the censorship of stories that are 'inconvenient' to the narrative they want to promote. They have decided collectively that the economic system of the world needs to be based on the present day Chinese one. So they are going to do their best to attempt to enforce that system here domestically. We need to wake up to what is occurring or being censored for your pro-Trump post is going to be the least of your problems. **FINAL NOTE**: I have posted a lot of anti-Chinese articles here. I want to make myself clear. I oppose any trade or military war with China. But we need to understand that in our past quest for peace with China and opening up our economic system to them, they were not the honest brokers they appear to have been. Our country has been severely weakened economically because of our relationship with China through the loss of millions of jobs, trillions in economic activity and industrial espionage where the FBI director openly admits that this is leading to the destruction of ‘free’ societies. But we have no one to blame but ourselves in our pursuit of cheap electronics and clothing and the continual election of politicians who allowed the fleecing of our country to happen. **NOTE: I apologize again. My blogs on security will be delayed another week. This blog deals with an important issue; the re-opening of our schools.
Socialization is important. We live in a world where the ability to network and connect outweighs a person’s talent, skills, and qualifications. It is the most important thing that every college graduate should know upon receiving their Bachelor’s Degree. We are living in a global marketplace for work. You can split an atom and figure out how to create a new form of ‘nuclear power’ but if you can not reflect this talent back to the ‘right’ people (Yes, knowing the ‘right’ people to network with is an important skill), your talent will be wasted. Your success in life is built around luck more than anyone wants to admit. In the television industry, I was constantly surrounded by managers and supervisors who had no knowledge of how the industry operates that created rules that were in direct opposition to the tasks that needed to be done for a proper broadcast signal. How did they get into that position? 95% of the time, it was ‘networking.’ So why bring this up? Well, COVID-19 has managed to accomplish something that no other public-school policy of the last 20 years has managed to do. It is forcing me to pull my child out of the system. While I personally believe that public school education has regressed tremendously since my daughter graduated high school back in 2016, I still found some positive aspects to the system especially the need for exercise accomplished via recess and the socialization among your fellow peers in the classroom. Like many Californians, my son has been working virtually since March due to this pandemic. Now that in-person instruction is beginning again, the only beneficial aspects of the public education system are being taken away. Here are the re-opening conditions for Murrieta Valley School District. • Parents will need to complete a daily symptom checker (see form above) for each student daily before arriving to school. • Half of the students will be on campus during each AM/PM session. • Students will remain in the same classroom during each AM/PM session. • Face coverings are required for all staff and students in grades 3-5 . • Face coverings are strongly encouraged for students in grades TK-2. • Social distancing is mandated, and plexiglass shields will be at each desk. • Recess and lunch break will not be part of the daily schedule. • Breakfast and lunch will not be served during the AM/PM session, but weekly meal packs will continue to be available for pick-up on Thursdays. • Individualized student learning materials will be at each student’s desk. • Independent work will be assigned to all students when they are not on campus for in-person learning. • IEP processes will apply to special education students. • Enhanced health and safety procedures will be implemented. Even accepting the mask mandate for my child which does make me concerned for his health, these other requirements are a ‘deal breaker’. Individualized student learning materials? If that is the case, will each child get an ‘individual’ teacher to help them learn? He will get more attention from me teaching him at home than the occasional teacher dropping by to see his progress. Recess and lunch break Are Not Part of the schedule. How do they expect my child to maintain his friendships? How is he going to socialize which is an incredibly important life skill? Are the kids just going to yell at each other inside the classroom since everyone is ‘socially distanced’? How are kids going to respond when they want to play together, and a teacher comes up and forcibly separates them because they are not ‘socially distanced?’ Also, what is up with not being allowed to eat during his four hours at school? Because of this, I see no benefit in keeping my 9 year old son in public school. I will continue with my son’s homeschooling which I started back in June. He gets the same amount of attention from his parents and at least will feel some aspect of ‘freedom’ and ‘comfort’ at home instead of living inside of this fear based system which will not be good for his personal psychology. I am devastated for this generation of kids. I hope these lockdowns were worth it. Because we are destroying a generation of children and the important social skills they need to be successful members in our society. Not going to blog too much today. Just posting a few articles that are incredibly fascinating. These are all related to the “pandemic” virus which is looking less dangerous by the day. Here you go!
According to the New England Journal of Medicine, they have published a research paper about the conditions that need to be met to “forcibly” vaccinate a population. Since only 49% of Americans would take a COVID-19 vaccine, they are coming to the proper conclusion that most people will need to be ‘brainwashed’ or ‘coerced’ into taking this vaccine. Read this report for yourself. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2020926 The government agency known as DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) that brought you inventions like the internet and laser technology has a new invention awaiting our population that should send chills down your spine. They have a ‘microchip’ that can be implanted which will help you fight COVID-19 by altering your DNA. If this is horrifying to you, well, it should be. Anything that alters my DNA is not going inside of my body. https://www.theorganicprepper.com/darpa-biochip-covid-human-dna/ The true lethality of COVID-19 continues to decline. From the apocalyptic projects of 10% to 3.4% at the beginning of this “pandemic”, the WHO just released a new number based on their projections, 0.14%. They believe 10% of the world has been infected. The death toll from COVID-19 sits at just over one million. If you account for the fact that 780 million people have had the virus, this death toll is a statistical anomaly compared to the seasonal flu. Read for yourself. https://off-guardian.org/2020/10/08/who-accidentally-confirms-covid-is-no-more-dangerous-than-flu/ Just released today, the Chinese virologist that fled Hong Kong to tell us the truth about the origins of COVID-19 released her second document of evidence that this virus originated in a lab. Whether you believe her or not, the information she presents is fascinating. Read it for yourself here. https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/covid-19-unrestricted-bioweapon-whistleblower-releases-second-paper-alleging-large-scale Have a great weekend everyone! I will return on Tuesday. Go Padres! Before I begin this short evaluation of our upcoming election, I want to reinforce the importance of voting. Whether you realize it or not, voting on state and local/county propositions, measures and bills has more impact on your life than the actions of the next executive at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. In California specifically, there are some important propositions on the ballot. My first paragraph will be about the recent debate and what this says about the United States in 2020. I will also dedicate a paragraph to my presidential vote in this 2020 election and the logic behind my choice. Finally, I will lay out my votes on the California propositions while ignoring my votes for the US House, State Assembly and State Senate (Related to the fact that these are determined on where you live inside of the state). Here we go!
The first debate between Trump vs. Biden was a spectacular failure. The media continues to promote the idea that “our country is better than this debate.” Chris Wallace called the debate “a missed opportunity.” But was it really? Since Trump shocked Hillary Clinton in 2016, our media has been the biggest enablers of division and chaos in this country. Our social media companies through their use of ‘selective’ algorithms have created a system of division online that is unparalleled in human history. For a country that is much closer to a Civil War than anyone realizes, the debate was a perfect example of “Who we really are” in 2020. Trump’s rude interruptions tied around a stuttering and bumbling Joe Biden who was constantly on the defensive against Trump and not handling it well is a perfectly legitimate symbol of where this country is presently. Go onto any social media site online and you will quickly encounter left and right-wing individuals throwing virtual ‘feces’ at each other. Black Lives Matter and ANTIFA, openly Marxist organizations, are protesting, looting, and physically attacking anyone they perceive as a ‘fascist’ in our largest cities. Right wingers are patrolling streets in their small, often suburban, towns looking to protect businesses and individuals from violence while often getting wrapped up in it themselves. The country is in absolute chaos. Why shouldn’t our presidential debates devolve into a name calling extravaganza? Keeping this above evaluation about our debate in mind, I am going to punt on voting for either a Republican or Democrat for president. No matter who wins this upcoming election, the country is only going to be more divided than ever. Plus, I can not honestly vote for either person without being hopped up on some sort of hallucinogenic mushroom or numbed with pain killers, so my personal morality disappears from existence. While voting for Trump is tempting due to my personal affinity for liking rebellious people, I will not be able to look myself in the mirror on Wednesday and feel good about myself. Trump has probably done more in four years to help my family and myself more than the previous two presidents, Obama and Bush Jr, did during their combined 16 years. My family’s wealth has doubled. He has thrown out some corrupt trade agreements, got us out of the Paris Accords, has tried (and failed) to get us out of our Middle Eastern Wars, has instigated prison reform and has acted surprisingly federalist during these BLM riots when people were calling for violence against the looters. The problem is that the list of things that Trump has done wrong overlays his positive actions. His warmongering against Iran is disgusting. He has embraced the corrupt Federal Reserve and our economic practices despite the fact that he spoke out against them during the election, he has decided to prosecute Julian Assange and has not pardoned Edward Snowden. He has created a trade war with China which while legitimate in certain aspects (China has not been an ‘honest’ broker over the past 20 years), will inevitably lead to a new Cold War against the authoritarian communists in that country. So, knowing this ExpertofSome, why are you not voting for Joe Biden? This should be self-evident. The Democrats since 2016 have lost their minds in the exact same way that conservatives did during the Bush Jr./Cheney years. They are openly globalist and seem to not have the United States’ peoples’ best intentions at heart. Biden is reviving a system of government run by 24 years of Clinton, Bush Jr. and Obama that slowly destroyed the wealth of the American people. Our war mongering is likely to increase under a Biden administration. According to the “Great Reset”, Biden will likely be the person to begin the United States transition into a global governance system that no one inside this country actually wants. There is no real positive reason to vote for Biden no matter how anti-Trump you may be. Since 1992, here are my presidential votes. 1992: Just turned 18 and did not vote. I was more concerned about attending a “Nirvana” concert than voting for Clinton or Bush Sr. 1996: Independent Ross Perot 2000: Independent Ralph Nader 2004: Democrat John Kerry (Even though I can not change this vote, I later ‘rescinded’ it in my mind. Kerry is a bad guy.) 2008: Green Party Cynthia McKinney (Who I have a huge amount of respect for.) 2012: Write in Candidate Ron Paul 2016: Libertarian Gary Johnson 2020: Libertarian Jo Jorgensen In my seven previous presidential votes, I have voted only once for a mainstream candidate, Democrat John Kerry in 2004. I have never voted for the Republican candidate (Except for Ron Paul who was not the official nominee anyway). After this election, I will have voted for two women to be president. No one I have ever voted for has won a presidential election. So why am I picking Jo Jorgensen? Despite the fact that third parties are repressed and censored by the two major parties throughout this country which eliminates their realistic ability to win, Ms. Jorgensen has a platform that actually gets me excited (Unlike Gary Johnson). She is anti-war and will end all foreign interventions immediately. She is opposed to civil asset forfeiture, one of the most corrupt aspects of our local police and court system. She supports the idea of nuclear power and off grid solar power while the technology improves to eventually implement other forms of clean energy. She wants to return the power of education to parents and finally, she wants to break down the corrupt aspects of government. She fundamentally understands that many aspects of our government are broken and the only way to fix the problem is through elimination of that program. I have donated money towards Jo Jorgensen and wish her the best even though realistically, I already know that she has no chance of winning. But elections are about the person that inspires you. Jo Jorgensen is the only person who does. Finally, there are some interesting Propositions on the ballot. I am going to list my vote for these propositions. You don’t have to take my word for it. Go online and research these for yourself if you are a resident of California. PROP 14: 5.5. Billion Dollar Bond for Stem Cell Research – I am voting NO. The state should not be paying for this research. The pharmaceutical companies should be paying it. PROP 15: This law would amend the California Constitution to overthrow Proposition 13. It states in the bill that it would, “require commercial and industrial properties, except those zoned as commercial agriculture, to be taxed based on their market value, rather than their purchase price.” A NO vote would “continue to tax commercial and industrial properties based on a property's purchase price, with annual increases equal to the rate of inflation or 2 percent, whichever is lower.” This extra tax money would go to education and local governments. I am voting NO. Because if local governments and education programs need to raise money, they need to find a way to do it locally. It is unfair to burden a good percentage of the population that does not have children into paying for children’s education especially in protecting an education system that is spiraling downhill rapidly. PROP 16: This would repeal the Proposition 209 Affirmative Action Amendment of 1996. That amendment stated, “that the government and public institutions cannot discriminate against or grant preferential treatment to persons on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in public employment, public education, and public contracting.” The law in 1996 has worked well for our state. This new law would repeal this above language meaning that preferential treatment will likely return to this state. I am voting NO. PROP 17: This would allow felons on parole to regain their right to vote. Isn’t it stated that when you serve your time for a crime that you are supposed to get your voting rights back? The fact that felons are still banned from voting after release from prison is absurd. I am voting YES. PROP 18: Allow 17-year old’s that will be 18 at the time of the general election to vote in primary and special elections. This one is also absurd. When I was 18, I had no understanding of the complicated issues surrounding many election propositions and candidates. I would agree to this only if the 17-year-old showed some sufficient knowledge of the political system. So, I am voting NO on this one. PROP 19: This one is complicated and has to do with tax assessments on homes. It will harm people who inherit property but benefit elderly people who are disabled while adding money to wildfire agencies in the state. Since this is a very subtle tax increase, I am voting NO. PROP 20: This is an awful initiative. Another subtle law that will increase our prison population by adding crimes to the list of violent felonies, allowing certain types of theft to be prosecuted as a misdemeanor or felony and allowing DNA collection on misdemeanor offenders. Nothing about this initiative is positive. I am voting NO. PROP 21: This is the rent control initiative. If you want to know why this won’t work, just look at history. I am voting NO. PROP 22: This is the proposition that would void California Assembly Bill 5 which states that app-based drivers can be classified as employees or independent contractors. This would adjust that law to say that app-based drivers are independent contractors only. Since there is a lot of money behind this one and my hatred of the tech industry is growing, I am going to stick a gigantic middle finger in the air towards Lyft, Uber and other services and vote NO. PROP 23: This one is difficult because I do not know enough about Dialysis treatment to have an opinion. I will not be voting on this proposition. PROP 24: Create a state agency, the Privacy Protection Agency, to enforce consumer data protection laws. This sounds good in theory. But I will always believe that outside organizations would do better to monitor this behavior than a government agency would. Besides, it will be easier for big tech to capture a government agency and make it almost completely useless in its enforcement. I am voting NO. PROP 25: This would eliminate the California bail system and replace it with a system of risk assessments. I am voting YES. No matter how you personally feel, I hope everyone votes. Until next week! |
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September 2024
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