Mountain Views News, Sierra Madre Edition [Pasadena] Saturday, October 22, 2016

ENDORSEMENTS (continued from page B1)

PROPOSITION 60: ADULT FILMS. CONDOMS. 
HEALTH REQUIREMENTS. YES

Requires adult film performers to use condoms during 
filming of sexual intercourse. Requires producers to 
pay for performer vaccinations, testing, and medical 
examinations. Requires producers to post condom 
requirement at film sites. Fiscal Impact: Likely 
reduction of state and local tax revenues of several 
million dollars annually. Increased state spending 
that could exceed $1 million annually on regulation, 
partially offset by new fees.

PROPOSITION 61: STATE PRESCRIPTION DRUG 
PURCHASES. PRICING STANDARDS. NO

Prohibits state from buying any prescription drug 
from a drug manufacturer at price over lowest price 
paid for the drug by United States Department of 
Veterans Affairs. Exempts managed care programs 
funded through Medi-Cal. Fiscal Impact: Potential for 
state savings of an unknown amount depending on 
(1) how the measure’s implementation challenges are 
addressed and (2) the responses of drug manufacturers 
regarding the provision and pricing of their drugs.

PROPOSITION 62: DEATH PENALTY. YES

Repeals death penalty and replaces it with life 
imprisonment without possibility of parole. Applies 
retroactively to existing death sentences. Increases 
the portion of life inmates’ wages that may be applied 
to victim restitution. Fiscal Impact: Net ongoing 
reduction in state and county criminal justice costs 
of around $150 million annually within a few years, 
although the impact could vary by tens of millions of 
dollars depending on various factors.

PROPOSITION 63: FIREARMS. AMMUNITION 
SALES. YES

Requires background check and Department of Justice 
authorization to purchase ammunition. Prohibits 
possession of large-capacity ammunition magazines. 
Establishes procedures for enforcing laws prohibiting 
firearm possession by specified persons. Requires 
Department of Justice’s participation in federal 
National Instant Criminal Background Check System. 
Fiscal Impact: Increased state and local court and law 
enforcement costs, potentially in the tens of millions 
of dollars annually, related to a new court process for 
removing firearms from prohibited persons after they 
are convicted.

PROPOSITION 64: MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION.

NO

Legalizes marijuana under state law, for use by adults 
21 or older. Imposes state taxes on sales and cultivation. 
Provides for industry licensing and establishes 
standards for marijuana products. Allows local 
regulation and taxation. Fiscal Impact: Additional tax 
revenues ranging from high hundreds of millions of 
dollars to over $1 billion annually, mostly dedicated 
to specific purposes. Reduced criminal justice costs of 
tens of millions of dollars annually.

PROPOSITION 65: CARRYOUT BAGS. CHARGES.

NO

Redirects money collected by grocery and certain 
other retail stores through mandated sale of carryout 
bags. Requires stores to deposit bag sale proceeds into 
a special fund to support specified environmental 
projects. Fiscal Impact: Potential state revenue of 
several tens of millions of dollars annually under 
certain circumstances, with the monies used to 
support certain environmental programs.

PROPOSITION 66: DEATH PENALTY. 
PROCEDURES. NO

Changes procedures governing state court challenges 
to death sentences. Designates superior court for initial 
petitions and limits successive petitions. Requires 
appointed attorneys who take noncapital appeals to 
accept death penalty appeals. Exempts prison officials 
from existing regulation process for developing 
execution methods. Fiscal Impact: Unknown ongoing 
impact on state court costs for processing legal 
challenges to death sentences. Potential prison savings 
in the tens of millions of dollars annually.

PROPOSITION 67: BAN ON SINGLE-USE PLASTIC 
BAGS. YES

A “Yes” vote approves, and a “No” vote rejects, a statute 
that prohibits grocery and other stores from providing 
customers single-use plastic or paper carryout bags but 
permits sale of recycled paper bags and reusable bags. 
Fiscal Impact: Relatively small fiscal effects on state 
and local governments, including a minor increase 
in state administrative costs and possible minor local 
government savings from reduced litter and waste 
management costs.

NEXT WEEK: CANDIDATE ENDORSEMENTS

B4

OPINION 

Mountain Views-News Saturday, October 22, 2016 

 Rich Johnson

Mountain 
Views

News

PUBLISHER/ EDITOR

Susan Henderson

PASADENA CITY 
EDITOR

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CONTRIBUTORS

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Rich Johnson

Merri Jill Finstrom

Rev. James Snyder

Dr. Tina Paul

Katie Hopkins

Deanne Davis

Despina Arouzman

Renee Quenell

Marc Garlett

Keely Toten

THE TRANSMISSION 

IS STILL STUCK 

ON POLITICS

(Intrepid Columnists Note: This column is 
from 2008. Amazing how apropos it still is 
eight years later).

 

All right, I surrender. Since we have less 
than a month before the elections, your 
columnist might as well cave in, jump on the ice float and ramble 
on about what else…politics. I think I am going to vote for the 
candidate that says the least over the next few weeks. How about 
you?

 I realize I have picked on Republicans and Democrats but left 
Congress as an entity unto itself alone. If George Bush has a 29% 
approval rating and Congress has somewhere between 9 and 
15% how come Congress isn’t getting hammered as much as our 
commander in chief? 

 Of course, if we are going to discuss Congress I am going to fall 
back on my political hero, Will Rogers. Let’s see what he had to say 
about our distinguished bi-cameral body of legislators.

 As to why there are two bodies of legislators Mr. Rogers said,

 “You see, in Washington they have two of these bodies, Senate 
and the House of Representatives. That is for the convenience of 
visitors. If there is nothing funny happening in one, there is sure 
to be in the other, and in case one body passes a good bill, why, the 
other can see it in time and kill it.”

 “If we took Congress serious, we would be worrying all the time.”

 “Our Senate always opens with a prayer, followed by an 
investigation.”

 “A foreigner coming here and reading the Congressional Record 
would say that the President of the United States was elected solely 
for the purpose of giving Senators somebody to call a horse thief.”

 As to pork barrel spending, Mr. Rogers said, “The height of 
statesmanship is to come home with a dam, even if you have 
nowhere to put it.”

 On lobbyists, “California had a bill in to investigate lobbying, 
and the lobbyists bought off all the votes and now they can’t even 
find the bill. Putting a lobbyist out of business is like a hired man 
trying to fire his boss.”

 “Hurray! Congress is to adjourn! Only four more days of the 
Congressional burglary of the Treasury!”

 “Every newspaper in the United States runs what you say, even if 
you don’t say anything. Look at the President. Every paper was full 
of what he didn’t say.” 

 It’s amazing to this reporter the perception of the people toward 
our elected officials hasn’t changed in all these years. The only shift 
has been the ever increasing invasion in our lives of the media. 

 I have a thought: Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a law where the 
candidates could only discuss what they individually would do if 
elected and had to keep mum about their opponent? 


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LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN

TRUMP’S PUT HIS BANANA 
REPUBLICANISM ON DISPLAY 
TO THE WORLD

 MAKING SENSE by Michael Reagan

JOHN L. Micek

If there was any 
doubt as to the singular 
and unique 
danger that Donald 
Trump poses to 
American democracy, 
the Republican 
took those 
doubts and burned 
them to the ground on Wednesday night.

Standing on a stage at the University of 
Nevada, Las Vegas, Trump actually said, 
out loud, in full view of the television 
cameras, that he might not accept the 
results of the Nov. 8 election if he loses.

“I will tell you at the time,” Trump said 
under questioning from the debate’s 
moderator, Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, 
who’d pointed out that both GOP 
vice presidential candidate Mike Pence 
and Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, had said 
they’d accept the results. But not Trump. 
“I will keep you in suspense,” he said.

Even by Trump’s own crass standards, it 
was an admission shocking in its narcissism 
and depressing in the depths of its 
banality. In a quick interjection, Democrat 
Hillary Clinton cut to the heart of 
the matter: “That’s horrifying,” she said.
And even that is an understatement.

Trump has claimed that he’s running to 
start a populist revolution, that he’s the 
spokesman for the “forgotten” working 
man. At his core, Trump is, and always 
has been, an authoritarian.

From vows to open libel laws to persecute 
critical journalists and claims in 
Cleveland that “he alone” held the solutions 
to America’s problems to his 
boast at the last presidential debate that 
he would jail his opponent, the warning 
signs have been there from the start.

On Wednesday, they were illuminated 
with spotlights and painted in neon.

In a move unprecedented for any major 
party candidate, Donald Trump struck a 
blow at the heart of America’s electoral 
system, which is premised on the notion 
of a peaceful transition of power and the 
acceptance of the results.

Ever conspiracy-minded, Trump has 
spent the closing weeks of the campaign 
preparing his supporters for his defeat, 
even as he planted the seeds that someone 
else - not his own awful candidacy 
- might be the architect of that defeat.

“So let me just give you one other thing,” 
he said. “So I talk about the corrupt media. 
I talk about the millions of people 
-- tell you one other thing. She shouldn’t 
be allowed to run. It’s crooked -- she’s -- 
she’s guilty of a very, very serious crime. 
She should not be allowed to run.”

It’s a hateful gambit that’s borne fruit.

Some of Trump’s supporters have spoken 
of defying an eventual Clinton 
White House. Those at the borders of 
both credibility and stability have spoken 
openly of armed insurrection.

Going into the third debate confrontation 
between two candidates who clearly 
neither like nor respect each other, it was 
tough to imagine what new nugget of information 
or fresh insight voters could 
glean about either Clinton or Trump.

Wallace rightfully forced Clinton to explain 
the controversial Clinton Foundation 
and the apparently porous walls 
between its donors and the Clinton-run 
State Department.

Clinton was effective, however, in explaining 
the good work her family’s 
organization had done, juxtaposing it 
against Trump’s highly questionable 
wielding of his own foundation.

But it was a rare uncomfortable spot 
for Clinton, who remained in control 
of the debate for most of the night on 
Wednesday.

Time and again, she lured Trump into 
rhetorical traps. And the Republican, 
either blithely unaware, or simply uncaring, 
traipsed into them.

But it was in her comments about 
Trump’s disregard for the electoral process 
that she made perhaps one of her 
most effective arguments.

“He lost the Iowa caucus. He lost the 
Wisconsin primary. He said the Republican 
primary was rigged against him,” 
Clinton said. “Then Trump University 
gets sued for fraud and racketeering; he 
claims the court system and the federal 
judge is rigged against him. There was 
even a time when he didn’t get an Emmy 
for his TV program three years in a row 
and he started tweeting that the Emmys 
were rigged against him.”

She continued:

“This is -- this is a mindset. This is how 
Donald thinks. And it’s funny, but it’s 
also really troubling ... He is denigrating 
-- he’s talking down our democracy. 
And I, for one, am appalled that somebody 
who is the nominee of one of our 
two major parties would take that kind 
of position.”

Clinton was being charitable calling 
Trump merely appalling.

He is spectacularly unfit for the White 
House. And his remarks Wednesday 
amply demonstrate why he deserves to 
be defeated.


TRUMP TRUMPS TRUMP

Trump had his best debate in Nevada.

Instead of 90 minutes of him denying 
his alleged minor sexual aggressions, 
some actual issues were discussed 
-- the Supreme Court, the economy, 
trade, terrorism, immigration, guns and 
abortion.

And before he jumped the tracks, 
Trump scored a few solid hits on the 
crookedness of the Clinton Foundation 
and Hillary’s serial lies to the FBI, Congress 
and the American people.

Not that anyone in the liberal media really 
cared.

During the debate half the Friends 
of Hillary who pass themselves off as 
honest journalists were either too busy 
cheering their sweetheart or jeering 
Trump to take notes.

It really didn’t matter much.

They were only waiting for Trump to 
say something they considered politically 
offensive so they could start pounding 
out their selective outrage and disgust 
on their laptops and smartphones.

Did Trump call Hillary “a nasty woman”? 
Did he refer to illegal immigrants 
who commit crimes as “bad hombres”? 
Did he call Hillary “a puppet” first, or 
did she call him one first?

Though the Hillary Media tried to make 
each of those trumpisms into a war 
crime, after 15 months they weren’t 
newsworthy. They were just new variations 
of the stuff Donald always says.

In the end, however, Trump didn’t disappoint 
Hillary’s fanboys and fangirls in 
the press room.

When he told moderator Chris Wallace 
he wasn’t willing to say there and then 
that he’d automatically accept the results 
of the election and might challenge 
them if he thought there was something 
fishy, it wrecked his whole night.

It may have been common sense, but it 
guaranteed that the Hillary Media would 
get up early and spend all day Thursday 
talking about Dictator Trump being 
an unprecedented enemy of American 
democracy, violating the sanctity of 
the ballot box, threatening the peaceful 
passing along of power, etc., etc.

The journalists were too partisan to remember 
Al Gore not conceding in 2000 
and other Democrats — like Hillary, 
Bernie and Barack — using the “rigged” 
word to describe various aspects of the 
electoral process. 

If Trump says the 
system is rigged, 
Western Civilization 
is at risk.

It’s not that the 
Hillary Media 
would have been 
talking about the 
latest Wikileaks 
revelations or investigating 
what the holy Clinton Foundation 
did wrong in Haiti.

But Trump’s mistake made it easy for 
them to continue ignoring Hillary, her 
health issues and the workings of her 
crime family.

Trump’s mistake also did not help the 
Republican Party’s chances to keep the 
Senate and House this fall.

“Will you respect the results of this election?” 
was probably the first question 
the local news media asked every Republican 
in America running for Congress 
or dogcatcher on Thursday.

Thanks to Trump’s self-made distraction, 
Republican candidates couldn’t get 
their messages out to the public in the 
same way Trump couldn’t get out his.

Trump won’t change. He can’t change, 
no matter how much help his trainer 
Kellyanne Conway gives him. He can’t 
pivot. He can’t refute Hillary’s lies in 
any detail.

He can’t even look presidential. Hillary 
can fake a grandma smile with the best 
of them, but Trump wore a permanent 
scowl at the debate. 

Winston Churchill had perpetual scowl 
too, but in case you haven’t noticed, 
Donald is no Winston Churchill.

Trump didn’t help himself at the debate. 
In fact, he may have pounded the last 
nail into his own coffin.

We’ll find out in a little more than two 
weeks.

I just hope that if in early November the 
polls show he’s going to get blown away, 
he doesn’t go into a scorched-earth policy 
like Jimmy Carter did in 1980.

Carter conceded early on Election Day 
– 5 p.m. Pacific time. That affected voter 
turnout on the West Coast and Democrat 
down-ballot candidates were hurt. 

Trump may have no chance of winning, 
but for the sake of the Republican Party 
and the country he needs to fight all the 
way to the finish. The only thing worse 
than President Hillary is President Hillary 
and a Democratic Congress. 


Mountain Views News

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