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Sound Off! calls published March 7, 2012
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• Barren land has better use

I just want to say the environmentalist are always are holding back economic growth. I could see if this was the redwood forest but it's Mitchell Road in Ceres, come on. They just don't want Walmart there. They do not want to save anything on this barren land. There is nothing there but dust balls.

I'm a Ceres resident who backs the new Walmart Supermart.

• Obama's assault on the First Amendment

In the quest to redefine the meaning of healthcare and who must supply it and who has to pay for it, the nonsense of Obamacare has finally hit a nerve that every American feels. Under the cloak and guise of women's healthcare, this Administration has dictated that religious employers and/or the insurance insurance company they employ must provide free contraceptive and morning after pill coverage, even though they knew for them to do so would be the exact opposite of what their religious teachings expect of them.

But it's okay, the Administration says, we'll give you a year or so to get used to the idea. Right now since it's the Catholics that have been first to respond, they are in the bullseye. The Administration's counter attack is that Catholics use birth control and condoms so they should just shut up. They even cite a percentage - over 95 percent. I suspect the math used to arrive at this number is as fuzzy as the math used to calculate the unemployment numbers. But I'll wait until the Protestants, the Jews and the Muslins speak out then I'm sure the White House spokesman will inform us what percentage of followers of those religions use birth control too.

But this Administration's attack on religion is just a smoke screen for what is really going on, which is an assault on the First Amendment of our Constitution. This needs to stop.

• A culture that has a different set of rules

I'm calling about a different subject than what people are upset about - Spanish speaking and all that. It's nothing about that. It's about getting behind these people that want to drive 20 miles below the speed limit and give you dirty looks because you're trying to get where you're going doing the speed limit. I'm wondering why the Ceres Police Department doesn't hand out more traffic tickets to any for impeding traffic. There's a penal code there for a reason only it seems they can do as they like. And I think that's got those who have lived here their whole life upset. We have one set of rules; they have another. It's not right and it will explode in the United States sooner or later.

I'm sick of what Ceres has turned into. Before anybody tells me to move, you can go too because I've lived here my whole life. I'll be damned if I'm going to be chased out.

• Citizens for Ceres blocking a good thing

You so-called Citizens for Ceres need to back off. You are stuck in old days and need to move on to the nowadays. This shopping center would provide more jobs for Ceres citizens and keep shoppers in Ceres instead of Modesto and Turlock. This would generate revenue for the city of Ceres. Get a life.

• Fake identity phenomena in political play

As a U.C. Merced student studying politics, I have come to recognize a common phenomenon that occurs when an election season warms up. I call this phenomenon the "fake identity phenomena." This phenomenon occurs when a candidate seeking political office creates a false identity of her/himself in order to appeal to voters of a certain area. We have seen this before with Congressman Dennis Cardoza and Congressman Jim Costa using the blue dog label identity in order to attract fiscally conservative voters. Unfortunately Costa's and Cardoza's voting prove that they are not fiscally conservative.

In the coming Congressional and Assembly races, it is vital that voters recognize when politicians present themselves as something they are not. Some candidates choose to leave out important facts of their political life from their websites in order to seem more fiscally conservative than they are. It is already quite visible on the websites of some this area's candidates that they are choosing to leave out important details. If voters want a fiscally conservative representative in the California Legislature or Congress, voting Republican is the only honest choice. Blue dogs are extinct. When they did exist, they were only used as a fake identity for politicians who wanted to attract a group of voters who otherwise would not support them.