Garamendi is Uninformed

By William L. Garvin

The recently published interview with John Garamendi exposed many reasons why he should not be reelected.  To begin with, “forty years of political experience” should be a disqualifier in and of itself.  Our founding fathers never envisioned “career politicians” whose primary goal would be to get reelected.  Many in Congress have been there far too long and many have outlived whatever usefulness, if any, they might have once had.

As is typical with politicians, Garamendi “cherry picked” data to support Obama’s contention that it is “indisputable” the economy is in recovery.  Even the frequently quoted, liberal website Wikipedia points out that Garamendi votes with Obama and Pelosi ninety-eight percent of the time.  That means “politics is the game and Big Government is my name.”  The proof is in the pudding when he cites the low number of unemployment applications but in the same breath laments “We have not seen the growth in the public sector.”

He goes on to say that it is “bizarre” when people complain 92 million Americans are “not participating in the workforce.”  All he has to do is go to his Department of Labor website to see how his own government derives that number.  It’s everyone sixteen years of age or older.  The number was only 80 million when Obama took office.  Furthermore, in 2007, 66% of Americans had jobs or were looking.  Today, the number is down to 62.8%, the lowest labor participation rate in forty years.  Particularly troubling is 24% of those in the 25-64 age group that are not working are not even looking for work!  Additionally, there are 7.8 million working who are “involuntary part time.”  That makes the underemployment rate (U-6) over 13%.  If you also factor in that 4 out of 5 new jobs being created are part time and minimum wage along with the fact that 46.5 million Americans (approximately 15%) are on food stamps along with the fact that household income has decreased $2,500 per annum, his claim of economic recovery is horribly out of touch.  That’s why the U.S. Chamber of Commerce endorsed Dan Logue…not Garamendi!

Garamendi also blames the “majority in Congress” for not recklessly spending even more.  There is a Democrat President and a Democrat Senate but he still blames the Republican House for not passing a sequel to the trillion dollar failure known as the American Recovery Act.  He also forgets that sequestration was a White House proposal adopted by the Democrat Senate and signed by the Democrat President.  After six years, he still tries to blame current woes on George Bush and perpetuate the fallacy that Clinton left with a “surplus.”  Clinton never reduced the national debt a single year!  The Obama deficit may be somewhat reduced this year but it will still add $650 billion to the national debt which is now $17.9 trillion.  Over 40% of the national debt has occurred in the six years of the Obama administration.   Nonetheless, Garamendi voted against the balanced budget amendment and always votes to raise the debt limit in lockstep with Pelosi, Reid, and Obama.

Another questionable position is his continued support of Obamacare despite vociferous opposition by the majority of Americans.  He trumpets the “bending of the cost-curve on health care” while forgetting the Lie of the Year (“if you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan; if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.”) and that we were supposed to save $2,500 per year (another “Four Pinocchio” fabrication).  Additionally, even using Huffington Post numbers, his claim that Center for Disease Control budgets have been cut by a billion dollars a year for four years is highly inflated.  In fact, the CDC budget was increased for 2014 beyond what Obama had requested.  If no Ebola vaccine has been developed by CDC, maybe it’s because they were spending $2.9 million on figuring out why lesbians are obese, over two million more on getting old people to join choirs, another half million on why obese girls have a tough time getting dates, nearly a million on why gay men in Peru get syphilis, and $2.5 million developing “origami condoms”!

Both candidates are personable and well spoken.  However, Garamendi is a proven vote that Obama and Pelosi can count on and he has done nothing but support their out of control spending.   He has done nothing to get to the bottom of the numerous Obama administration scandals.  Logue has a much better understanding of the issues and the economics surrounding them.  I’d like to keep my doctor, keep my health plan, keep my country, and keep my sanity so I voted for Dan Logue. Unless you want two more years of the same liberal policy failures, you need to do the same!  

Forget and Regret

By William L. Garvin

Never have so many done so little against foes so formidable.  By all metrics, this so-called coalition is doing little more than irritating ISIS.  When a bombing sortie returns and reports that it has destroyed a total of three trucks, it can be characterized as nothing short of pathetic.  That miniscule return on investment doesn’t even cover the cost of fuel, let alone time and munitions.  Military minds are still scratching their heads over why the enemy “headquarters” was bombed in the middle of the night when no one was there.  Equally puzzling is why the enemy convoys were never attacked while on the move and out in the open.  It’s equally perplexing as to why when a few endangered Arab states put a few planes in the air on a totally infrequent and inconsequential basis that it’s portrayed as a tremendous political and military achievement.  It’s not.  It’s merely more sound and fury, (more accurately “smoke and mirrors”) signifying nothing of substance.

When an enemy force says they will fly their black flag over the White House, when they publically decapitate Americans and others, when they take over caches of WMD (both biological and chemical which of course never existed—remember “Bush lied; people died”), when they mercilessly slaughter thousands of Christians, Yezidis, and less blood thirsty Muslims, then it doesn’t matter whether or not we are at war with Islam.  They are at war with us.  The enemy cannot be managed.  It cannot be degraded.  It must be destroyed.  There has not been a single retired general or admiral come forward to applaud the military strategy currently being employed.  Bringing a knife to a gun fight is no more effective than naming the campaign “Inherent Resolve” is in inspiring the troops!

Why did anyone think that a state senator with a tawdry history of voting “present” rather than taking a stand could suddenly become decisive in times of crisis?  There is nothing in Barack Hussein Obama’s history that would prepare him for the role of commander-in-chief or even chief executive officer.  He has never led, never managed, and never had ultimate responsibility for anything.  If you ask him today, he still has no responsibility for “Fast and Furious,” spying on reporters, NSA, the IRS Gestapo, and on and on and on.  He is quick to blame the intelligence community for his characterization of ISIS as “jayvee.”  Maybe if he had played a few less rounds of golf and attended a few more intelligence briefings, he might have avoided his “deer in the headlights” reaction to the Middle East conflagration.  Maybe if he’d been in the Situation Room while Benghazi was going up in flames and Americans were being murdered, maybe if he and Hillary had told the truth instead of conjuring up some cockamamie story about a video, maybe if he would have been a leader instead of a political operative, things would have been different.

He can’t fire people who are incompetent because that would require a decision.  So they hang around until their pensions vest and then retire.  He’d rather hire a political hack for another overlapping layer of government apparatus to deal with the Ebola crisis than a proven health care administrator.  Of course, the “Ebola Czar” won’t be reporting to the President because that would again put him in a position of accountability and responsibility.  That is to be avoided at all cost.  It’s better to smile another smile.  It’s better to play another round of golf.  It’s better to attend another union or Wall Street fundraiser.  It’s better to deny reality and claim it is “indisputable” that the economy is better by every measurement.  Forget the 92 million Americans who are out of the labor force.  Forget that we have the lowest labor participation rate in nearly forty years.  Forget the record number of people on food stamps.  Forget the $17.9 trillion national debt.  Forget that household income has declined—unless you’re a member of congress!  Forget that you didn’t save $2,500 in health care premiums, that medical care is more expensive and less available.  Forget that many more policies will be canceled after the first of the year.  Forget that our borders aren’t secure and that 70,000 “children” and untold others have poured across this year alone.  Forget that the Obama/Reid/Pelosi combine will continue if you vote the same old political hacks back into office.  Forget this time and you’ll have two more years for remorse.

Discoloration by Design

By William L. Garvin

Early in his tenure as Attorney General, Eric Holder chose to lob a cultural grenade by his incendiary charge that America was a “nation of cowards” when it came to race relations.  He was clearly projecting his own internal biases and prejudices because if America were to defend herself, she could counter-claim that Holder’s Department of Justice, in specific, and the Obama presidency, in general, has been cowardly not only in matters of race but also in matters of religion.  Holder’s assumptive biases clearly dictated his priorities and actions as the nation’s “top cop.”

Holder describes himself as an “activist” Attorney General and his activism precluded his successful performance as “the people’s attorney” and degraded and discolored his office into the “minority people’s attorney.”  While there is nothing wrong with championing the “underdog,” there is no excuse for ignoring concomitant protections for the remainder of society!  When it came to matters of the law, AG Holder often had his thumb on the blindfolded lady’s scales to tip the frame of reference from “justice” into “social justice.”

When states passed laws requiring voter identification to insure the integrity of the election process, Holder recasts it through his racial prism as a malevolent form of “voter suppression.”  As is his wont, he immediately sued North Carolina when that state enacted its voter ID law in 2013.  Unfortunately, for Holder’s Department of Injustice, black voter turnout INCREASED by 29.5% from the 2010 primary election to the 2014 primary election!  On his trip to Kenya, President Obama generously provided $53 million to provide voter identification cards to their citizens.  Undeterred, Holder still has the North Carolina case slated for trial in 2015.

Holder failed to show such dogged determination when “Minister King Samir Shabazz,” the New Black Panther Party, and two other defendants were videotaped in paramilitary garb, carrying a club, shouting profanities and racial slurs at potential white voters at a Philadelphia polling place.  Eventually, because of high level political intervention, DOJ dropped the case even though the defendants FAILED TO SHOW in court and were de facto guilty!

When Arizona tried to secure its own borders because the federal government has failed miserably in that regard, Holder’s soulful bias once again bubbled to the surface.  He saw it not as a matter of state security but as a matter of blatant racism.  Similarly, he plunged headlong into matters of local law enforcement via the Trayvon Martin shooting.  While the president mused that if he had a son, he might look like Trayvon, he had no such musings about murderers and suspects such as Ali Brown (four murders in the name of jihad), Alton Nolen (stabbing and beheading one coworker and savagely stabbing another until shot by a worker), and Jesse Matthew (suspected of kidnapping and murdering coeds).  Holder has been equally silent and has yet to dispatch an army of investigators to any of these sites as he did with the shooting in Ferguson.  Holder personally met with protestors and the family of Michael Brown but failed to meet with the officer involved or his family.  Then again, this is the same Attorney General who refused to identify the murder of thirteen people in the name of Allah by Major Nidal Hasan at Fort Hood as terrorism but chose the kinder, gentler terminology of “workplace violence” to describe this barbaric slaughter of unarmed soldiers.

Don’t forget that he previously arranged to have President Clinton pardon the world’s biggest tax cheat (Mark Rich) and for Clinton to commute the sentence of 16 violent terrorists (FALN-Puerto Rico).  He’s already been held in contempt of congress regarding his stonewalling and refusal to provide documentation regarding his “gun walking” to Mexican drug cartels under the guise of “Fast and Furious” resulting in the death of Brian Terry.  After two years, he has only managed a single arrest in the murder of an ambassador and three other Americans in Benghazi.  He has, however, steadfastly protected President Obama by assiduously avoiding any dogged pursuit of the IRS targeting of Tea Party and conservative presidential opponents.  He, himself has targeted Associated Press and Fox News reporters.  He has also chosen to ignore and failed to enforce laws on the books with which he and the president do not agree, thereby repeatedly violating their oaths to the Constitution.

So Mr. Holder, you are not being judged by the color of your skin (as you repeatedly judge others) but on the content of your character, as evidenced by your actions and lack of action.  This could have been a teachable moment rather than a polarizing term of service, so we wish you Godspeed on your departure!

On Matters of Life and Death

By William L. Garvin

“The child must know that he is a miracle, that since the beginning of the world there hasn't been, and until the end of the world there will not be, another child like him.”                Pablo Casals



The Affordable Care Act was ramrodded through the Democrat-dominated House and Senate by Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and other assorted liberal minions.  The typical Machiavellian chicanery was characterized by “the Louisiana Purchase” and the “Cornhusker Kickback.”  All this was necessary because prospects for passage of the largely unread and unpopular bill were razor thin.



Bart Stupak, the democrat from Michigan mounted an ephemeral challenge based on principle along with ten other followers.  Stupak argued that it would be a violation of the rights of many religious believers under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to force them to pay for abortions.  He had offered an amendment to Obamacare to that effect.   Under immense democrat pressure (as well as $578 million in earmarks and another $727,000 for an airport in his district), Stupak agreed to accept an Executive Order by the president that restated his amendment.  “All the safeguards we were looking for, the principle we fought for all these months, will be enforced through this Executive Order,” Stupak erroneously crowed.



Effective on August 1, Health and Human Services issued a mandate that all insurance plans must cover all FDA approved contraceptives including abortion-inducing drugs.  “I am perplexed and disappointed that, having negotiated the Executive Order with the president, not only does the HHS mandate violate the Executive Order but it also violates statutory law,” the too little, too late (and out-of-office) Stupak shamefacedly admits.



California has advanced the right-to-kill-your-baby ball even farther down the road.  Michelle Rouillard, the director of California’s Department of Managed Health Care dictated in a letter to seven insurance companies that “Abortion is a basic health care service” and therefore, all insurance policies sold in California must cover this life ending practice.  This effectively reverses their previous ruling and effectively eliminates the federal law, the conscientious objections and sincerely held beliefs of all those who believe life begins at conception.  Bill Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights has called this ruling “morally obscene.”  An argument can be made that this new dictate violates federal law which requires the forfeiture of federal funds if a state mandates abortion coverage.  Of course, it is HHS who rules on the forfeiture so the cycle of death is complete.



Well, not quite.  In 2009, Sarah Palin added “death panels” to the lexicon of the American healthcare debate.  She was incessantly mocked by media and her obsessed liberal detractors.  (Of course she was also mocked in 2008 for accurately predicting that Russia would be encouraged to invade Ukraine if Obama was elected!)  In fact, Politifact awarded “death panels” their “Lie of the Year.”  However, they did nothing to research or clarify the purpose of “end-of-life” counseling or the role and function of the non-elected, non-accountable Independent Payment Advisory Board.  Because of the public furor over the lack of transparency, the end-of -life counseling was dropped from Obamacare.  However, the AMA has recently created codes for end-of-life counseling and submitted them to Medicare and Medicaid Services for reimbursement.  A decision is expected this fall.



Burke Balch, the director of the Powell Center for Medical Ethics says many doctors believe in “hastening death for those deemed to have a ‘poor quality of life.’”  Remember that the stated purpose of Obamacare is “to reduce the growth in health care spending.”   Even Eugene Robinson, a dyed-in-the-wool Obama devotee has admitted “If the government says it has to control healthcare costs and then offers to pay doctors to give advice about hospice care, citizens are not delusional to conclude that the goal is to reduce end-of-life spending.”



Steve Rattner, a former Obama advisor, has said we need death panels.  “Well, maybe not death panels exactly, but unless we start allocating healthcare resources more prudently—rationing, by its proper name—the exploding cost of Medicare will swamp the federal budget.”  He then added that “The big money...is in reducing the cost of treating people in the last year of life.”



Too bad this President isn’t nearly as good in conducting his war on terror as he is in waging war on the unborn and the elderly among us.  Beware disabled...you may be next! 

Who are the real cowards when it comes to race and religion?

Dear Editor,


In Utah, a "non-white" (black) police officer shot and killed an unarmed, twenty-year old white youth . The media isn't interested. In Texas, a white police officer shot and killed an unarmed, white teenager. The media isn't interested. There were no riots, no looting, and no stores were burned down. Furthermore, the President offered no sympathy and DOJ did not dispatch an army of FBI investigators. Sharpton, Jackson, and out of state protestors and opportunists were nowhere to be seen. The funeral will not be live streamed nor will it be attended by celebrities, charlatans or presidential representatives.


In the meantime, a black Muslim named Ali Muhammed Brown has mercilessly murdered one person in New Jersey and three people in Seattle in the name of jihad. The media, the President, and the attorney general have all failed to take note or comment. So my question for you, Attorney General Holder, is who are the real cowards when it comes to race and religion?


Respectfully,
Bill Garvin

Evil is Winning

By William L. Garvin

After Nazi atrocities were exposed at the end of World War II, there was a solemn and universal vow that “Never again!” would another holocaust be permitted on this planet.  Today, nation after nation stands mutely by as another “cleansing” sweeps across our continents.  It is evil and it is winning.

While it may not be politically correct to speak of “evil” or an “axis of evil” or an “evil empire” in a morally relativistic universe, there is no other way to describe the horrors marring our human experience today.  It is equally disheartening to see how many are inured to and even sympathetic of this burgeoning evil.  For instance, the Muslim radical group Boko Haram kidnapped nearly three hundred young girls last April in Nigeria.  There was a brief flurry of hashtag involvement (that was inherently futile) and nothing else in terms of results achieved.  The girls have now apparently been sold as sex slaves.  Boko Haram continues to kidnap and slaughter Christians but it barely makes news even when they make videos with their mocking “kill Christians” mantra.  There was virtually no media attention when they stormed a secondary school for boys, locked the doors and set it afire.  The boys that tried to escape were murdered and the rest were burned alive.  The boys didn’t even merit a hashtag.

The Islamist government in Sudan either condones the rape and murder of Christian women or actively participates in them.  Reports from southern Sudan indicate that while the military was raping women, Arab women stood by singing and praising the pillage.  Christian churches have been bombed by government aircraft while neighboring mosques stand unscathed.  Some estimate that as many as two million Christians have been murdered in Sudan by Muslim armies over the last twenty years.

In Egypt, there have been 500 reported cases of young women being attacked by Muslim men since 2011.  Who knows how many went unreported.  “The girls are often assaulted, raped, kidnapped, forced to change their faith and sometimes killed…yet nothing is being done by local authorities to prevent it” according to the Clarion Project, a U.S. based nonprofit think tank and advocacy group.

The precedent for government impotence was reinforced in Serbia and Kosovo when Christians were indiscriminately slaughtered but it has escalated to a new level in the Middle East.  Some people may think that al Qaeda is”on the run” or that ISIS/ISIL is the “junior varsity”, but the facts beg to differ.  ISIS, al Qaeda, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and their myriad affiliates are expanding their reign of terror in animalistic fashion.  How do you describe cutting children in half, beheading babies, burying families alive, cutting off heads and placing them on stakes for display?  What sort of depraved human would have his seven-year old son hold a severed head aloft and brag “that’s my boy!”?  An Australian jihadist fighting for ISIS, that’s who!

As for Hamas, they deliberately launch rockets against civilians and cravenly hide themselves, their rockets and mortars behind the skirts of women and children.  They cherish the opportunity to have those women and children sacrificed for the photo opportunities.  They strap bombs to their youngsters and send them into crowded areas where they are detonated along with other innocent victims.  Yet throughout the Middle East, Europe, and even in the United States, anti-Semitic and pro-Hamas rallies proliferate.  Let there be no doubt, if the “Little Satan” of Israel is conquered, the next target of Hamas and other jihadists will be the “Great Satan” of the United States.

There was a time when the “iron fist in the velvet glove” of the USA held evil in check and kept the beacon of democracy alive.  Now however, “pax Americana” has evaporated along with American leadership.  When the USA chooses to “lead from behind,” a void is created.  How will it be filled?  From which mountaintop will the chimes of freedom ring?  Which country will step forward to declare liberty for all?  Or will the New World Order be directed by Russia, China, or Iran?

History shows that Muslim armies are only defeated by sheer, overwhelming force.  Until that happens, Jews, Christians, minority tribes, and anyone unwilling to accept the brutal, savage subjugation of ISIS and sharia is at risk.  That includes you and me.  Wake up America!

Not So Golden State of Affairs!

By William L. Garvin

Things are not so golden in our Golden State nor throughout the rest of our country.  Despite rhetoric and repeated promises, many can’t keep their doctor and many more will see health insurance costs go up.  Dave Jones, the California State Insurance Commissioner ( D) reported the states four largest insurance companies have raised their premiums between 22 and 88 percent with more increases to come next year!  Naturally he wants more regulatory power as if California didn’t have enough regulatory issues.  Does he think that more government “oversight” will attract insurance providers to this state? 

United Health Group, the nation’s largest provider of health insurance coverage declined to participate in the California exchange as did Aetna.  Anthem Blue Cross reduced their California participation and Aetna will no longer even sell policies to individuals in California in or out of the exchange!

In other health news, California has added a million new people to the Medi-Cal rolls under expanded definitions of Obama’s Affordable Care Act.  Unfortunately for them, nearly 25% fewer doctors are now participating in the program.  In the spring of 2013, there were 109,000 doctors participating in Medi-Cal, but in the spring of 2014, only 82,605 physicians are willing to assist.  Some relief may be on the way as Marilyn Tavenner of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced that as many as 310,000 “enrollees” in Obamacare may lose coverage over their failure to resolve their “immigration status.”  As to how many of these “legitimate” new enrollees have actually paid premiums, those numbers are as elusive as Lois Lerner emails!  Wouldn’t you think that after spending nearly $80 million on a website, this basic information could be provided to American taxpayers?

Meanwhile, California’s Democrat legislature and governor continue to pick private sector winners and losers by doling out special favors to favored enterprises rather than uniformly reducing red tape and confiscatory tax rates as “equal justice for all.”  For instance, they generously bestowed a $420 million tax break package for Lockheed Martin and “battery manufacturers.”  Obviously, the latter is an attempt to sweeten the pot for Elon Musk, Tesla, and their “giga-factory.”  Musk recently announced he would build an $85 million spaceport in Texas, not in California, for his SpaceX business.  Who’s playing hardball?  Another bill headed to the Senate floor will grant $400 million in tax breaks to California’s movie industry.  Isn’t this all reminiscent of the “crony capitalism” that liberals in Hollywood, the legislature, and other Democrats decry when it’s done by Republicans?  Politics is so situational, isn’t it?!

The California legislature is also scrambling to find a way to keep gasoline and fuel from coming under its scheduled carbon tax requirements of January, 2015. A 2010 study by the California Air Resources Board said that it could add as much as 76 cents per gallon to the price of each gallon of gasoline.  Today they see the cost as “no discernible increase.”  Maybe Californians should ask why Australia recently repealed their carbon tax.  It was estimated that it cost Aussie economy $15.4 billion and added $11 million to household power bills every day.

Naturally, fuel and energy increases impact low and middle income families in California the most.  California has approximately 12 percent of the U.S. population but still has 34 percent of the nation’s welfare recipients.  Obviously they will be hurt hardest by projected increases but the cost to business and industry will also be reflected in a lack of jobs.  As of last month, California’s unemployment rate was still 7.4 percent and we’re tied as the 44th highest unemployment rate in the fifty states.

California also has over 100,000 illegal aliens housed within its prison system which brings us to a final note that is not California specific.  Based on the tragic shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, it is popular among racial agitators to speak of police “executions” and to say that police “gun down” young African-American boys every day.  While African-Americans represent 13% of our population, they unfortunately represent 50% of the homicide victims.  However, ninety percent of those murders are committed by other blacks!  In comparison, police officer fatalities by firearms are up 61% over last year.  This isn’t to say the Ferguson shooting was justified, but please reserve judgment until the facts are in and the investigations are complete.  In a similar non-pc vein, stop referring to mobs that are burning and looting stores as “militant protestors.”  Stop making excuses for criminals, whether police or protestor.  Don’t gild your partisan lily!