Letters to the Editor
Edited by Jim Buckley
(The following is just a trickle of some of the many comments, observations, claims, and suggestions received by Santa Barbara Current, a publication that is reader supported and receives no direct or indirect USAID or nonprofit funding. To enhance your reading experience, please follow the Comment thread that appears immediately after each column. If you’d like to contribute a letter to the editor, please send separately to jim@sbcurrent.com, and add your city/town in your comment.)
U.S. Government on Auto-Pay
The team – DOGE – is determined to get to the bottom of the spending.
“They found an acting head of the U.S. Treasury named David A. Lebryk, who turned out to be the highest-ranking person in the civil service. Lebryk had been promoted to that position on Jan.20. Still, his former boss was the deputy secretary of the Treasury Department, a Nigerian émigré named Wally Adeyemo, who had once been head of the Obama Foundation. His resignation put Lebryk in the driver’s seat of the world’s biggest outgoing payroll system.”
That’s right, you cannot make this stuff up.
Lebryk refused to turn over the passwords. After what was said to be a shouting match, he resigned. Then Musk’s crew took control of the passwords to the system that was sending out $6 trillion on auto-pay!
Why is it not normal for the new administration to be in control of the spending systems? Isn’t auditing the books just what any new president would do?
The Trump administration, barring some unforeseen disaster, is well positioned to go down in history as the regime that saved the country from secret and systemic pillaging that has been going on without a check for years.
From the Epoch Times:
Via Karen Crawford
Santa Barbara
The Other Side of the Coin
There are always two sides to a story. Last Saturday a large gathering of people came to hear Congressman Salud Carbajal spread fear about President rump’s DOGE auditing on USAID, as well as he ICE raids. This is the United States Agency for International Development.
Have you ever been audited? It can be a painful process to go through up to seven years of receipts and to explain them to the unfriendly IRS representative. But if there is anything out of order, it must be uncovered.
Now, with Elon Musk going through USAID and the Treasury department, there are a lot of questionable items the government is gleefully spending your tax dollars on. Mind you, DOGE is authorized to “Read Only” with these departments, so no harm, no foul. However, what do you think about where your dollars are going?
•$1.5 million to advance DEI in Serbia
•$70,000 for a DEI musical in Ireland
•$2.5 million for electric vehicles in Vietnam
•$32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru
•$2 million for sex changes in Guatemala
•hundreds of millions to fund heroin production in Afghanistan (which benefits the Taliban)
•hundreds of thousands of meals to Al Qaeda fighters in Syria
•millions to Eco Health Alliance, which helped fund the Wuhan Lab in China which brought us Covid 19.
•The list goes on and on and it has been happening for decades.
Congressman Carbajal spread a lot of fear about the ICE raids locally. Wy would anyone want to protect murderers, rapists, and gang members? Do people realize that these are the groups ICE Director Tom Homan is sending out to round up? Do you want a murderer living next door to you? That’s like petting a rattlesnake and not expecting to get bitten.
President Trump is restoring common sense to this nation. We didn’t realize how it has been thrown out the window. Now, thankfully, it is being exposed. Be sure you check out the facts of what is really going on and don’t be swayed by what a government official says. Check out what is going on for yourself.
Chris Perry
Santa Barbara
Let the Lies Begin
Amid the whirlwind of scrutiny surrounding the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and President Trump's administration, the focus has often been on bureaucratic overreach. However, a local story from Santa Barbara County, where I ran for Congress last term, sheds light on a more insidious aspect of government involvement: the funding of political propaganda to influence U.S. elections.
In the 2023 election cycle, my campaign against incumbent Democrat Salud Carbajal was fierce. As a conservative candidate, I challenged him on issues such as border security, education policies, and traditional values. Carbajal responded with expensive local TV ads and avoided debates, presumably to deny me a platform.
But the narrative took a dark turn with revelations from DOGE's investigations. It appears that the U.S. State Department, through USAID, allocated $603,686 to Media Matters for America, an organization known for its left-leaning advocacy.
Here's how it unfolded in our district:
Funding: With a budget of $60 billion, the State Department's allocation to USAID was meant for international development, not domestic political warfare. Yet, this money found its way into the coffers of Media Matters, which received $603,686 from taxpayers via USAID. Is it any wonder Salud Carbajal was one of the first congressmen to speak in support of continued taxpayer payments to USAID?
Targeting and Smearing: Media Matters scoured my social media and campaign materials, seizing on a comment I made about the Paul Pelosi incident as supposed evidence of my "hate," or extremism, distorting it for their narrative.
Dissemination: The fabricated or exaggerated stories were then distributed to local media outlets in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, creating a coordinated media blitz in the weeks leading up to the election.
Influence on Voters: This barrage of negative coverage likely swayed undecided voters, providing Carbajal with an indirect and unreported donation-in-kind, which should have been declared to the Federal Election Commission.
Ethical and Legal Questions: Is this not a form of election fraud?
The implications are chilling. When the government uses taxpayer dollars to back one political ideology over another, it undermines the democratic process. It's not just about who won or lost in California's 24th; it's about the integrity of our electoral system.
This scenario raises significant questions about the neutrality of government-funded initiatives and the sanctity of journalism. It also helps explain why Congressman Carbajal has been so active recently pushing back on DJT’s new tech. If we're to preserve the essence of democracy, we must demand transparency, accountability, and an end to the government's role as a puppet-master in our elections.
Thomas Cole
Montecito
Barack Obama Created DOGE
I came across a lawyer – Tom Renz – who actually read President Trump's DOGE Executive Order and, expecting some illegal power grab, found it to be airtight. Turns out Trump and Musk didn't create anything. Obama did.
Obama created United States Digital Service (USDS) in 2014. It was meant as a bureaucratic patch job to fix the Obamacare website meltdown.
Fast forward to 2025. Trump rebrands it DOGE (United States DOGE Service). Keeps the acronym, keeps the funding, but gives it a whole new mission: Find the Receipts.
Legally untouchable because it was already fully funded and operational. Trump invokes 5 USC 3161, which allows him to create temporary hiring authorities. DOGE teams get embedded inside every single federal agency. Each team consists of a lawyer, HR rep, a Zoomer nerd, and an investigator. They report to DOGE, not the agency they're embedded in.
But wait, there's more! Trump invokes 44 USC Chapter 35, which governs federal IT and cybersecurity oversight. Since USDS was originally an IT oversight body, DOGE now has full access to all federal data systems.
Yes, that’s right. All of them.
His executive order is written to block legal challenges. Includes language that overrides conflicting executive orders. Orders every agency to comply. Refusal means they violate presidential authority.
Congress can't defund it because it's not a new program, just a repurposed one. DOJ can't sue for overreach because Trump used existing laws exactly as written. Democrats trying to file legal challenges run into standing issues because DOGE operates within existing frameworks.
Obama literally built the perfect Administrative (read: Deep State) IT backdoor.
Trump and Musk just hacked the system and took the admin controls. Musk now has legal oversight of every major agency's internal systems. The Administrative State can't stop it without rewriting multiple federal laws. They legally outplayed the system and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Obama created DOGE.
Forwarded by Michael Self
Santa Barbara
Love these letters. To Thomas Cole: I was outraged by the smear campaign held against you when you ran. It wasn't because I voted for you, it was because it was like the smear campaign against Chris Mitchum, absolutely non-Democratic warfare by Democrats who label anyone who disagrees with them as an enemy of Democracy. I would have respect for these creeps if just one of them came forward and said “I want to win this election and think I'm the better candidate, but I can't go along with the smear campaign my party is waging against my opponent.”
Lois Capps played the BS “decent” role by doing nothing. Hannah-Beth and Salud play the “we have to win at all costs because we are right” role.
How dare Salud use our money to fight Trump? How dare he encourage resistance and protests? How dare he behave as though this is him doing the right thing by us?
What this is really about is Salud, Laura and co. trying to get as many raises and as make as much money as possible off us before they go down - which they know they will be under DOGE.
When will we who oppose this have our public protest? This is a great county with a lot of criminals exploiting it who must go to jail and be stripped of all the illegal profits they've made off it.
Pandora’s box cannot be resealed. Darkness hates the light for what it reveals. Those screaming the loudest likely have the most to hide. I’m looking forward to what Anna Paulina Luna’s committee turns up. It would not surprise me to discover that those most vocally fighting Big Balls and his DOGE buddies are going to be on some list of evil doers. I may need to find some popcorn. Every day since the inauguration has been another source of joy, encouragement, and not a little humor, watching cockroaches scurry. Plenty of people in our blue gulag share these views, I have discovered.