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Supporters of a 2018 ballot initiative to legalize psychedelic mushrooms in California were given the green light by the state attorney general's office earlier this month to circulate petitions and gather signatures. They now have until April 30 to gather and submit 365,880 valid signatures from registered voters in the first state to ever legalize medical marijuana under Proposition 215 in 1996. That ballot proposition, as well as Prop. 64 -- the 2016 voter initiative titled "The Adult Use o

Read our centrist recap for the week below. We shine a light on the spin and useless stories from the Left and Right and detail what you should focus on, before people can pull wool over your eyes. What the partisans will focus on: * President Trump recently released the following tweet about Time Magazine’s Person of the Year: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/934189999045693441 And many partisans on the Left went berserk. Regardless of whether Time Magazine called or not, Presid

Property rights are fundamental in America – or at least they are supposed to be. Yet each year, prosecutors and law enforcement agencies seize hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of cars, homes, cash and other property, with no due process to determine guilt or innocence, or even without even filing charges against the property owner. It’s called asset seizure or civil forfeiture, and it’s just wrong. By claiming that you or your property are related to criminal activity, the government j

During a time of deep political dysfunction in the United States, it is easy to assume that American democracy has gone off the rails, perhaps for good. But if Americans can look past the slow-motion travesty unfolding in Washington, DC, they will find that it is still within their power to effect meaningful change. BERKELEY – It has been one year since Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, and America’s democratic institutions are clearly under strain. A mere 20% of American

It was such welcome news this week when a vote taken by a small portion of the student body took aim at the San Diego State University mascot. The goal of the vote is to "finally" retire the university's Aztec Warrior Mascot. The images of the "Aztec Warrior" memorializing traditional Indian culture at sporting events and school functions, has been just too much to take these many years. The move jostled my mind to think about all the other collegiate schools who have yet to understand the ra

A Gallup poll published Wednesday shows record support for marijuana legalization in the US. According to Gallup, support is at 64 percent, up 4 points from last year and 14 points compared to 2011. This follows a mostly consistent trend as more states consider their own policy on recreational and medical marijuana. Eight states, plus the District of Columbia, have laws legalizing marijuana for recreational use. It is important to note that marijuana is still classified as an illegal Schedule

Earlier this month, we reported on the uncertain fate of a ballot access reform bill in North Carolina. That bill has now passed, liberalizing ballot access laws in North Carolina, but also carrying with it controversial elements related to judicial elections. The bill began as a bipartisan effort to ease North Carolina's excessively harsh ballot access laws. However, it was amended to make other changes to election law, most notably the elimination of judicial primary elections in 2018. This d

Five government officials were fired and 13 criminal cases were filed against local and state officials in Flint, Michigan, resulting from the 2014 Flint water crisis that put 100,000 residents at risk. An investigation found that the drinking water source for the city was switched to the Flint river in 2014, and, compounding the problem, officials failed to apply corrosion inhibitors to the water. The investigation also found elected officials knowingly "dismissed and belittled attempts" to co

Crazy times in America these days.  The wrathful hurricanes pounding the South and the East Coast and the wildfires devouring the Northwest echo our storm-tossed politics. Everything is turned upside down, everything is fevered, everything is being washed away. And yet (and this is the craziest thing of all) nothing seems to change. Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan once observed, you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. True that. If you’re an independent, you can lick your fi

419-3. Three Republicans voted against a bill that, in part, provides $7.85 billion in emergency financial assistance to the victims of Hurricane Harvey. Michigan Rep. Justin Amash, Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, and Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs said no to the aid package. Minutes before the vote, Amash tweeted that funding for the disaster relief should be offset instead of being added to the deficit. https://twitter.com/justinamash/status/905465795416862720 Trump Sides with Democrats It’s alre