Editor, Manteca Bulletin,

Let’s look at some of the bull spun by Frank Aquila recently including justifying spending $5 billion specifically on building a border wall, some of President Trump’s fear tactics:

1. A Mexican National recently crossed the southern border and killed a Police Officer around Christmas and if not for Sanctuary laws would have long been deported. First of all this cop killer had been in the U.S. for years and was a known gang member. Gang members are not protected by California sanctuary laws. 

If the police knew this guy was a gang member, why then did they not arrest him and contact ICE? Immigration Officials stated they knew nothing of this guy until after the killing. Looks to me like the sheriff of that county dropped the ball and based on his press conference, where he ranted and raved about sanctuary laws, knew it all too well. Aquila also claims a “million” illegals enter the U.S. “every year”. This is a blatant lie of course. The number last year was around 300k and most of those were immigrants seeking asylum.

2. Aquila complains about hypocrisy of Democrats. Really Frank? You really want to go there? You don’t even have to look past Mitch McConnell to see real hypocrisy, who also happens to be the main reason Trump’s shutdown lasted so long. McConnell could have simply put the bill passed by the House, and previously passed by McConnell and the entire Senate, on the floor for a vote but he wouldn’t do that because Trump wouldn’t let him. Think about that, a co-equal part of the Government, the Senate, would not act without the OK from Trump. McConnell is the same guy who vowed to stop anything from the Obama Administration including refusing to even consider an Obama Supreme Court nominee from even getting a meeting with any Senator until a new President would submit their nominee a full year before the end of the Obama Administration.

3. “The children who died while in Border Patrol custody died because the parents refused medical attention”. That is another blatant lie. At least one sick child endured a two to three hour drive in the back of a Border Patrol van before ever being examined by a doctor. Maybe Aquila shares the lack of empathy that Trump himself, showed who stated three dead children out of thousands was not that bad.

4. Aquila once again tries to spin the $150 billion returned to Iran as a gift when he surely knows that money belonged to Iran in the first place and was Iranian frozen assets as part of the Iranian Sanctions before the Iranian Nuclear Agreement when it was returned. There was no “gift”, simply frozen Iranian assets released back to Iran.

5. Aquila makes a big deal out of Trump’s visit to troops in Iraq where he claimed he would have been a great general. Never mind that Trump took out 5 deferments, the last being fake bone spurs to keep him out of serving in the Vietnam War. The medical assessment made as a favor to the doctor’s landlord, father to Trump. Apparently Aquila never served or he wouldn’t even bring this up. If he did serve, especially in Vietnam or lost someone in that war while Trump remained a draft dodger, he would surely feel the same as I. Just sick to his stomach thinking about this rich, entitled coward but this fact doesn’t seem to bother Aquila or the Red Hat club at all, why?

6. Aquila complains about the 12 cent California gas tax. Maybe Aquila doesn’t drive or maybe he drives that halftrack he kept from his Army days in the war, so he doesn’t mind driving down Airport Way. I drive the roughest 4-wheel drive made and I avoid Airport Way like people without working brains. Maybe Aquila isn’t aware of the fact that the gas tax hadn’t been raised since about 1994. Since then road construction inflation has risen at a much higher rate than general inflation, a 12 cent increase seems more than justifiable.

7. Aquila claims California is so bad for business that companies are moving out in droves, decimating California’s economy. I wonder if Aquila can then explain why California is No. 5 among world economies if it were a freestanding nation?. California was ranked number 10 in 2012 and is now number 5  in the entire world. Let me say that again Frank, No. 5 in the world! Now that’s how you spin straw into California gold, Rumpelstiltskin style.

Larry Baca

 Manteca