The rest of the equation
In regards to your January 28th opinion by Bay Area News Group’s Patrick May: “Trump says illegal votes cost him California, here’s why that’s preposterous”.
Mr. May inundated your readers with many figures and suppositions that rightfully suggest President Trump’s California voter assessment is wrong. Mr. May’s degradation of Mr. Trumps comment is obviously politically pointed and has little merit. However, his mutable theory has jogged this conservative patriot’s interest in plugging a few more values into the equation.
Justifying Hillary Clinton’s landslide victory in California as opposed to much smaller margins of victory in all the other states where she was victorious, does make one ponder.
As California Libertarians and Republicans, we have long been struck by how meaningless our votes are while surviving in this progressive paradise. As patriotic citizens we always vote, but wonder if others even bother. While witnessing the Hillary Clinton California plurality that gave her the most popular votes nationally, we can only imagine how many non-Democrat voters stayed home knowing how insignificant their vote would be!
For many decades now, the California Democrat party has skillfully purchased votes by supporting illegal immigration with shady voter registration and expansion of the welfare system. In addition, they constantly move voter districts to favor Democrat candidates and have spearheaded the “open primary” system which exploits their overwhelming majority that can keep Republican candidates off the ballot. Is that skillful politics or what? [Editors note: many states, in particular Texas, gerrymander their districts. The overwhelmingly Democratic city of Austin, Texas, is in a district so rigged it continually elects Republicans. In other words, this is not a California issue but a national one — and one that plays both ways. It is useful to get the conversation started on this issue — although Mr. Talbott used a better term: ‘skillful politics’].
Somehow, our founders had the wisdom to protect the nation, and states with smaller populations, from one party dominance by creating the electoral college. The checks and balance structure of our representative bodies further protect our system of national governance from the potentially ill effects of local, one party control.
So how did California’s one-party dominance take root? Many point to the over whelming majority of liberal professors in our state universities and the Democrat controlled teachers union. They have indoctrinated the hearts and minds of our children with liberal thoughts for decades. Perhaps they’ve torn a page from the failed Soviet Union’s Vladimer Lenin’s playbook, who once quoted: “Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.” Though his teachings suffered during the collapse of the Soviet Union, they still remain today.
When periodic efforts are put forth to thwart illegal voter registration, by requiring photo identification at time of registration and at the poles, the Democrats are quick to reject such action. So ask yourself, why would anyone oppose this requirement to eliminate voter fraud if their seriously committed to honest elections? Just sayin.
Ron Talbott, Witter Springs
Misguided defiance
Leona Butt’s recent letter to the editor in the Record-Bee quantifying and clarifying the negative impacts of illegal immigration on our society was both comprehensive and irrefutable. California’s senseless defiance to President Trump’s plan that all immigration be legal is simply disgusting.
California’s misled money hungry government is constantly inventing new and creative laws and methods to absorb and soak excessive amounts of money from hard working, tax paying legal citizens to squander on themselves and illegal immigrants. It will be very interesting to see how well this defiance stands up when this state is hit in the pocketbook by a President who actually does what he says in justifiable support of us who put him in office.
Sorry Folks, we win, you lose.
Craig Stankiewicz, Kelseyville
In support of cannabis cultivation
In general, government entities don’t directly create private sector jobs, however with the passage of prop 64, we have a unique opportunity to create hundreds of private sector jobs and bring financial support to small farmers in Lake County.
The board of supervisors has the ability to create these jobs by simply passing a sensible cannabis ordinance. Small farmers with type 1, 2 and 3 licenses can generate enough money on plots smaller than an acre with minimal capital investment (such as tractors, combines, etc) and a very small environmental footprint. Cannabis cultivation is perhaps the only crop that truly gives small farmers an opportunity to profitably support themselves and at the same time add to the tax base of this county.
Furthermore, a sensible ordinance will help bring some of the illegal growers into compliance. This benefits all and reduces crime, environmental risk and again adds to the much needed tax rolls. Writing an ordinance that encourages participation and reduces illegal growing, should be one of the central themes of the ordinance, balanced with public safety and environmental considerations.
What do I mean by sensible? Remove onerous and expensive requirements, like the multiple monitor well and metering requirement. Cannabis uses the least water of any of the “typical agriculture” grown in Lake County. Requiring small farmers applying for type 1-3 permits, to drill multiple monitor wells is a financial showstopper for nearly all small farmers and will yield little useful information toward understanding the impact of water usage to the aquifer. Use reasonable zoning and setback requirements so as to broaden who can qualify for a permit without being zoned out of business.
If the planning department were to apply the question “Will this requirement hurt small farmers; and if so how should it be written to encourage them?” to all the requirements in the proposed 96 page ordinance, I suspect the ordinance will become much simpler and less onerous both in terms of applicability and cost to small farmers and existing growers, while still maintaining important safeguards for the community at large.
I urge the board of supervisors to take this once in a lifetime opportunity to create hundreds of jobs, and pass a sensible cannabis ordinance that looks after Lake Counties small farmers.
Robert Lipari, Middletown
