Good Riddance, Motherfuckers

It looks likely that a wealth tax is probably heading to the ballot in California, and once again, rich psychopaths are threatening to leave it it passes.

When one looks at the effects of the billionaire class on a society.

If they stay, they pay the tax.

If they leave, they are no longer a feature of California politics, and their colossal compounds will be subdivided and occupied by mere centimillionaires, and their former properties will be subdivided  and occupied by mere decimillionaires, and so on down the line, freeing up scarce housing resources for the ordinary people.

Billionaires are a drain on society, not an asset, and their wealth is used to bid up nedcessities like housing for the rest of us.

Billionaires including Peter Thiel, the tech venture capitalist, and Larry Page, a co-founder of Google, are considering cutting or reducing their ties to California by the end of the year because of a proposed ballot measure that could tax the state’s wealthiest residents, according to five people familiar with their thinking.

Mr. Thiel, 58, who owns a home in the Hollywood Hills and operates a personal investment firm from Los Angeles, has explored opening an office for that firm, Thiel Capital, in another state and spending more time outside California, three of the people said.

Other billionaires who appear to be making moves to decrease their presence in California include Mr. Page, 52, a longtime resident of Palo Alto. He has discussed leaving the state by the end of the year, according to two people briefed on the talks. In mid-December, three limited liability companies associated with Mr. Page filed documents to incorporate in Florida, according to state records.

The moves are being driven by a potential California ballot measure from the health care union, Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, the people said. The proposal calls for California residents worth more than $1 billion to be taxed the equivalent of 5 percent of their assets.

Not good enough.  You need to start lower down, ½% of $100,000,000.00, and stepping up by ½% for every additional centibuck in value.you get to 5% at a billion.

Also don't plateau until you get to $10 billion (10%), at least. 

It would be only be on the amount above the line, as it works in income tax, so if one is worth $100,000,200.00, you would be charged $1.00 in taxes.

To quote Br'er Rabbit, "Don't throw me in that briar patch!" 

 

 

Hopefully, It Will Stick This Time

After having having an earlier plebiscite overturned by the DC City Council, the lower tipped wage has been repealed in yesterday's elections.

Good.

This time, the DC council has promised to resist the push-back from from the restaurant lobby.

The sub minimum wage for tipped workers is an abomination:

D.C. voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot initiative Tuesday to raise the minimum wage for District workers who receive tips, after months of debate about its effects on the city’s restaurants and their employees.

Initiative 82 is a repeat of a 2018 referendum to eliminate the city’s “tipped minimum” wage. The measure will increase minimum pay for servers and other tipped workers from $5.35 per hour to $16.10 per hour by 2027, giving them the same pay floor as non-tipped workers. Voters approved the measure in 2018, but it was repealed by the D.C. Council.

On Tuesday, voters reiterated their support for the change. With most votes counted, the “yes” vote on the initiative had a commanding lead, according to tallies from the D.C. Board of Elections, and the Associated Press called the contest in favor of the measure.

The measure roiled the District this election season as restaurateurs who favor the current system squared off with initiative proponents who claim food businesses do not pay their workers fairly. Servers and bartenders were divided on the question, with some arguing for the security of a higher wage and others fearing less take-home pay in an environment where tipping might cease to be the norm.

The sub-minimum wage is why tipped workers are among routinely cheated by their employers through wage theft.

Putting an end to this is a good thing.

Quote of the Day

This, of Course, Is Insane. The People Involved in This Effort Should Be Kept Away from Politics for the Same Reason Toddlers Are Kept Away from Hand Grenades.

—The invaluable Charlie Pierce in Esquire about the proposal in Ohio to amend the state constitution to ban all medical mandates of any kind

He's right.  These folks are insane. 

The actual language appears to ban all public health in the state, possibly including things like keeping fecal material out of drinking water.

Not Even Close

As of 12:14 am EDT, with 61% of the vote counted, the no votes on the recall are ahead by more than 2:1, so Gavin Newsome remains Governor of California, and Larry Elder goes back to being a media parasite:

This is so lopsided that any claim of fraud is laughable, so I expect that the right wing to be screaming about massive fraud. (to the tune of about [quick calculations] 4 million votes when the counting is finished)

With any luck, their sore loser protest rallies will turn into a Covid super-spreader events.

There Have Have Been Some Other Races, You Know

The Good:

• Charmaine McGuffey beat incumbent Bruce Hoffbauer for Hamilton County sheriff in Ohio. This is a big deal because Hoffbauer fired her for being gay.
• Incumbent Jackie Johnson was defeated as  Glynn County District Attorney by Keith Higgins.  Johnson was notorious for attempting to bury the lynching of Ahmaud Arbery by a former employee of hers.
  
• California proposition 17, giving the vote to parolees won. 
• California proposition 20, making a number of misdemeanors felonies lost.
• California proposition 24, expanding data privacy won.
• Massachusetts question 1, expanding the right to repair for independent shops and individuals won. 
• Minimum wage hikes and marijuana legalization generally won.
• Colorado proposition 113, allocating electors on the basis of the national popular vote, won.
• Colorado proposition 115, restricting abortions, lost.
• Colorado proposition 118, paid family and medical leave, won.
  
• Virginia question 1, establishing a non-partisan redistricting commission won.
  

The Bad:

• California proposition 21, expanding rent control lost.
• California proposition 15, allowing for higher property taxes of businesses lost. (A partial repeal of the disastrous proposition 13)
  
• Louisiana amendment 1, removing the right to an abortion won.
• Illinois rejected a constitutional amendment allowing for a progressive income tax.
  

The Ugly:

• California proposition 22, Uber and Lyft bought themselves an election so that they can continue mistreat their employees.
• Florida amendment 1, which is intended to foster bogus citizenship challenges against voters, won.
  

More Good News from Yesterday's Elections

Missouri voters repealed a so-called "right to work" law by a 2 to 1 margin:

After a succession of political setbacks in onetime strongholds and a landmark defeat in the Supreme Court, organized labor has notched a hard-won victory as Missouri voters overrode a legislative move to curb union power.

A measure on the ballot on Tuesday asked voters to pass judgment on a prospective law barring private-sector unions from collecting mandatory fees from workers who choose not to become members. The law was rejected by a 2-to-1 margin.

WTF, Ohio?

Worst mascot ever!

Only in Ohio could an initiative to legalize recreational marijuana be opposed by legalization activists because it's purpose designed to benefit 10 politically connected entities seeking monopoly rents:

As a member of the International Cannabinoid Research Society, a collector of antique marijuana apothecary jars, the founder of an industrial hemp business and “a pot smoker consistently for 47 years,” Don Wirtshafter, an Ohio lawyer, has fought for decades to make marijuana legal, calling it “my life’s work.”

But when Ohio voters go to the polls Tuesday to consider a constitutional amendment to allow marijuana for both medical and personal use, Mr. Wirtshafter will vote against it.

Issue 3, as the proposed amendment is known, is bankrolled by wealthy investors spending nearly $25 million to put it on the ballot and sell it to voters. If it passes, they will have exclusive rights to growing commercial marijuana in Ohio. The proposal has a strange bedfellows coalition of opponents: law enforcement officers worried about crime, doctors worried about children’s health, state lawmakers and others who warn that it would enshrine a monopoly in the Ohio Constitution.

The result has been one of the nation’s oddest legalization campaigns. It pits a new generation of corporate investors against grass-roots advocates like Mr. Wirtshafter, who deplores “opportunists seeking monopolistic gains” and laments that America would have been much better off “if they would have just let the hippies have their weed.”

A recent poll by the University of Akron shows voters evenly split, but if the proposal passes, Ohio will be the first state to approve marijuana for personal use without first legalizing medical marijuana. That would put Ohio, a swing state, at the forefront of the national movement to overhaul marijuana laws — just in time for the 2016 presidential campaign. Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio, a Republican candidate for president, opposes Issue 3.

………

To complicate matters, the Ohio General Assembly has put a competing initiative, Issue 2, on the ballot; known as the antimonopoly amendment, it would block Issue 3 by prohibiting the granting of special rights through the State Constitution. There is certain to be a protracted legal battle if both measures pass.

There is also the matter that the granting of monopolies in the production of Marijuana might be unconstitutional.

We see state monopolies, and state granted monopolies and oligopolies, in alcohol because section 2 of the 21^st amendment has been interpreted by the courts of giving states near absolute control over the alcohol trade within their borders.

This does not apply to weed.

The story is twisted:

The story of how Issue 3 got onto the ballot begins here in Columbus, the capital, with Ian James, a political consultant whose company, the Strategy Network, specializes in gathering signatures for ballot initiatives. In 2009, his firm helped legalize casino gambling in Ohio through a measure that amended the State Constitution and specified where casinos could be located.

………

Mr. James said he had “taken that premise and applied it to marijuana.” In early 2014, he said, he began meeting with lawyers and a potential investor, James Gould, a Cincinnati sports agent, to talk about a “tightly regulated system” to make marijuana available in Ohio. An organization called the Ohio Rights Group, then represented by Mr. Wirtshafter, was already gathering signatures for an initiative to make medical marijuana legal.

But Mr. James had a more ambitious plan.

With help from Mr. Gould, he found 10 investment groups willing to put up a minimum of $2 million each to finance a campaign to pass an amendment that would legalize marijuana for medical use and personal use in small amounts; set up a commission to regulate it; and designate 10 parcels of land — each owned or optioned by funders of the initiative — where marijuana could be legally grown and cultivated for commercial use.

………

The backers call themselves ResponsibleOhio. Among the investors: the former professional basketball player Oscar Robertson, the fashion designer Nanette Lepore, Mr. Gould and two great-great-grand-nephews of President William Howard Taft. Each investment group has committed as much as $40 million to build facilities if Issue 3 passes.

………

But perhaps the group’s most contentious marketing effort has been Buddie, an anthropomorphic marijuana bud who looks a bit like a spear of asparagus wearing green cowboy boots and a blue cape, and who has been turning up on college campuses around the state. Critics liken him to Joe Camel, the cartoon character accused of marketing Camel cigarettes to children.

To say that I have mixed emotions about this is an understatement.

My win-win scenario is for Issue 3 to pass, and for the federal courts to strip the monopoly provisions from the statute, but my second best alternative is for the corporate ratf%$#s to lose.

I have no clue as to how I would vote on this if I lived there.