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ON THE LEFT A boil grows in Washington

On Jan. 6, 2021, a date that will live in infamy, a huge boil under the skin of the American political order was lanced. It grew after 60 years of Republican extremism and 20 years of nonstop lies.

The boil began in the election of 1964 when insurgent Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater insisted, “Extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no crime!” The poison had been injected: extreme politics is no crime. A mountain of lies would follow.

President Ronald Reagan, in his charming way, injected more poison. “Government is the problem,” he intoned. Then Newt Gingrich rose, spewing more extremism. He was the first to close down the government and call the opposition Democrats “traitors.” Extremism within the GOP grew

Jack Batson as Republicans learned to “talk like Mitch.” No longer was there a “loyal opposition;” there were only people who loved or hated America. Patriotism became the last refuge of the scoundrel.

George W. Bush became president. “Iraq was behind 9/11,” lied the president – and the lying didn’t stop there. On my bookshelf sits a book titled “935 Lies,” an account of the disinformation that flowed from the Bush administration. Lying became embedded in Republican rhetoric. Extremism? The invasion of Iraq. The boil grew.

Two respected political observers wrote a book in 2004, “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks,” claiming, “The Republican Party has become an insurgent outlier in American politics – ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.” They clearly recognized the problem.

A Black man was elected president in 2008. The GOP, anchored in the South, laboring under the shadow of its many Gingrichs, showed all its iron teeth, closing down the government and obstructing to every action it could for eight years. Moderates were “primaried out,” ensuring iron party discipline. No freedom of conscience for Republicans. They fell in line. The few holdouts were disparaged as “RINO’s.”

By now, Fox News was in full throttle, getting rich by stoking hatred of all things Democratic and sewing fear and resentment into whites by lying that they were soon to be extinguished as a political force. Democrats were plotting against “real Americans” whose un-American tentacles could be detected everywhere if one just looked hard enough. Fox and its ilk would help you see the conspiracies night after night. Lying worked. Viewership skyrocketed. The boil grew.

Enter Donald Trump, the master of the lie, the connoisseur of conspiracies, epitome of extremism, a smooth-talking, charismatic television entertainer. Lies became a daily diet for Americans. Fox and other outlets expanded and repeated them 24 hours per day for four years. Forty percent of Americans swallowed them.

Dictators are made in the modern world by first getting elected, then making sure they’re re-elected, no matter how. That’s what Trump attempted Jan. 6.

On that morning he incited the loyalists he had intentionally called to the capital, lying, “The election was stolen,” and “evil” people stole it. Rudy Giuliani told them this is “trial by combat.”

The right-wing media and the Republican Party had sewn the wind for 60 years with extremism and 20 years of lies. The whirlwind finally came. Loyalists, believing that the election really had been stolen, stormed the Capitol.

The underlying issue is disinformation – lies. Lies are the content of the boil. Count them. The Russia hoax. The Deep State. The innocence of Flynn and Stone. The impeachment hoax. Trump’s landslide election victories. The lying media. Rigged elections. Disappearing ballots. Democrats are socialists. These are pushed by Republican politicians but even more importantly, by a vast right-wing propaganda machine working 24 hours a day, seven days a week, a “cancer of disinformation,” laments former CIA chief John Brennan.

Those impassioned demonstrators and rioters won’t ever change their minds. One militiaman from Florida told a reporter, “This is not the end. Next time, we’re coming back with weapons.”

The boil took a half-century to build. It’s been lanced, but it will take generations to drain.

Jack Batson is a former member of the Fairfield City Council. Reach him by email at jsbatson@prodigy.net.

DAILY REPUBLIC

A McNaughton Newspaper Locally Owned and Operated Serving Solano County since 1855 • Foy McNaughton President / CEO / Publisher

THE RIGHT STUFF Study past if you would divine future

Ihave had time now to was inaugurated. reflect on the recent elec- Frankly, I wondered why tion and have noted some a free and knowledgeable interesting things. people would foolishly

We Solano County Repub- choose proven second-rate licans ran 41 candidates hacks like Biden and Kamala countywide and elected 15. Harris over four years of Locally we got good coverage economic expansion, for our races with little rebuilding our military, propaganda. However, where Jim McCully redressing egregious trade President Donald Trump and, agreement inequities, and by extension, all Republican candi- incredible peace deals between dates were concerned, Republicans Israel and five Arab nations which were portrayed negatively by the Biden, and all the DSPPP, said was so-called mainstream media. impossible to do. Both are dubious:

My fellow columnist, Jack Batson, Biden a questionable “straw man” blames Trump for everything. propped up by virtually everyone According to Jack, Trump is running when not hiding; Harris, the most a coup d’état against now legally “progressive” voter in the U.S. designated President-elect Joe Senate kept silent and hidden, too. Biden. Why? Because Trump won’t Now, I know. Do I believe election accept an obviously flawed process. fraud occurred? Yes. How much we Well, neither will many millions of don’t know. Thanks to our judiciary others. Apparently, Trump doesn’t we may never know. Yet, something enjoy the legal rights Democrat more sinister occurred with commuSocialist Progressive Peoples Party nications media propaganda or (DSPPP) Vice President Al Gore what Joseph Pulitzer called “yellow enjoyed when questioning the journalism.” 2000 election results. Vital decisions were made from

As far as coup d’états go, I believe deliberate deception. Our forefathers that the DSPPP and the mainstream knew freedom of religion, speech media have been engaged in one and a free unfettered media at large since Election Day 2016. were critical, indeed paramount, to a

I have listed many reasons free republic. The First Amendment Trump should have been re-elected; to the U.S. Constitution enshrined I won’t reiterate them. However, I this. Right now, we have a politicized will defy anyone to prove we are less fettered mainstream media engaged well off after four years of doing in “yellow journalism” to ensure the everything the previous Obama/ DSPPP political victory. This is far Biden administration said couldn’t from fair and is devastatingly be done economically, militarily and dangerous to our republic. in foreign affairs. No more Russia The Media Research Center collusion lies as the DSPPP and its polled 1,750 people in Arizona, allies in the mainstream media have Pennsylvania, North Carolina, been spouting that nonsense merrily Georgia, Nevada, Michigan and destroying lives. careers and Wisconsin: the media-labeled reputations since before Trump “battleground.” Polling occurred between Nov. 9-18 with “an accuracy rate plus or minus 2.34% at a 95% statistical confidence.”

The results were: 82% of those polled were unaware of at least one of the following eight important issues: n Joe Biden’s sexual assault allegations by a female staffer (35.4%). n Hunter Biden’s Communists Chinese scandals (45.1%). n Complete energy independence for America (50.5%). n Middle East peace deals signed (43.5%). n Negative reporting of Trump’s Covid-19 Operation Warp Speed initiative to develop vaccines (36.1%). n Huge jump in economic growth pre-Covid-19 (34.4%). n Highest growth in minority employment rates in history. n Harris’ far-left voting records, behaviors, and scandals (25.3%).

Result: Out of the polled group, “6% of Biden voters said they would have voted for Trump knowing this.” That translates to a 200,000-plus vote victory in the battleground states. Election changed.

Instead, we have an angry, divided nation with sad and awful results no sane citizen wants as witnessed Jan. 6 on Capitol Hill.

Solution: An 1877-style election commission as proposed by Sen. Ted Cruz. Stop the madness now.

Proverbs: 11:29 reads, “He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind.”

Jim McCully is a member of the Solano County Republican Central Committee, Vacaville resident and former Northwest Regional vice chairman of the California State Republican Party.

CALMATTERS COMMENTARY Budget spends windfall on pandemic victims

While California’s Newsom clearly wants to overall economy shine the media spotlight on is still being bat- his relief proposals, rolling tered by the them out prior to Friday’s Covid-19 recession and formal presentation, which unemployment remains raises a perhaps cynical high, its tax revenues have question: Does his plea for shown amazing resiliency. fast action reflect their

The recession’s impact has importance, or his concerns fallen largely on lowerincome Californians while Dan Walters about a recall movement that seems to be gathering steam? those on upper rungs of the socio- The recession’s economic economic ladder, whose taxable incomes are the most important source of state revenues, have continued to prosper. Thus the $54 billion budget deficit that Gov. Gavin Newsom projected last summer as the economy tanked never appeared and suddenly, there’s a windfall of unanticipated revenues that Newsom wants to spend on helping the pandemic’s economic victims – low-income families and small businesses, especially – recover. “We are investing, in our energy and our focus, to deal with the disproportionate impacts of this pandemic,” Newsom said Friday as he introduced a $227.2 billion budget for the fiscal year that will begin July 1. impacts – especially on restaurants, barbershops and other small businesses forced to close their doors – have clearly given impetus to the Republican-sponsored recall movement, which has two months to collect enough signatures to place the issue before voters. Even if one assumes Newson’s proposals are expressions of genuine concern, not motivated by personal politics, his proposed budget is a curious mixture of billions of dollars in additional spending and worries that another budget crisis is looming on the horizon. Newsom boasts of having $34 billion in “budget resiliency,” mostly in the form of reserves. His budget also warns, “budget resil-

Newsom wants the Legislature to iency will be critical to protect jump-start pandemic relief with a programs in the future, as expendi$5 billion “immediate action tures are projected to grow faster package.” It would, for low-income than revenues, with a structural families, double the $600 payments deficit of $7.6 billion projected for in the most recent federal aid 2022-23 that is forecast to grow to legislation, and provide direct aid to over $11 billion by 2024-25.” small businesses that Newsom Much of the budget is on autopilot ordered to be closed to battle the with built-in increases, particularly spread of infection. He also proposes the largest single portion, K-12 extending a moratorium on evictions education, and those increases, of recession-strapped renters. coupled with very slow projected revenue growth, create the structural deficit. Revenues from the state’s three major tax sources – personal income, sales and corporate income – are projected to grow by an average 1.9% a year through middecade while spending increases now in law will far exceed that rate.

Newsom cited the long-term income/outgo squeeze when a reporter asked him about his longstanding pledge to bring universal single-payer health care to Californians, which would cost tens of billions of dollars.

He said he stands by that goal but in the next breath once again insisted that he won’t entertain new taxes on the wealthy being championed by some of his fellow Democrats, implying fear that they would drive away high-income Californians whose taxes are so vital.

Recently, Elon Musk was crowned as the world’s richest man due to soaring stock values of Tesla, his electric car company. His coronation came just a few weeks after he moved to Texas, which has no income tax, with a farewell blast at California’s treatment of entrepreneurs.

An utter dependence on the wealthy underscores the yin and yang of budget politics in a very blue state.