It’s time Congressman Salud Carbajal stopped blaming others

April 30, 2026

Congressman Salud Carbajal

OPINION by JOHN SUMMER

An open letter to Congressman Saul Carbajal:

I received your latest email and commentary on April 15, tax day.

First, I honor your military service to our country as a U.S. Marine Corps reservist. Most of my family also served our country, but in combat conditions, including my father as a West Pointer and Army Air Corps pilot in WWII, who also flew the Berlin Airlift.

His West Point uniform is on display at the Estrella Warbird Museum in Paso Robles. You may want to visit the museum, if you haven’t. It’s a Central Coast treasure. My mother was a Red Cross nurse from San Diego and they met in Germany at the close of the war. That’s where they created me!

My family first immigrated to the United States legally through Ellis Island before moving to California in 1940…. And many of our fold are still here.

However, the California of today is not the California I once loved.

As for myself, I spent almost 20 years in broadcast journalism in large markets… then ending at KSBY TV here on our Central Coast to raise my family, prior to heading off to other professions in finance, publishing, and directing tourism for SLO County. As a good journalist – which we are sorely lacking these days – I exercised curiosity, skepticism, common sense, and fairness. Those traits have been hijacked by advocacy and bias, which most journalists now are motivated by as they attempt to save the world.

It’s very sad.

The bulk of today’s media will cover up for, and/or, ignore anything that doesn’t benefit the party that they align with…. usually Democrat, until they are forced to eat their own.

We are experiencing that now.

My first wife, Gael, who just passed, worked at the White House in the West Wing during the mid to late seventies under both President Ford and Carter as the assistant to Chief of Staff Ham Jordan and later Jack Watson.

It was a different time then. I spent many hours at the White House, and was there during the entire Iranian Hostage Crisis and all that ensued. I am intimately well versed in what started the nearly 50 years of Iranian terror and abuse and threats and lies that have led to the deaths and maiming of thousands of our own troops, the continuing slaughter of their own good Iranian citizens under their evil regime, and the horrific ideology of hatred against Jews and the entire Western Civilization, which they have constantly said they will destroy. And every president since has “Neville Chamberlained” the threat. Look it up. It’s called history. Learn from it.

Mr. Carbajal, when someone says they are going to kill you…. Believe them.

I understand your feelings about our (pre-emptive) strikes on Iran. And that’s what they are. As tough as it is to lose some of our people in those actions, you fail to consider the alternative. Iran would have created nuclear bombs. And they would have used them. And the catastrophic consequences of that would change the world forever.

Iran would begin with Israel, because they said so. Then they would go to Europe, because they said so. And oh, by the way, Rome and the Vatican would be their first targets in Italy, pope Leo included. BTW part deux, I’m a Catholic. Then they would go at us, “The Great Satan,” whether through a ballistic missile, or some other method.

Because they said they would.

Again, when someone says they are going to kill you, as they have threatened for almost a half century, believe them. And we have prevented that now.

We hit first.

Salud, I know you think you believe what you’ve been told in the talking points of your party and their hatred for President Trump. Hate – similar to what the Iranian Mullahs practice – is a horrible burden to have to carry in life. Please think this through. It’s not healthy.

As for your other talking points: The price of fuel, groceries, building costs, housing costs, income disparity, taxation, regulation, and every other thing that we, as Californians, have to endure. Guess whose fault that is? You and your party are in charge.

You like to deflect to and blame others, but if you look elsewhere in our country, nothing compares to California for the cost of living. Why do you think we are experiencing one of the greatest exoduses that any state has ever endured? And now we are finally finding out about the insane amount of corruption and thievery taking place in our government social systems. It’s your fault, and your party’s fault. And let’s not mention some of the other “things” that are happening among our representatives.

You and your party have created it, allowed it to fester, and hid it. And we, as taxpayers, foot the bill. Time for a change, congressman. A change to sanity and common sense. That will happen soon.

God willing.

I think, and hope, and pray, that Californians have had enough.

John Summer is a Grover Beach resident, a semi-retired Emmy Award winning television news anchor and investigative reporter.