A Long Train of Abuses and Usurpations Both Subtle and Deadly

By Andy Caldwell

As I reflect on the election results, I can’t stop thinking about the fact that people don’t know what they don’t know. That is, the level of ignorance among voters, especially in CA, is stupendous.

Let’s consider the fate of two ballot measures which, on appearance, both addressed one of the top campaign themes of the season, the very real affordability crises.

Prop. 1, which passed, authorized bonds to ostensibly make housing more affordable by allowing new home buyers who qualify to put merely 3% down towards a home purchase, while the state would allow them to borrow the rest of the down payment in the form of a second mortgage. Not so surprisingly, nobody bothered to explain how having two mortgages from the onset, one for the down payment and the second for the actual home purchase, will make anything more affordable. Moreover, the legislature has yet to reveal what the interest rate will be on the loan for the down payment nor the payment schedule for the same. Finally, of course, there is the terrible notion, that CA continuously promotes, that we can borrow our way to affordability and prosperity.

Contrast Prop. 1 with Prop. 45, which failed. Prop. 45 sought to make development of all kinds more affordable by streamlining the permit process by limiting the amount of time for review and subsequent litigation. The primary focus of the measure was CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act, which is one of the primary reasons development projects in our state are routinely delayed by endless analysis, extremely expensive conditions of approval, and spiteful litigation. The lesson lost on consumers? All these CEQA-related costs are passed on to consumers.

One example of extraordinary abuse, even for Santa Barbara County, involves the Richard’s Ranch development in Orcutt. Due to the downright Machiavellian and punitive delays associated with the approval of this project, the home prices in the development have already increased by $100,000 per unit and the project is still far from approval.

So much for “affordability.”

Targeting Americans

Another focal point of the election had to do with our nation’s relationship with Israel and, relatedly, the war with Iran. Hence, the statement by Vice-President JD Vance indicating that two of the things’ Republicans must do to regain electoral primacy is end the war with Iran and rethink our relationship with Israel. On the contrary, the fact is, the enemies of Israel are our enemies, including Iran.

Iran is the leading sponsor of terror in the world, and it has a very long history of attacking Americans in that regard. Here is a brief excerpt from a comprehensive list of these attacks from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies:

November 1979-January 1981: Iranian students — with the backing of Tehran — take dozens of Americans hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

April 1983: A suicide car bombing kills 63 people, including 17 Americans, at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. The Iran-backed terrorist group Islamic Jihad, a precursor and early branch of Hezbollah (not to be confused with Palestinian Islamic Jihad), claims responsibility.

October 1983: Operatives of the Iran-backed Hezbollah drive a truck bomb at a Marine compound in Beirut, killing 220 U.S. Marines and 21 other service personnel.

December 1983: Hezbollah operatives drive an explosives-filled dump truck through the gates of the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait City. No Americans are harmed.

March 1984: Terrorists kidnap CIA station chief William Buckley in Beirut, subsequently torturing and ultimately killing him in 1985. Islamic Jihad claims responsibility.

December 1984: Hezbollah terrorists hijack Kuwait Airways Flight 221 on its way from Kuwait to Pakistan and divert it to Tehran, killing two American officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

June 1985: Hezbollah terrorists hijack TWA Flight 847 enroute from Athens to Rome and kill a U.S. Navy diver.

July 1989: Hezbollah operatives kill U.S. Marine Corps Col. William Higgins after kidnapping him the previous year while on a UN peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon.

June 1996: A truck carrying 5,000 pounds of explosives blows up the Khobar Towers, a U.S. Air Force housing complex in the Saudi Arabian town of Khobar. Nineteen Americans die and some 500 people are injured. The Iran-backed Hezbollah Al Hijaz, a terrorist group in Saudi Arabia, is deemed responsible.

August 1998: With the assistance of Hezbollah, al-Qaeda suicide bombers almost simultaneously blow up the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 people, including 12 Americans, and wounding thousands. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, al-Qaeda developed “the tactical expertise for such attacks months earlier, when some of its operatives — top military committee members and several operatives who were involved with the Kenya cell among them — were sent to Hezbollah training camps in Lebanon.”

September 11, 2001: While the 9/11 Commission Report concludes that Iran had no foreknowledge of al-Qaeda’s attacks on the World Trade Center, the report indicates that Tehran facilitated the travel of some of the terrorists. “In sum,” the report notes, “there is strong evidence that Iran facilitated the transit of al Qaeda members into and out of Afghanistan before 9/11, and that some of these were future 9/11 hijackers.”

July 2002: A bomb planted by a Hamas terrorist kills five American students at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, including an American Israeli dual citizen and an American French dual citizen. A total of nine people die in the attack.

2003-2011: Iranian-backed militias kill at least 603 U.S. troops in Iraq, according to the Pentagon. Iranian training and material support for Iraqi militias during the surge greatly increased the difficulties U.S. forces faced while combating the insurgency and included some of the deadliest weapons used against American troops, such as explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) and improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

August 2003: A Hamas suicide bomber blows up a bus in Jerusalem, killing five Americans and wounding one other American. A total of 24 people die in the attack.

January 2007: Twelve men affiliated with the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) disguise themselves as U.S. soldiers, enter the Provincial Joint Coordination Center in the Iraqi city of Karbala, kill five U.S. soldiers, and wound another three. In 2019, the U.S. State Department issues a $15 million bounty for information on an IRGC Quds Force commander who planned the attack and other “assassinations of coalition forces in Iraq.”

December 2019: Rockets fired by Kataib Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militia, kill an American security contractor and wound several U.S. service members and Iraqi personnel at the K1 military base in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk.

January 2020: A direct Iranian ballistic missile attack against the Ain al-Asad airbase in Iraq causes more than 100 U.S. troops to suffer traumatic brain injuries.

November 2022: A captain in Iran’s IRGC orchestrates the killing of an American citizen living in Baghdad who worked at an English language institute.

March 2023: An Iranian drone kills an American contractor and wounds five service members and another contractor when it strikes a coalition base near the Syrian city of Hasakah.

October 7, 2023: Hamas kills at least 48 Americans and kidnaps at least 12 Americans in a massacre of 1,200 people in southern Israel.

December 2023: A drone attack conducted by an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia against U.S. forces in Erbil wounds three American soldiers, including one critically injured with shrapnel to the head, which placed him in a coma.

January 2024: A drone launched by Kataib Hezbollah kills three U.S. soldiers at a U.S. military base in Jordan and wounds more than 40 other service members.

November 2024: A report released by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies indicates that Iran and its proxies have conducted more than 180 attacks against U.S. forces in the Middle East between October 17, 2023, and November 19, 2024, resulting in more than 180 wounded and three killed U.S. service members.

November 2024: The U.S. Department of Justice announces charges against an Iranian national and two American accomplices for plotting to assassinate President Trump.

June 2025: At least three U.S. bases in Syria and two U.S. bases in Iraq are attacked with missiles or drones, likely by Iranian-backed militias.

“From the River to the Sea”

Finally, let’s consider what Bill Clinton said about his efforts to grant the Palestinians a homeland:

“The only time Yasser Arafat didn’t tell me the truth was when he promised me he was going to accept the peace deal we had worked out which would have given the Palestinians 96% of the West Bank and 4% of Israel. They would have a capital of East Jerusalem and two of the four quadrants of the old city of Jerusalem. This offer was confirmed by the prime minister of Israel and his cabinet. And the Palestinians said no. And I think part of it is that Hamas did not care about a homeland for the Palestinians, they wanted to kill Israelis and make Israel uninhabitable.”

No surprise. The Hamas chant “from the river to the sea” is a call for Israel to be wiped off the map, read that genocide. And don’t forget the promise by Iran and its terrorist proxies, “After we kill the Saturday people, we will kill the Sunday people”.