Before 2020, Court Jones and his wife, Debbie Burmeister, said they thrived in the arts industry, finding an abundance of work in drawing live, digital caricatures at parties and trade shows. But when Jan. 1 rolled around, the couple said their careers became complicated with the pandemic and Assembly Bill 5, a new law that limits how much work an independent contractor can perform before being classified as an employee.

We the people are not a commodity for our elected officials to trade for wealth and inclusion in a tyrannical plutocracy that funds their political campaigns. Corrupt elected officials are empowering a tyrannical plutocracy to prey upon their constituents with the same callous indifference cancer demonstrates to its human hosts. The time is now for we the people to take back control of our government and our country and bring to justice the tyrannical plutocracy and their sycophants in our nation’s capital.

This is an independent opinion. Have one of your own? Write it! Email it to hoa@ivn.us

We've all heard the famous quote from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet — "What's in a name?" — which suggests that the name of things do not affect what they really are. But what happens when the thing in question is a crime, and the name given that crime could result in the early release of a criminal?