Santa Barbara County

Volume 8

Issue 6

Who Ordered Apocalypse Now?

2

Gov. Newsom’s BYD Mask Deal Profitable For Insider Dealmakers

3

The Keystone Cops vs The Corona Virus

4

Scared To Death 5

How Will We Get Around After The Virus?

6

Mommy Took Our Lollipops

7

Democrats Keep Denying That Voter Fraud Happens, And Getting Caught At It

8

Yeah, Yeah. Whatever!

9

California’s COVID-19 Shut-down Was Driven by Science. Until It Suddenly Wasn’t

10

Inside the June

Issue:

June

2020

COLAB

PO Box 7523

Santa Maria, CA 93456

Phone:

805-929-3148

E-mail:

Andy@colabsbc.org

Our Event MAY be postponed

Again due to Newsom’s orders

regarding Stage 4!

We are monitoring this situation on a daily

basis!

We will make a final determination shortly!

Stay tuned!!! We will contact all guests ASAP

If all else fails, Paul Rodriguez is already

booked for our October 30 dinner!

Who Ordered Apocalypse Now?

By Andy Caldwell

Volume 8 Issue 6 COLAB Magazine Page 2

Nobody has described what we just did to our so-

ciety and economy better than Professor of Medicine, Professor of Health Research and Policy, and Profes-sor of Statistics at Stanford University, John Ioannidis: “The current coronavirus disease, Covid-19, has been called a once-in-a-century pandemic. But it may also be a once-in-a-century evidence fiasco. The perfect storm of that quest for very urgent, spectacular, excit-ing, apocalyptic results.”

The tragedy here is that the apocalyptic results did not emanate from the virus, which, after all the hype, had a death rate lower than an average flu. No, the disas-ter was triggered by politicians, bureaucrats, and tech-nocrats who kept their finger pressed down on a panic button that unleashed a nuclear scale meltdown of our economy, while severely afflicting our mental and emotional well-being.

How bad is our situation? The US Treasury just bor-rowed $2.99 trillion in the current quarter, more than five times the previous record, and even that hasn’t made a dent in this government-induced economic catastrophe. California is already having to borrow money to meet unemployment claims. One of four businesses in America are on the verge of bankrupt-cy, and some sectors of our food supply chain are breaking.

Of all the ironies, government’s “selection bias” to keep us healthy has resulted in a medical catastro-phe. California hospitals alone have suffered $14 bil-lion in losses. Tens of thousands of medical practic-es, including Sansum Clinic, are on the ropes. Pa-tients have foregone potentially life-saving diagnostics and procedures because they were told nothing but the virus warranted our attention.

What are details of the overreaction as it relates to the spread of the virus in Santa Barbara County? As it turns out, over 300 of the 526 confirmed cases of the virus in our county occurred within the confines of in-stitutions that were closed to the general public, namely, nursing homes and the Lompoc Federal Pris-on. The rest of us, that is, all but 150 people out of 440,000, proved remarkably resilient to succumbing to this virus that spread unchecked for months before the governor’s shutdown order.

Sweden is now being hailed by the World Health Or-ganization for their approach which shunned an eco-nomic shutdown and stay-at-home orders. Sweden

instead isolated and protected the most vulnerable while leaving it up to its citizenry to practice common sense. As one European official put it, it was not Sweden, but the rest of the world, that attempted a grand experiment by way of quarantining healthy peo-ple.

Lowell Ponte, PhD, summed up our mistake quite well, “The less some scientists know about a deadly new virus, the more they tend to make worse-case predictions and urge worst-case policies. Dr. Fauci now admits to having relied on false information and wildly inaccurate computer models. The doctor’s sec-ond role is as a high bureaucrat and coronavirus com-missar. The reflexive position of bureaucrats is to de-lay and demand more studies. A bureaucrat is never fired for saying “no”- only for saying yes to some poli-cy or project that fails.”

In conclusion, as Scott Atlas, MD, Stanford Medical

(Continued on page 17)

Gov. Newsom’s BYD Mask Deal Profitable For Insider Dealmakers By Katy Grimes

Flame, since neither company had any prior experi-ence manufacturing masks, and why was the outlay of upfront money less with Blue Flame?

The Governor’s BYD $1.4 billion contract is looking like well-connected insider trading.

The Build Your Dreams company, BYD, is based in Shenzen, China. The electric bus manufacturer has a California subsidiary in Lancaster, where it employs 1,000 people.

California Globe has uncovered a trail of well-connected players in the odd $1.4 billion mask deal which seems to lead up to the cabinet level inside the governor’s office.

The prominent lobbyist who represents BYD is Mark

Weideman of The Weideman Group. The governor’s

campaign received $40,000 from BYD’s automotive

division.

(Continued on page 16)

Page 3 Volume 8 Issue 6 COLAB Magazine

Lobbyists don’t report procurement con-

tracts, and gov officials stonewalling on public information ‘

New details are emerging about Gov. Gavin New-som’s $1.4 Billion deal for masks with BYD, a Chinese electric bus maker that is now manufacturing N95 masks. However, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic the deal has soured, as the masks failed to meet national safety and health standards.

The governor told media that the federal government held up his mask shipment, but in fact, the federal government said Newsom’s Chinese masks failed safety and health standards. The masks the Chinese company delivered failed to get the approval of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Standard surgical masks are also part of the order.

If that is not clear enough, this is the word salad that Brian Ferguson, the deputy director for crisis commu-nication and public affairs for the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, served to The Epoch Times on May 8: “The masks didn’t fail a test, but rather did not pass certification yet.”

BYD’s contract with the Newsom administration was kept hidden from state legislators and the media since the deal was struck in April, on the heels of the even stranger mask deal with Blue Flame Medical LLC – a company only recently formed by former political con-sultants seeking to capitalize on the coronavirus pan-

demic.

In March, California wired $456.9 million to Blue Flame Medical LLC for millions of masks. But once it was revealed that the state of California wired the nearly $500 million dollars for masks to a company that had been in business for three days, the state demanded its money back.

California Globe learned from a source that minutes after the money was wired to Blue Flame Medical LLC, the State Controller’s office received a call from the bank warning that the bank account the money was wired to had only been opened the day before.

As California Globe reported, the governor’s office initially refused to disclose either contract to lawmak-ers and journalists.

What was BYD offering that was different from Blue

The Keystone Cops vs The Corona Virus

By Andy Caldwell

their home and isolate them from their family has been confirmed by multiple sources, on video, includ-ing the public health director of Ventura County and the World Health Organization.

None of this makes any sense. People who get really sick from the virus will end up being treated, and iso-lated, at a hospital, no less. And, that brings up the bigger problem that have the keystone cops fumbling about. First, why bother to count against us the vast number of people who have no symptoms as if that too constitutes an emergency? And, why is Newsom using against us the cases emanating from the Lompoc Federal Penitentiary?

Now that their back is against the wall, our county su-pervisors sent another letter advising the Governor that they themselves have no control over the prison outbreak, and finally, they admitted that the real threats associated with the virus have much to do with preexisting comorbidities, something else they can’t control.

The point lost on the supervisors in their letter? The Governor has no authority over the federal prison to force upon it the imposition of his criteria. Therefore,

(Continued on page 17)

Page 4 Volume 8 Issue 6 COLAB Magazine

We succeeded in satisfying Governor Newsom’s

original directive that included criteria to flatten the curve, create surge capacity in our hospitals, and gather enough personal protective equipment for care providers. Though the virus is still among us, the actu-al emergency situation is over. We have ample ca-pacity and capability to handle this situation. Hence, we are no longer in a bonafide emergency, meaning the governor no longer has legitimate authority to in-voke police powers to commandeer control of local jurisdictions and our lives.

Accordingly, for months, I have repeatedly urged county supervisors, based on the sound advice of ex-perts in the field of Constitutional law, to challenge the governor’s authority and wrest back local control. But no, the only thing these puppy dogs did was ask the governor for money as it related to costs and losses from the virus and the shutdown.

Since his original directive, Newsom added additional criteria (test, trace and isolate) that gave the county hope and confidence they could reopen the county, at least a little bit, on May 8. But, at the last minute, he added further criteria having to do with the allowable number of positive cases and deaths in the county- an impossible standard to meet anytime soon.

Will it dawn upon our local elected leaders that New-som is playing the game of Lucy and the foot-ball? The governor has no intention to restore our freedoms and local control. Rather, he is stalling until either a vaccine or a cure is developed for the virus, even though either of these products may never be created.

Inherent in Newsom’s new criteria is something very ominous. Whereas, we were told to isolate at home to curb the spread of the virus, the virus is now pri-marily spreading among those who are isolated at home, along with nursing homes and prisons. So now the Governor has us playing a game of whack-a-mole with the virus. That is, the new orders involve taking some people who have tested positive out of their homes! Yet, at the same time, the Governor previ-ously ordered nursing homes, the most vulnerable population among us, to take in positive cases of the virus! Talk about setting a match to gasoline!

Nevertheless, Newsom wants to test, trace and iso-late cases of the virus- with particular emphasis on the word “isolate”. This plan to take people out of

Scared To Death

By Andy Caldwell

material used to make a mask will do, including a scarf or a mask made from a t-shirt! In their defense, this directive was inspired by the CDC no less. Re-gardless, this particular aspect of the order actually endangers public health! How so?

The hoarded N-95 masks, which are rightfully re-served for health care workers, filter out 95% of micro-scopic particles, hence the designation N-95. Other masks, including those made from cloth, can be liter-ally 1,000 times less effective because they are po-rous! Moreover, all masks must be continually changed out, or washed, or they themselves become a hotbed of pathogens! Hence, grocery stores no longer allow patrons to use cloth bags, but we are to wear the equivalent to cover our faces?

Dr. Ansorg and Director Van Do-Reynoso have de-fended the proposition that we can contain the spread of the virus by way of testing. This too is preposter-ous because a minimum of 80% of the people infect-ed by the virus will have no symptoms. Hence, the general population would have to be tested every sin-gle day to continuously determine if they need to be quarantined from the rest of us.

The truth of the matter is that transmission in the gen-eral public was never our particular problem to begin with. Almost all of the transmission incidents in our county occurred in places closed to the public, includ-ing nursing homes and the Lompoc Penitentiary. Ad-ditionally, most all of the remaining transmissions of the virus these days are happening at home! Yet, the order does not require people to wear the mask at home.

Why won’t these officials admit that the surge of the virus passed us by two months ago? Why have they completely shunned the means by which we can achieve herd immunity, the only real protection from the virus, rather than prolonging this shutdown indefi-nitely?

Page 5 Volume 8 Issue 6 COLAB Magazine

This week, face masks became mandatory

throughout Santa Barbara County by way of an order from the county health officer, Dr. Henning An-sorg. For the following reasons, I am declaring a vote of no confidence in Dr. Ansorg and his colleague Public Health Director Van Do-Reynoso, as the cur-rent orders amount to nothing less than a breach of public trust and virtue-signaling on steroids.

My complaint has to do with the moral and ethical du-ty of health care providers to “first do no harm”. That is, the response to the virus shutdown is now creating what hundreds of doctors are describing as a mass casualty event having to do with a breakdown of our public health system. This involves the deleterious impacts of continued isolation (suicide, drug and alco-hol abuse, depression, domestic violence, etc.), along with the impacts associated with cancellations and delays resulting from people avoiding their doctors and emergency rooms due to fears associated with the virus (one million care providers have been laid off nationally and hundreds of doctor practices are clos-ing). In a nutshell, our leaders, with the help of their sycophants in the media, have succeeded in literally scaring people to death.

Here are a few more problematic aspects of the coun-ty’s approach to managing this crisis:

The county is still citing Governor Newsom’s original order indicating that masks are necessary because of the threat of overrunning our hospitals and care pro-viders. The truth is, the threat of surge is over now that our hospitals have more than enough capacity because the curve has actually cratered. This is why our state is moving into Stage 2 and 3, while other states are opening back up with no restrictions what-soever.

The mask order is sheer nonsense, literally. How so? The county’s order specifically indicates that any

How Will We Get Around After The Virus?

By Jon Coupal

ways to get to work, but COVID-19 has already had an impact on where they will work. Urban planners might like density, but apparently plagues do, too. This is forcing many businesses and entire industries to fundamentally alter their workforces.

Sixth, environmental interests have noted that the sharply reduced traffic on our highways has lowered air pollution. If mass transit is no longer viable, does this mean air quality will return to pre-pandemic levels? Not necessarily. If transportation planners focused more on keeping traffic flowing rather than wasting precious dollars on failed systems, we could continue to see improved air quality. Coupled with ever-increasing efficiency and all-electric vehicles, we need not sacrifice clean air for the ability to own and use personal vehicles that provide maximum freedom and flexibility to California families.

Finally, speaking of failed systems, no discussion of California transportation policy would be complete with raising the embarrassing boondoggle known as high-speed rail. If our budget shortfall is as bad as Gov. Newsom claims it is, then now would be a good time to completely pull the plug on this costly program whose viability has been doubtful from the start.

Jon Coupal is president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

Page 6 Volume 8 Issue 6 COLAB Magazine

The COVID-19 pandemic has upended our lives by

putting our health at risk, disrupting our work lives and robbing us of most of our recreational activities. It has also evaporated all of our assumptions about transportation policy in California.

First, in one of the few positive consequences of the pandemic, California’s highest-in-the-nation cost of gasoline is way down. In October of last year, the average per-gallon price of gas in California was $4.18. Today it is $2.72. Naturally, no one could have anticipated the crash in the oil market because of rapidly diminishing demand. The low price of gas would be a cause for celebration if it were not for the fact that most are having to shelter in place at home.

Second, while the price of gas is down, the excise tax is not. Thanks to the 2017 gas tax hike of 19 cents per gallon, California now has 58 cents per gallon of gas taxes, 76 cents when the federal excise tax is included. Gas tax proponents argue the funding is necessary for road projects, but with the sudden onset of double-digit unemployment, a cut in the gas tax would be welcome relief for those who need to drive every day.

Third, the coronavirus is likely to sharpen the debate over whether gas taxes are a reliable and stable source of revenue to begin with. One of the justifications for the gas tax hike in 2017 was the decline in revenues due to more fuel-efficient vehicles at the same time vehicle miles traveled were increasing. The coronavirus is likely to accelerate this trend as high-risk individuals travel less frequently and those who can, work from home. Will this increase the push for a vehicle-miles-traveled tax as a replacement tax for the excise tax? Implementation and privacy concerns suggest that shift will not be rapid assuming it happens at all.

Fourth, public transit will take a huge hit that will linger well after the virus is under control. Ridership across public transit systems in California has already been declining and the trend will likely continue in the mask-wearing socially distanced world of the future. No one knows what percentage of Californians will ever want to ride on public transportation again no matter how often the vehicles are cleaned or other mitigation measures are taken. In an era of tight local government budgets, transit systems which already require massive subsidies to operate might find themselves scaled back, restructured or abandoned completely.

Fifth, it is not only that commuters will find alternative

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Volume 8 Issue 6 COLAB Magazine Page 7

Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s former chief of staff, is

famous for advising democrats to never “let a crisis go to waste”. That is, the democratic party’s play book posits that, in desperate times, they should put forth measures that take advantage of emergency situa-tions. Lest you think this was a one-off comment, al-low me to take you back to 2003, when Hannah Beth Jackson and a few of her scurrilous colleagues in the legislature inadvertently broadcast a private meeting over a live microphone throughout the capitol building.

The discussion had to do with a budget impasse in the middle of a crisis. The object of the discus-sion? As the LA Times reported on July 22, 2003 “Democrats Discussed Extending Budget Crisis”. The story began “11 Assembly Democrats debated pro-longing California’s budget crisis to further their politi-cal goals”. Read that again slowly. The dems wanted to “prolong a crisis to further their political goals”. As-semblywoman Jackie Goldberg, for her part, wanted to “dramatize the consequences of the crisis”.

Fast forward to 2020. Nothing much has changed, except nowadays, democrat politicians are so brazen, and their core supporters are so obliging, that they no longer need to hide their contemptuous exploitation of crises. Examples abound.

Elon Musk made the news last week when he threat-ened to move his Tesla plant out of California be-cause Alameda County wouldn’t let the plant operate due to the cv19 shutdown. The Tesla plant was the only auto manufacturing plant in the country that was shut down and the last auto plant in the State. It em-ploys some 10,000 workers making $90,000 a year. The cars are the darlings of the left because they are all electric. Nevertheless, in response to Musk’s threat to leave, Assembly member Lorena Gonzalez cursed Elon Musk in a tweet. So much for her party’s love of the green economy and jobs that pay living wages!

Speaking of Assembly member Lorena Gonzalez, she was the sponsor of a bill, AB5, that eliminated up-wards of one million independent contractor jobs in the State of California. Nationwide, an estimated 40% of workers are engaged in the gig economy, repre-senting $1 trillion in economic activity. Nevertheless, the dunce Gonzalez quipped “these jobs were never that good anyway”.

AB5 has been labeled the worst piece of legislation in this State in the last 20 years. The bill has exacerbat-ed the cv19 crisis in manifold ways, including its im-pact on doctors and nurses who work as contractors, in addition to truck drivers, two occupations that proved vital during this virus shutdown. That is, the loss of these jobs in the “gig” economy couldn’t have come at a worst time. Making matters even worse, the dems in Congress want to adopt AB 5 for the na-tion!

Meanwhile, in Sacramento, during a hearing having to do with legislation that proposed to repeal AB5, Han-nah Beth Jackson had the temerity to say that the people who supported the repeal were simply mad because “we took away your lollipops”! Actually, no, mommy. What the CA legislature took away was the ability to pay for food, rent, car payments, and health insurance!

In the larger scheme of things, as Gavin Newsom ad-mitted, this virus is giving his party the opportunity to further their political agenda. Thus far, that agenda includes such things as statewide rent control, evic-tion prohibitions, universal basic income, decarcera-tion, in addition to setting the stage to raise taxes by way of eliminating Prop 13 benefits for commercial properties. Moreover, he is hoping, with the help of his Aunt Nancy Pelosi, to leverage the financial im-pacts of the overwrought shutdown he himself has imposed upon us, into a federal bailout of historical proportions. Heaven help us.

Mommy Took Our Lollipops

By Andy Caldwell

Democrats Keep Denying That Voter Fraud Happens, And Getting Caught At It

By Rachel Alexander

Paterson City Council candidate Frank Filippelli said he received calls from constituents saying their ballots

were stolen out of their mailboxes.

In Paterson, N.J., we see claims that ballots were mailed in batches for the recent election. A postal worker found a huge bundle in one mailbox in Haledon. The Post Office reported it to the attorney general and the Board of Elections. We hear reports of postal workers leaving large stacks of ballots in building lobbies because the addresses proved no longer good. Paterson City Council candidate Frank Filippelli said he received calls from constituents reporting their ballots stolen out of their mailboxes.

A Passaic County spokesman said 16,747 vote-by-

mail ballots came in. But the county’s official results

page shows 13,557 votes counted. What happened to

(Continued on page 11)

Page 8 Volume 8 Issue 6 COLAB Magazine

Democrats are pushing hard to transform

American elections. To do them completely by mail. They claim that it’s necessary for social distancing. (Meanwhile, they want liquor stores and pot dispensaries open.) Some blue state officials are mailing ballots directly to registered voters even though they haven’t requested them. Meanwhile, Democrats poo-poo vote fraud as a racist GOP myth.

In fact, voting by mail yields the most common type of voter fraud. And Democrats want to make it worse. No surprise, since they’re so practiced at it.

In Philadelphia, a former judge of elections and Democratic committeeperson from South Philadelphia accepted bribes from a paid political consultant to add

votes for three Democrats running for judge.

In Philadelphia, a former judge of elections and Democratic committeeman from South Philadelphia accepted bribes from a paid political consultant. Why? To add votes for three Democrats running for judge. Domenick DeMuro added votes in 2014, 2015 and 2016. He added 27 in 2014, 40 in 2015 and 46 in 2016. While these sound like small numbers, they made a significant difference at that polling place. For example, in 2014, 118 votes came in there. This means over 22% of those votes were fraudulently cast.

DeMuro received $2,500 for the vote padding, plus more money to help other candidates. He pled guilty this last week. He faces up to 15 years in prison.

Democratic Activist Checked ‘Democrat’ on Voter

Applications

In Indiana, prosecutors now investigate a Democratic activist who sent out absentee voter applications with “Democrat” for party affiliation already checked. It resulted in many applications in Vanderburgh County being rejected. County Clerk Carla Hayden instructed the county Democratic Party to tell Jan Reed to stop. But she didn’t. Post-marks on applications that went out after that showed she continued doing it. Reed could face felony charges.

Volume 8 Issue 6 COLAB Magazine Page 9

Irrespective of your position in the here and now

regarding COVID-19, meaning, regardless if you're on the COVID-19 pompom squad, as some of my friends are, or if you're on TEAM “Don't Tread on Me”, one thing we should all be able to agree on, hopefully, is once again our government was woefully unprepared for this predictable fiasco.

And as for our federal government, this is becoming a pattern that should outrage every taxpayer from Cali-fornia to Maine. Think Pearl Harbor, 9/11, etc.

According to the Tax Foundation, in 2019, the Ameri-can people paid $3.4 trillion in federal taxes and $1.8 trillion in state and local taxes, for a total of over $5.2 trillion, or 29 percent of our nation’s annual income. Call me cynical, but shouldn't the American people expect a better value from the government for this price tag?

How much of that $5.2 trillion got spent on the Nation-al Institutes of Health, the World Health Organization, and the Centers for Disease Control?

How much of our taxes last year were spent on public health programs and medical studies at the federal, state, and local levels? Are we getting our money's worth for these humongous investments? Are any of

Yeah, Yeah. Whatever!

By Joe Armendariz

our elected representatives in Washington asking these questions? Is anyone in the media? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

And since we're on the subject of getting our money's worth from the government, specifically the federal government, how much have we spent on our national and foreign intelligence agencies? and on our national and global security agencies? How much on our na-tional defense agencies?

And yet here we are locked down in what feels like house arrest, as we watch our jobs vanish, our small businesses die, and our bank accounts empty-out one day at a time.

And why? Because a virus that may have been engi-neered as a bio-weapon in an American taxpayer-funded research laboratory in China escaped all of these agencies' attention, it would appear. Unbelieva-ble!

Our numerous intelligence agencies couldn't warn us about that? Our numerous diplomatic agencies could-n't prevent that? Our numerous medical institutes couldn't inoculate us against that? Our numerous de-fense department agencies couldn't defend us from

(Continued on page 15)

California’s COVID-19 Shutdown Was Driven by Science. Until It Suddenly Wasn’t

By Steven Greenhut

Page 10 Volume 8 Issue 6 COLAB Magazine

In response to Californians who were protesting his lockdown orders, Gov. Gavin Newsom in April politely encouraged them to follow social-distancing practices while protesting and assured all Californians that his COVID-19 responses would not be driven by public opinion or other similarly low-brow concerns.

“We are going to do the right thing, not judge by poli-tics, not judge by protests, but by science,” the gover-nor said [1].

As I noted [2] recently, “science” isn’t a black-and-white, Ten Commandments sort of thing. It is a meth-od for evaluating the best-known data. It shouldn’t be used as a mantra—or a cudgel to beat opponents into submission. It changes. Scientific forecasts are spec-ulative and often wrong. Lawmakers have the respon-sibility to weigh non-scientific concerns, including those involving our liberties, and not just blindly follow what select scientists say.

Nevertheless, we all assume the governor was saying that he was following the best scientifically available information to determine when he—through his largely unchecked emergency executive powers—would let Californians reopen their businesses, leave their homes, go back to work and head to the beaches and parks again. That sounds perfectly reasonable, but it’s interesting how rapidly the governor’s “science” has changed [3].

Around a week ago, Newsom’s “science” had called for a little loosening in the rules, but for a continuation of the stay-at-home orders. He had allowed some counties to petition for a quicker reopening, but im-posed pages of tough restrictions on them. He sent regulators to oversee Yuba and Sutter counties and

threatened to yank their aid after they defied [4] the governor’s orders. His “science” was clear: The lock-downs must continue.

Then, without much notice, the governor last week announced a much-broader reopening, which seemed to take most Californians by surprise. The governor declared that he was giving local governments the go-ahead to move quickly based on their particular un-derstanding of their own regional conditions. This in-cludes a likely reopening of shopping malls and dine-in service at restaurants [5].

A KPCW reporter asked Newsom how he could allow further openings as the number of COVID-19 cases increases by thousands daily. “We never experienced the peaks that many other parts of the country experi-enced. And we’re seeing not only stability, but we’re seeing a decline over a two-week extended period of hospitalizations and number of patients in ICUs,” the governor said [6].

The governor also said his new rules are based on “data” showing that the state has enough hospital space and protective gear. Of course, such information [7] has been pretty obvious for weeks. In reality, the science didn’t change as much as the standard by which the state evaluates the sci-ence. Previously, the governor forbade counties from expanding any reopening unless there had been no deaths there from COVID-19 over a two-week period.

Now, as the Los Angeles Times reported [8], “The new standard removes the death rate requirement and replaces it with a more generous threshold based on rates of newly confirmed cases. Counties will be

(Continued on page 13)

Democrats Keep Denying That Voter Fraud Happens, And Getting Caught At It Cont.

Page 11 Volume 8 Issue 6 COLAB Magazine

the 3,190 votes, 19% of the votes cast?

3,190 Fraudulent Votes Caught in One County

The Board of Elections said 800 votes would not count since they turned up in bundles. An elections spokesman said 2,390 couldn’t count because the signatures on the envelopes did not match those on file.

The fraudulent ballots could have made a difference, since some local races in Paterson turn on a few dozen votes. Four wards had more votes go uncounted than the winner’s margin of victory. This means the uncounted ballots could have swung those races the other way.

One of the city council races turned on just 8 votes; incumbent Shahin Khalique defeated challenger Mohammed Akhtaruzzaman. Shahin was the more conservative of the candidates. If the fraudulent ballots had counted, would the more liberal Akhtaruzzaman have won?

“There is a genuine absentee ballot fraud scandal going on in Paterson,” said election law expert and University of California-Irvine School of Law professor Rick Hasen. The election was completely conducted

(Continued from page 8) by mail.

Double Voting in Wisconsin

Voters in Wisconsin and other states got caught voting twice during the fall election. The Wisconsin Election Commission just released the list of counties where 43 of the instances took place. Most of them involved mail-in ballots. Those accused voted by mail or in person in two different states.

Some South Carolina ballots ended up in Maryland this past week. About 20 absentee ballots from Charleston County showed up out of state. Election officials blame it on the printer, and admitted to previous problems with the company in the past. And that wasn’t all. Some voters in Greenville County received the wrong ballots for the Democratic presidential primary and a special sheriff’s election, held 10 days apart. Voters in Charleston received ballots misfolded so they couldn’t be properly scanned by machines.

The Heritage Foundation continues to add verified instances of voter fraud to its database. As of May 10,

it was up to 1,285 incidents.

The Heritage Foundation continues to add verified instances of voter fraud to its database. As of May 10, it was up to 1,285. Many of them involved single

(Continued on page 12)

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Democrats Keep Denying That Voter Fraud Happens, And Getting Caught At It Cont.

Page 12 Volume 8 Issue 6 COLAB Magazine

instances of voter fraud, where it wouldn’t have a difference in the outcome. But there were also plenty involving multiple ballots, revealing a clear goal of changing the outcome.

Arizona: Ground Zero for Voting Fraud This

November?

We should worry about the upcoming presidential election. Expect more voter fraud in swing states, since those prove the easiest to tip with fraudulent votes. Watch Arizona in particular, since it has had generous vote-by-mail provisions for years. Around 75% of Arizona voters vote by mail. The other swing states average around only 25%.

Accusations of voter fraud emerged in Arizona in the 2018 election, when many Democrats won surprise victories. More mail-in ballots got cast before Election Day in 2018 than the total number of voters who cast ballots in 2014. This doesn’t seem plausible.

The office of the Maricopa County Recorder, which governs elections, recently switched to the Democratic Party. Adrian Fontes opened up five “emergency voting” locations in the days leading up to the 2018 general election, all in highly Democratic areas like Tolleson.

(Continued from page 11)

The record shows that Democrats continue to commit voter fraud and engage in tactics like Fontes’s. We shouldn’t make things easier for them.

Rachel Alexander is a senior editor of The Stream. Follow her on Twitter at Rach_IC. Follow The Stream at streamdotorg. Send tips to rachel.alexander@stream.org.

California’s COVID-19 Shutdown Was Driven by Science. Until It Suddenly Wasn’t Cont.

Page 13 Volume 8 Issue 6 COLAB Magazine

able to move toward a more expansive reopening if they can show fewer than 25 coronavirus cases per 100,000 residents in the last 14 days—a standard that was originally 1 new case per 10,000 residents.”

Sure, California has made progress in dealing with COVID-19 infections, but there have been no seismic shifts on that front. It’s like the New Math [9], which focused students’ attention on alternative math con-cepts. Now we can also embrace the New Science.

Obviously, there were no substantive changes in the medical science, but there were serious changes [10] in two other important fields: economic science and political science. The governor knows that the Trump administration is likely to give California and four other Western states the $1 trillion bailout they have requested at half past never.

Newsom recently announced that California has gone from a surplus to a $54 billion deficit [11]—and has burned through its rainy-day fund. Union officials are upset about the proposed 10-percent public-employee salary cuts. If the state’s economy doesn’t get started soon, then Democrats will have to give up their big-spending dreams and the pension funds could start circling the drain.

The shutdowns have created an enormous economic problem, the extent of which might take months to be-

(Continued from page 10)

come fully evident. Wouldn’t you love to be a fly on the wall in any conversation between Newsom and California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS [12]) officials?

Politically, the natives are getting restless. Rural counties are in outright defiance. Even residents of urban areas are largely ignoring the restrictions. As longtime Capitol columnist George Skelton recent-ly noted [13], Newsom has “barely been staying one step ahead of rural rebels who have been challenging his control and testing him” and “has wisely relented.”

That’s exactly right. This is excellent news, by the way. It shows that the governor is finally looking at costs and benefits. But don’t kid yourself. None of it has anything to do with “science.”

Steven Greenhut is the Resident Senior Fellow and Western Region Director, of State Affairs at R Street

Walker Wilson & Hughen,

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Dear COLAB Members,

Did you know that lessening the burden of government is a bonafide and legitimate function of a charitable endeavor, i.e. a 501c3 tax exempt foundation? Is that not a cause you can believe in and support? Well, thankfully, COLAB now has its own foundation!!!

COLAB can now raise funds from other foundations, as well as, individuals who don’t own their own business! That means that everyone who contributes to the COLAB Foundation can write off their contributions.

The COLAB Foundation is a public charity formed to procure funding for the Santa Barbara County Coalition of Labor, Agriculture and Business (COLAB) and other se-lect non-profit entities to advance education and science, combat community deterio-ration and lessen the burden of government.

Of course, the donations to the COLAB Foundation can only be used to educate the public about the work that COLAB and others are doing in our community, but we have been educating people all along!

The COLAB Foundation!

Donations are tax-deductible as a charitable contribution!

Please send your contribution to:

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Our EIN is 81-1088586

Page 14 Volume 8 Issue 6 COLAB Magazine

Yeah, Yeah. Whatever! Cont.

Page 15 Volume 8 Issue 6 COLAB Magazine

that?

What a sound investment these expensive govern-ment bureaucracies that employ millions of experts to serve our interests have turned out to be. And to think that I have spent these past two decades suggesting we are over-taxed, and our government costs too much. Little did I know.

And now I’m going to change directions a bit.

If you were to go back and review the commentaries I’ve written and had published over the past 20+ years, you’ll see that I write a lot about the role of elected officials with respect to the economy. Often I equate the role of elected officials with that of a medi-cal doctor who is required as a condition to practice medicine to abide by the Hippocratic Oath. And that oath says “First, Do No Harm.” And what an important oath it is. Imagine the calamity that would occur if a doctor ignored that oath.

And what I’ve always intended by equating these two respective roles in our society is to say that elected officials should also approach their positions in elect-ed office, specifically as it relates to the economy, by pledging to abide by their own Hippocratic Oath, which, just as with medical doctors, is first, do no

(Continued from page 9) harm. And that means do nothing that might damage the health of the economy.

The word economics, which is where we get the term “economy”, comes from the Greek and Latin words "oikos" and "nomos", and when used together means the laws and customs of the family or the community. So, that means if we damage the health of our econo-my, we damage the health of people and families. We damage their financial health, their mental health, their psychological health, and we even damage their spir-itual health.

Doctors who advise our elected officials on various issues including and maybe especially pandemics, have a job to do. And that job is important. But the pol-iticians also have a job to do and their job is also im-portant but it is a different job entirely. The politicians job is to protect and to preserve the freedoms and the economic prosperity of the people they represent in the halls of power. It is that simple. It is that important. Indeed it is that profoundly moral.

This is not, nor should it be, up for debate. I love to debate but we shouldn't be debating this because it was resolved in our Declaration of Independence and codified in our Constitution and Bill of Rights. It is foundational because it is self-evident.

Joe Armendariz is a recovering politician who served on the Carpinteria City Council from 2004 through 2012

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Gov. Newsom’s BYD Mask Deal Profitable For Insider Dealmakers cont.

Page 16 Volume 8 Issue 6 COLAB Magazine

Weideman also represents Bloom Energy, a fuel cell manufacturer in San Jose, which recently retooled its facility to rehabilitate ventilators for COVID-19 patients.

Weideman also represents NextGen America, owned by Tom Steyer, Newsom’s economic recovery committee chairman whose failed presidential campaign petered out in late February.

California Globe called and emailed Weideman to ask about the BYD contract. A phone call placed to his office at 1:07 pm May 19, 2020 did not receive a response. A follow-up email sent to Weideman via his company web-site May 25th also did not receive a response.

Mark Weideman’s wife is Jennifer Wada, an attorney who now has a government relations business – Wada Government Relations Group. It is not common knowledge even among Sacramento insiders that Wada and Weideman are married.

Wada previously was a partner in Wada, Williams Law Group. Her former law partner is Anthony Williams, who is now Gov. Newsom’s Legislative Affairs Secretary, alt-hough news reports from 2018 also called Williams New-som’s “chief lobbyist.”

Anthony Williams was a senior adviser for former Demo-cratic state Senate leaders John Burton and Darrell Steinberg, and lobbied for the Judicial Counsel of Califor-nia and the State Bar.

A source said the governor was able to pivot so quickly from the bad Blue Flame Medical deal to BYD because of the connections between Weideman, Wada and Wil-liams.

In the email California Globe sent, we asked Weidemen about these close connections, and if the deal came to-gether because of Weideman, Wada and Williams.

“Newsom and his aides singled out BYD-America, which manufactures electric buses in Lancaster and has been a beneficiary of California’s efforts to combat climate change,” CalMatters reported April 8, 2020. “Mark Ghilar-ducci, Newsom’s director of the Office of Emergency Services, said BYD has a direct reachback into China to be able to build a sustainable amount of monthly masks that will be coming in to assist us.’”

BYD America is a subsidiary of BYD China.

(Continued from page 3)

As for “Gov Newsom and his aides singled out BYD-America…” Anthony Williams is one of Newsom’s top level aides, as this organizational chart of the governor’s office shows (Williams is at the far right, below First Partner Jennifer New-som’s staff).

Procurement Payola: the Financial Incentive

Lobbyists are allowed to take a percentage of procurement contracts they are involved with, which can run as high as 15-20%, according to a source. With all of the other financial disclosures lobbyists are required to report, a lobbyist clari-fied for us why the procurement deals are not required reporting: When lobbyists are attempt-ing to influence legislation or lawmakers, finan-cial disclosures are required. Procurement deals and contracts are not influencing legislation or lawmakers, therefore, these deals are not report-able.

Did Anthony Williams, Gov. Newsom’s “chief Lobbyist” and Legislative Secretary, facilitate the BYD deal? Did he receive a cut of the deal? Cali-fornia Globe placed two phone calls to the Gov-ernor’s office to speak with Williams, but did not receive a response back. The first call on May 22 went unanswered. The second call on May 27, 2020, was answered after 14 minutes on hold, at 10:27 am. The receptionist said she would not transfer the call to his voicemail, and suggested emailing Mr. Williams’ assistant Tammy Trinh. The email to Anthony Williams’ assistant was

(Continued on page 18)

Who Ordered Apocalypse Now? cont.

Page 17 Volume 8 Issue 6 COLAB Magazine

Center and Hoover Institution, states: “The overwhelming majority of people do not have any significant risk of dy-ing from COVID-19. Vital population immunity is prevented by total isolation policies, prolonging the problem. We know from decades of medical science that infection itself allows people to generate an immune response – antibodies. That has been falsely portrayed as a problem requiring mass isolation. In fact, infected people without severe illness are the immediately available vehicle for establishing widespread immuni-ty. People are dying because other medical care is not getting done due to hypothetical projections.”

Hence, we have just witnessed the worst man-made dis-aster in the history of this country.

(Continued from page 2)

neither has he any legitimate basis to count these numbers against us.

As for the rest of us, the governor should leave “well enough” alone and at home, and let the rest of us get back to the marketplace and work.

(Continued from page 4)

The Keystone Cops vs The Corona Virus cont.

Volume 8 Issue 6 COLAB Magazine Page 18

Gov. Newsom’s BYD Mask Deal Profitable For Insider Dealmakers cont.

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sent at 10:48 am. The Globe has yet to receive a reply to any of these inquiries.

“Although the company, BYD, is a major global player in the electric vehicle and lithium battery markets, it also has glaring red flags on its record, experts warn, including a history of supplying allegedly faulty products to the U.S., ties to the Chinese military and Communist Party, and possible links to forced labor,” Vice reported. “BYD also has no history of making personal protective equipment, and yet days after the FDA approval, it secured a $1 billion deal to supply masks to California.”

When Gov. Newsom made the deals to purchase $1 Billion worth of masks from BYD, it was “to combat a growing need for masks in California and to secure them before other states and countries sign similar deals,” California Globe reported.

The question is “Why did he make this deal?”

“The number of COVID-19 deaths have been much less than the 750 total deaths that occur every day in Cali-fornia,” Epidemiologists James Enstrom and Jeffrey Klausner said in an Orange County Register article mid-April. “Furthermore, there is evidence that there have been substantial reductions in the deaths due to seasonal flu, pneumonia and accidents because of the almost exclusive focus on COVID-19 and the current statewide lockdown.”

California Globe, with help from Dana Point Attorney Craig Alexander, filed California Public Records Requests in April with Gov. Gavin Newsom and the involved agencies for the contract the governor made with Chinese company BYD for 200 million surgical masks. Office of Emergency Services eventually made the contract public.

We will continue to report on this topic as details emerge.

Katy Grimes is the Editor of the California Globe, is a long-time Investigative Journalist covering the California State Capitol, and the co-author of California's War Against Donald Trump: Who Wins? Who Loses?

(Continued from page 16)