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Defective people, not guns, to blame for senseless mass shootings
Opinion

Twice early Tuesday morning, Aug. 7, young thugs ripped through Ceres parks robbing people at gunpoint. 

You know the saying, “Nothing good happens after midnight.” So why are people hanging out in parks after midnight? Aren’t parks supposed to be closed after the sun goes down?

I think it’s prudent to stay out of the parks at night and early morning because we have societal vermin who think only they matter and they’re entitled to your stuff. But then again, that’s the mantra of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren types: those who have should give it up for poor people. Their entitlement mentality is a cancer on our country.

Once you work for what you own you become mad as a hornet to see people taking it. That goes for the young thugs who were arrested last week after they robbed a man at Neal Park and one at Smyrna Park.


* * * * *

Liberal Dave Carreon fails to match my column with any semblance of logic and reason. Last week when I suggested that Newsom needs to be impeached, chiefly for trying to keep Trump off the ballot in California lest he releases his tax returns – unconstitutional as all get-out – Dave suggests I was being hypocritical as I am not calling for Trump’s removal. If Dave read the Constitution he would see that qualifications to run for president DO NOT INCLUDE releasing one’s tax returns. A public official does not arbitrarily have the power to change the law and violate the Constitution.

Given that two years of investigation failed to produce any evidence of collusion or obstruction of justice, there are no grounds for impeaching Trump. None! And the House Democrats know this, that’s why they aren’t trying it.

However, we have a governor who swore to uphold the Constitution of both California and the USA, trying to make laws that violate the Constitution. That is legitimate grounds for a recall.

Davey also failed to get my point about Newsom having low approval ratings. I never suggested that approval ratings were the basis for recall; what I did suggest is that Newsom’s approval rating dropping any lower might lend itself to support for a recall. Carreon failed to see how I was comparing the approval rating of Gov. Gray Davis – recalled in 2003 – with Newsom, who is the target of several recall efforts.

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We are all sickened by all the senseless mass shootings. While the media and Democrats are obsessed with focusing on the instruments used to kill, they fail to put proper focus on why these men are taking out their poisonous anger on innocent people.

Guns have always been around but let’s be honest – when I was a kid this kind of stuff wasn’t happening. Not a bit. Don Cool tells me how they used to go hunting with shotguns in Ceres and prop them up against the wall at Barbour’s, buys drinks and leave. You’d never see that today because all trust is gone. Today any thought of kids with guns equal mass murderer. Not so in the 1960s.

So what changed?

I’ve written about this many times. Most mass killings are done by men, younger men typically, and of all ethnicities. People who plan these killings don’t value human life and it’s obvious they have no God or any kind of religious structure guiding life. Most of these mass killers believe they’ve been shortchanged in life and are willing to take it out on everybody or they have anger management issues or they have defected brains. (Consider that U.C. Santa Barbara shooter Elliot Rodger, 22, bemoaned the fact that he couldn’t get a girlfriend – probably because he was a creep and had a giant chip on his shoulder – so he shot and stabbed six to death and injured 14. (Whoops, libs, there goes your argument about guns. Perhaps a knife control agenda?). Rodger wanted to punish sexually active men because he envied them. He wrote: “I’m 22 years old and I’m still a virgin. I’ve never even kissed a girl. I’ve been through college for two and a half years … and I’m still a virgin. It has been very torturous. College is the time when everyone experiences those things such as sex and fun and pleasure. Within those years, I’ve had to rot in loneliness. It’s not fair … I don’t know why you girls aren’t attracted to me, but I will punish you all for it. It’s an injustice, a crime, because ... I don’t know what you don’t see in me. I’m the perfect guy and yet you throw yourselves at these obnoxious men instead of me, the supreme gentleman.”

Supreme gentlemen don’t stab people to death. Talk about self-centered narcissism.

Here are some questions I pose to you:

Did life get so devalued to them because they were not shown any love growing up?

Without God, is there any true sense of meaning or purpose to life other than to work, spend and try to have a good time before you’re put six feet under? Is there no fear of doing wrong without a heaven or hell?

Is the quest for fame in our prevalent that when it’s unattainable some people want to kill and have their faces plastered on cable news networks even though there’s a high probability they will be killed by police and won’t be around to “enjoy” their newfound “fame”? Do they feel so insignificant they have to go out in a blaze of “glory” by inflicting carnage to become the focus of national media?

Do hours and hours of gamers blowing away others in vivid explosions of bullets ripping open flesh dull senses and enrage them? If you don’t believe in “garbage in, garbage out” why did 28-year-old Matthew Nicholson go ballistic while playing video games and then, when his mother went to see what his problem was, an argument broke out, his headset was broken and he shot her to death and tried to kill Dad?. Why was this grown man living with his parents anyway? For crying out loud, he was 28 and had a job!

Is the constant narrative of mankind (sorry, libs I use gendered language) killing off the planet with climate disaster – which is utter nonsense to control and tax people and punish corporations – creating so much fear that young people think they face the prospects of burning up on a fireball of terra firma in a decade or less? We know Dayton, Ohio shooter Connor Betts, 24, tweeted “I want socialism, and I’ll not wait for the idiots to finally come round understanding.” He was also a warped loner, an atheist, smoked meth, drank too much, was a Satanist and believed that he was bipolar.

And since we’re on it, why is when I googled for the manifesto of the Dayton Ohio shooter, I got a plethora of stories about the El Paso shooter? Because Google is pushing the El Paso shooting as the work of a right-wing nut and glossing over the Dayton shooters’ liberal views? If you really want to know what collusion is, look at how Silicon Valley is influencing Americans merely by tampering with searches.

Is social media making people feel depressed, like their lives are boring and empty because everybody is posting pictures of them on vacation, getting new cars, extolling the virtues of a great marriage or wonderful kids or great jobs and masking their warts and struggles?


* * * * *

Trump derangement is real, folks.

It’s a matter of him being damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t.

Had he not gone to El Paso and Dayton to console the communities over the shootings, the Left would decry what a heartless bastard he is. When he does, they say he had no right to go.

Can you believe Texas Congressman Joaquin Castro, a Democrat of course, tweeted a list of 44 San Antonio Trump campaign donors to shame them and possibly prompt others to attack them? Castro tweeted: “Their contributions are fueling a campaign of hate that labels Hispanic immigrants as ‘invaders.’”

Do you ever consult the dictionary, oh brother of Julian? Invader, by definition, is “a person or group that invades a country, region, or other place.”

I agree with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy who said, “targeting and harassing Americans because of their political beliefs is shameful and dangerous.”

Then there is the sheer lunacy of a former FBI official, Frank Figliuzzi, who told Brian Williams on MSNBC that Trump ordered flags to be flown at half-mast until Aug. 8, or 8/8, because the numbers “are very significant in the neo-Nazi and the white supremacy movement. Why? Because the letter ‘H’ is the eighth letter of the alphabet, and to them, the numbers eight-eight stand for ‘Heil Hitler.’ ”

He needs a mental health evaluation. So do the program directors who chose to put this guy on with this insane theory.


* * * * *

Josh Harder recently announced he wouldn’t vote for the federal budget because he wants Congress to get control of spending. Amen on that. But every time we get a press release from his office, I hear the federal cash register go “cha-ching.” Harder is mostly all about delivering big bucks – remember it is money we were forced from our paychecks or plain IOUs to China – for his pet causes.

Cases in point: Press release on Aug. 8: “Harder Announces nearly $800,000 Federal Investment to Help CSU Improve STEM Education for Low-Income, First-Generation Students.” It goes on to say the money goes to California State University system (a state university) to improve science technology, engineering, and mathematics education at CSU Stanislaus, Bakersfield, and Fresno. The program will focus on the high rates of local air pollution as a tangible focus for the study of mathematics and chemistry.” 

Aug. 7: Harder promotes his efforts to snag $443,308 to allow the Central Valley Opportunity Center (CVOC) to provide farmworkers with high school equivalency diplomas (HSEDs).

These are federal dollars for poor immigrants, mind you.

July 15: “Harder announced that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) would invest $395,877 over the next decade to support the construction of broadband to homes and businesses across the Valley.”

June 20: “Harder announced $750,000 in funding from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation for a new water treatment plant and transmission main line to the cities of Ceres and Turlock.”

Aug. 5: Harder announced that the HUD will invest $2.9 million to help increase affordable housing for Modesto’s poor and homeless. That’s $1.87 million for housing and somehow expanding economic opportunities even though Josh’s party in Sacramento is driving businesses and jobs out of California.

Don’t look for a lot to change locally with the $3 million boondoggle just like Baltimore wasn’t developed with the millions dumped into that community.

I’m not saying all these causes are without merit. But my point is this: There is a never-ending demand for money to solve every problem under the sun. And every congressman stands in line to grab slices of the federal pie and deliver them to the district lest they be accused of not “bringing home the bacon” and risk losing the next election. Nobody (Josh Harder included) is willing to give up their district’s share which means the out-of-control spending never gets addressed. When Trump called for the complete elimination of the Economic Development Administration (EDA), Harder “fought back” and instead the agency will see an increase of $236 million from its 2019 level.”

So Harder can say “count me out” in blowing up the budget but he’s been grabbing those federal dollars non-stop since Jan. 3.

We are $22 trillion in debt and it just keeps climbing. And it probably forever will.


This column is the opinion of Jeff Benziger, and does not necessarily represent the opinion of The Ceres Courier or Morris Newspaper Corp. of CA. How do you feel about this? Let Jeff know at jeffb@cerescourier.com