John Benoit, War Criminal

Ever wonder why people are disgusted by politics? Here’s a good reason: www.graydavisrepublican.com. 

Although early in the season, this is the most despicable disingenuous drivel to air so far. 

A little background: GOP Sen. Jim Battin has to bite the term limits bullet, creating a vacancy in his Palm Springs centered seat. 

Assemblyman John Benoit of Palm Desert wants to be the next Republican senator from the 37^th District. Former Assemblyman Russ Bogh of Beaumont wants to thwart Benoit. 

Bogh has raised $463,000 to Benoit’s $345,000. The winner of the very Republican seat will be decided in the June primary. 

As part of his campaign, Bogh and his minions created a flier, enshrined at the website above. The flier says it is paid for by the Riverside Taxpayers Association, which has no record of previous spending in either a state or local race. 

On the cover is a doctored photo that shows former Democratic governor Gray Davis whispering in Benoit’s ear. 

“If John Benoit is a conservative than Gray Davis was the best governor we ever had,” reads the caption. 

Let’s take a look inside where Benoit’s heinous crimes are more fulsomely catalogued beneath the headline “The Gray Davis – John Benoit Record Speaks for Itself.” 

First, we learn Benoit had the temerity to vote for a budget. A “fiscally irresponsible” one according to the flier. (As if there’s been any other kind over the past decade.) 

“Despite vast Republican opposition, John Benoit gave Gray Davis his vote for the reckless budget and betrayed the conservative values of the Republican Party.” 

After betraying the conservative values of the Republican Party Bogh so obvious personifies, no doubt Benoit accompanied Davis to a clothing optional crack house where the two dined on plates of succulent pureed babies prior to engaging in unspeakable acts with defenseless woodland creatures. 

On the facing page, we learn Benoit voted to fund the “killing of the innocent unborn when he supported Gray Davis’ liberal budget trailer bills which contained ‘over $130 million for abortion-related funding.’ “ 

Among his litany of atrocities, Benoit also stole transportation money to help pay for increases to the “welfare state.”  He filched over $1 billion from transportation projects so the welfare cheats could get a cost-of-living increase and “Hilary Clinton style healthcare” could increase by 37 percent.

John Benoit, Trotskyite. 

Benoit, the poor sap, is being pummeled by this tawdry mean-spirited flier for stupidly trying to solve a problem by casting one of the five GOP votes needed to enact a budget. That pretty much makes him the Milosevic of the New Millennium, doesn’t it? 

Guess no one told Benoit that Republicans, after begging constituents to send them to Sacramento are, upon their arrival, supposed to nothing more than utter some pious sound bites and vote “no” on everything. 

Working together to solve difficult problems is for chumps and sissies. Only a real man like Russ Bogh would take $139,000 in taxpayer dollars and do nothing to deserve it. 

Translating Bogh’s cavalcade of slime, Benoit voted for a budget and the accompanying legislation to make it work. The budget and its trailer bills contain money for poor women to receive abortions under the state’s Medi-Cal program, an activity long-upheld by the courts. 

The $1 billion transfer in transportation funds to the general fund helped balance the budget and, at the time, was perfectly permissible under the law. 

Here’s where the hypocrisy meter jumps off the scale, however. 

John Benoit, scum-sucking worm that he is, is cashing in on the state’s public employee pension program.  Snout in the trough big time. 

“John Benoit likes to criticize the pensions of firefighters and police officers. Yet as a former public employee Benoit has received over $85,000 a year from the very pension plan he attacks. Maybe that’s because the changes to the system he supports will not reduce his own retirement payments. 

“Since 2001, Benoit has received over half of a million dollars from California’s pension plan. To add insult to injury, up to half of the money Benoit has taken from the state pension program was tax free because he took a disability retirement.” 

John Benoit is a retired CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PATROL OFFICER.

Guess that’s the same thing as saying he’s a former public employee. 

Benoit spent 31 years in law enforcement starting as a cadet with the Corona Police Department in 1971. He joined the CHP in 1973, working in Los Angeles, Sacramento and Bakersfield before being assigned as the Indio Area Commander in 1988. 

Nothing compared to the life and limb risked by Russ Bogh as manager of Bogh Construction, builders of Inland empire elementary and high schools.

Speaking of snout in trough, doesn’t a fair chunk of school construction money come from General Obligation bonds issued by the state?

Highly unlikely Bogh would, if given the chance, vote to reduce the pensions paid to retired law enforcement officers, disabled  or otherwise. Someone might print a flier about it.  

As to profligate spending, Assemblyman Bogh carried a bill that would keep paying prison guards firefighters and other safety employees, including CHP officers, even if a budget wasn’t passed on time. 

The Assembly Appropriations committee noted that the bill “could result in state expenditures of hundreds of millions of dollars or more depending on the length of future budget impasses.” 

It’s also the kind of bill someone who has no plans to work for a budget solution would introduce. 

Another Bogh bill, unanimously backed by the Democratic majority Assembly, would have allowed firefighters to buy service credit. That fiscally irresponsible weasel Gray Davis vetoed the measure because it would result in an “unfunded liability for some of California’s largest counties.” 

Bogh’s campaign lackeys slipped the fliers under hotel room doors at the state GOP convention in Indian Wells last fall, the Riverside Press Enterprise reported. At cost of $1,100 to the Riverside Taxpayer Association, 5,000 fliers were produced, Bogh told the paper. 

”There was never any intent to deceive,” Bogh said in the same December 2007 article. “I’ve said flat out this is my piece. I knew from day one the public would find out about it.” 

How proud he must feel. If there’s no intent to deceive why does the flier say it was paid for by the Riverside Taxpayers Association? 

Oops, we forgot to look at the back of the flier where Benoit’s myriad crimes are recounted again. 

“Don’t be fooled by John Benoit. His record is far from that of a principled conservative.” 

What would Russ Bogh know about principled? 

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