Did you know? Bonnie Donovan
“A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.”
— Thomas Jefferson
A panga boat was seized Monday off the coast of Gaviota, with 15 passengers suspected of smuggling fentanyl. Not kilos of marijuana, like the old days, but an addictive synthetic heroin that is more deadly.
The Drug Enforcement Administration reported it came from Mexico and China. The runners used to smuggle pot, but with legal dispensaries for marijuana sales, the black-market profit margin has diminished, and the availability is more widespread.
The doctors are in hot water for the opioid addiction, prescribed generously and furnished by Big Pharma, aren’t they? Witnessing our “war against drug,” we are reminded of our leaders’ handling of Afghanistan. A flop.
The only action we see is our congressman, Salud Carbajal, repeatedly going to the table for more of our money. Included in the latest spending bill of $3.5 trillion is a plan to hire 85,000 additional Internal Revenue Service workers. For what? To survey every transaction of $600 and above.
The alert from a local bank that the Biden-Harris administration wants the banks to report to the IRS — “inflows and outflows of an account total at least $600 in a year, or if the account has a fair market value of at least $600.”
Under the guise of everyone must pay their fair share, more overreach of a government that no longer appears to operate as founded, “for, by and of the people,” but is aimed “at the people.”
Another diabolical section is to fine employers $70,000 to $700,000 for resisting the mandate of vaccines on their employees. Again, what does this do? Doesn’t it destroy the small and individual businesses while big box, Amazon, ad nauseum flourish?
During the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors’ recent meeting, the COVID-19 outbreak at the jail was discussed. The inmates are tested as they arrive and are kept in an isolated holding facility for 10 days. They are tested again before being allowed to join the jail population.
How did COVID-19 get into the jail to cause the outbreak? Three employees tested positive. One of whom was vaccinated. Remember that it is said that the vaccinated carry 251% more of the viral load.
The county is giving inmates incentives to take the vaccine. We wonder if it’s a program like the one at Santa Barbara City College, which rewarded the students with a $100 “blue bill” for showing their “vaccine papers.” And that, after they had already received $50 to take a shot.
How cheaply their privacy is sold.
After the COVID-19 outbreak at the jail, our local school board decreed COVID vaccines are mandatory and that no testing will be in lieu of the vaccine.
If the science says even the vaccinated can get COVID and therefore transmit COVID, shouldn’t there still be testing of the vaccinated? It is more money for testing, more money for Big Pharma.
Speaking of more money, a Vandalia, Ill., school mother followed the money and found that the schools are given state and federal funds or grants for masking and injecting students. At one end of the carrot is 5 billion, 55 million for COVID-related protocols/expenses under Operational Strategy for the state of Illinois schools.
This women’s school district alone was slated to receive $5,570,640. This equals $3,946 a student. Where is the money going?
It seems the people who profit from sales of the product influence school policy.
What is our school board getting for these authoritarian mandates? Several elected school board officials in Santa Barbara can decide the fate of your children, and teachers, because they know better than you do? School boards are elected to oversee the running of the school district and that the students are educated. Yet the stats show the failures of their lack of success. The number of students who graduate or not, with a proficient ability to read, write and do math to operate successfully in life, is dismal. Of course, our school board is too busy, distracted by things that now include mandated vaccines.
It is said that the research and development of drugs is financed 45% by big pharma. How can the doctors who get bonuses or unknowingly bad information from the pharmaceutical rep, not refrain from recommending said products? That business plan has been going on for decades. Remember the opioid crisis brought to you by big pharma? (The Sackler Family-Purdue Pharma). It’s not over, and many live with the devastation of human beings left behind with alive or dead members of their family.
What about the attorneys advertising for the class action lawsuits for damages done to patients due to drugs or treatment, as with the opioid crisis? Yet the pharmaceuticals were allowed an agreement that does not hold the drug companies responsible for injuries from vaccine injections, which no one talks about. Doesn’t that say enough to beware?
What’s in it for our government and for big pharma? We understand big pharma making billions, but our own country working against us? We are being locked down, forced a vaccine and threatened with loss of employment, freedom in society, all in the name of protecting us.
Yet our homeland is flooded with unvetted immigrants released into our country to unsuspecting communities, bringing with them unknown amounts of disease and COVID, all with their own variants. And we are silenced.
Witness Lt. Col. Schiller, who is arrested for demanding accountability in the abominable Afghanistan withdrawal and sits in the brig for questioning authority.
Meanwhile, our border is so overwhelmed with illegal immigrants lined up to gain entry that the White House press secretary answered that they weren’t tested or vaccinated for COVID “because they won’t be here that long.” It’s classic insanity.
President Joe Biden is blocking monoclonal antibodies in Florida as he drops busloads of illegals and denies the Navy Seals who are rescuing Americans in Afghanistan entry into the U.S.
They were told their private chartered planes will not be allowed to land in America even via a third country. Perhaps they should land in Mexico and get in line.
Where does Rep. Carbajal stand on this? He sits on the committee investigating what happened in Afghanistan.
On our home front, city council and mayoral elections are coming, and the candidates are talking about the problems facing the city — the same old, same old. Too many homeless, too little housing, not enough water, not enough good paying jobs, environments are threatened and little visible action or leadership. Except for oversized building, lack of parking, traffic lanes whittled down or taken for bike-less lanes. Overreach of our local government via agreements for Project Labor Agreements, rental relocation fees charged to the landlord, tons of money awarded to CitiNet for homeless help.
We hope you make time to watch the forums for our local mayoral and city council elections held less than five weeks away.
On the candidates, what we have noticed so far:
In a recent forum for District 6 Council candidates, incumbent Meagan Harmon was asked if she believed the Santa Barbara Police Department was systemically racist, and if so, what data she had to back that up that assertion. Ms. Harmon replied that systemic racism exists in every institution in America, and that though she didn’t have any data she could point to, she believes that systemic racism is there in the police department. Though she said quite a lot, she couldn’t answer the question. It was a bravura performance of tautological reasoning. Of course, systemic racism is there — it’s systemic.
Also running for the District 6 seat is Nina Johnson, a city employee of 25 years with experience as senior assistant to the city administrator. This imbues her with the knowledge of how the city does and doesn’t work. Other candidates are Jason Carleton, a local union electrical contractor, and Zachary Pike, a disc jockey.
For Council District 4, incumbent Kristin Sneddon is running against a novice, Planning Commissioner Barrett Reid. The two could be described as different sides of a coin.
On the mayor’s race, the debates are not to be missed and worthy of repeats. Boat Rat Matt Kilrain needs a Hollywood agent, charming and off the charts. Some of what he says is interesting, and some ideas are absurd. Currency of Santa Barbara?
Have any of you ever seen mayoral candidate James Joyce at a meeting of the Santa Barbara City Council, Planning Commission, Architectural Board of Review, Historica Landmarks Commission? Neither have we.
Another mayoral candidate, Planning Commission Chair Deborah Schwartz, has a S.A.F.E. plan for Santa Barbara. Businessman Mark Whitehurst supports a living wage and pays his employees as such.
Former Santa Barbara City Council member Randy Rowse, who’s running for mayor, has presented not just level-headed answers for everything, but also a possible viable solution to assist the homeless with mental issues, for the long term, in ways that may enable them to re-engage with society.
All challenge the incumbent, Cathy Murillo, who represents the same old, same old.
The Santa Barbara Police Officers’ Association has taken a stand of “no confidence” with the present city council and the incumbents running for re-election.
Many interested parties including news outlets are Monday-morning-quarter-backing the POA’s position. No one can know what they know until you stand in their shoes. On this we agree.
Has anybody seen Han Solo? We need him — and more.
“The more corrupt the state, the more laws.”
— Tacitus