Are Democrats trying to commit political suicide with their continued leftist ideology?

Are they just so out of touch they don’t realize they are losing popularity? Or is it a case of they don’t care, full steam ahead on transforming California into their vision of a progressive utopia?

Last week Democrats did the unthinkable by voting against Assembly Bill 379, a bill that would have made it a felony to buy sex from or traffic 16- and 17-year-old minors.

Let me insert the feelings of our state Assemblyman Juan Alanis, a Republican with common sense and of a law enforcement background: “I have never been more angry and disturbed by actions taken on the Assembly Floor this morning. Once again, the majority party made a choice to stand by criminals and against victims. I do not understand why my colleagues in the majority continue to believe that 16 and 17-year-old children shouldn’t be afforded the same protections as children 15 years old and younger. Purchasing or trafficking any minor of any age for sex should be a felony. Period.

“Let’s be honest. The only bipartisan action taken today was the dissent of this shameful decision by the majority party to say 16- and 17-year-olds shouldn’t have the same protections as children younger in age. I thank my Democratic colleagues who joined Republicans today in supporting protecting 16- and 17-year-olds. I ask my Democratic colleagues who did not join us today one simple question: If you are serious about protecting 16- and 17-year-old kids, why not just protect them under the same laws as kids 15 and younger? It seems pretty simple to me.

“As a co-author of AB 379, I will continue to fight for the merits of the original bill.”

It goes back to an observation Alanis shared with me years ago and that is that Democrats don’t support adding a single day to sentences in California. Their way of thinking is hard to comprehend for the normal citizen. They are a bunch of godless individuals who need to be voted out of office.

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The more I observe the Ceres City Council I am convinced that a lot of energy is expended and little gets accomplished. Seventeen minutes spent last week to set up Ceres students to lead the Pledge of Allegiance at City Council meetings.

Some councilmembers really like to talk a lot and not say much.

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I recall a vocabulary expanding program that had the saying, “People do judge you by the words you use.”

Did Javier Lopez go to the George W. Bush School of Public Speaking? You remember W, the president who made up words. At the outset of the April 14 meeting Mayor Lopez spoke of “proclamating” April 26 as “Love Ceres” Day. Um, proclaiming, not proclamating, sir.

I should’ve written down all the other words I’ve heard him slaughter over the years. (Psst, mayor, the name of the pastor of Harvest Presbyterian Church is pronounced Jim Stock-el, not Stoch-el.)

Gotta practice words you’re unsure of because, after all, you’re running for Congress. But as we can see with the caliber of folks getting elected to Congress these days, like Jasmine Crockett and John Fetterman, I guess words and manner of delivery and attire aren’t all that important anymore.

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Shirley Rogers, a spitfire of a senior citizen, donned a T-shirt for the Ceres City Council last week protesting the idea of Ceres getting a sister city. She thought it was a big waste of time and money – and I agree.

Mayor Lopez said Ceres didn’t have a sister city but wait. I could have sworn that I read a story about Ceres having a sister city in a 1970s edition of the Ceres Courier. Since our move from our Turlock office I didn’t have access to the newspaper morgue nor the time to hunt that article down but I’m sure I saw it. Which if that’s the case, tells you the importance of a sister city if they’ve already forgotten about it and purged the files.

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I think a lot of what city government does, such as issuing proclamations to appease different groups, is a waste of staff time and money. Keep things simple and focus on doing a better job of providing services because God knows there are always ample complaints about things like park maintenance, speeding, city billing, city communication efforts, trash and blight.

Shirley Rogers also took Councilwoman Rosalinda Vierra to task about something she said at the April 14 meeting in question about the city giving $5,000 to the Ceres Street Faire Committee. Rogers was opposed to it. Lisa Mantarro Moore explained that the money was to clean up and to cover extra police security.

Rogers said Vierra misspoke when she suggested the $5,000 to benefit youth recreation. “Well, it wasn’t,” said Rogers publicly. “In fact the money came out of the Recreation money (so)… it did not help the kids. It probably hurt them.”

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Let’s be honest. The city treasurer job in Ceres is really a do nothing job.

It harkens the quote by John Nance Garner who mentioned being vice president was a job “not worth a bucket of warm piss.”

Don’t take my word for it. If you didn’t catch my April interview with Harry Herbert and his wife Brenda, he said this about his years as former city treasurer: ““The way they’ve gotten organized I had to request to see the financial reports and I was excluded from all of the meetings and I’d have to force myself in there to do stuff.”

The city Finance Director, a well salaried department head position, and the city manager are really the ones charged with overseeing the city’s finances and budget.

Even the city attorney noted that the majority of responsibilities are within the Finance Department, including financial reports. She suggested that the Ceres Municipal Code doesn’t even require a report so it would have to be amended.

Last week, Councilman James Casey suggested that the city treasurer take a more active role and write a monthly report and “do the minimum job.”

Yawn,  bureaucracy at work.

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You know the Democrats are in trouble when they start admitting they are in trouble. The odd thing is how long it’s taken them to realize they’ve been pushing the wrong issues. You start seeing them move toward issues they should have known about for years. As California has become unaffordable and driving folks to states like Idaho and Texas and Tennessee and Georgia, people like Newsom are obsessed with promoting the killing of babies, genital mutilation for children, encouraging borders to be violated so we can pay for their medical care and education and housing.

Adam Schiff, who in my opinion is one of the most deplorable members of Congress next to Chuck Schumer, AOC, Jasmine Crockett, Maxine Waters and Ilhan Omar, made a statement that illustrates what I am talking about. Schiff was on “Real Time with Bill Maher” and told the story of  his luggage being stolen from his car in South San Francisco two years ago, and having to go to a Target store to buy toiletries only to have a clerk tell him in “not so many words, yeah, Democrats are a - - holes.” He went on to say: “I thought, you know, if the cashier in San Francisco at 10:00 at night believes that Democrats are a - - holes because that is shampoo is locked up and my stuff gets stolen out of the trunk, we’ve got a major problem that we have to address.”

Problem is that this experience was two years ago and he ran for Senate last year and he didn’t heed the words then.

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In recent years we’ve had a problem with rogue teens – mostly boys – riding bicycles in gangs and often being obnoxious in impeding motor vehicle traffic and throwing rocks at cars.

On April 19 things got way out of hand at a Ralphs grocery store near the UCLA campus in Los Angeles. They stormed the store, began stealing items, pepper sprayed the inside of the store and then hurled insults at a gay couple and then throwing rocks at their car.

So Bill Maher, who seems to be the most levelheaded Democrat in Hollywood, suggested getting kids off social media as a start to restoring civility and lawfulness. Schiff likes how schools are removing cell phones from students before they enter the classroom. His guest, Bret Stephens, an opinion columnist for the NY Times, said social media is actually “anti-social media” that makes people “feel insecure and inadequate.” He went on to tell Maher that “in every single metric, social media has destroyed the inner lives of younger people.”

I’d agree. Also add excessive time playing video games. Healthy life requires balance and healthy social interaction.

Maher said parents have become softies and withhold discipline, noting that kids today “don’t listen to their parents, they turn their back on them, they walk out of the room – things that would just get me shut down when I was a kid and I think it starts with the phone.”

After extolling how some parents are sending their kids to catholic schools for values, Schiff revealed his view toward religion when he replied, “I don’t know that I would be ready to send my kids to a Catholic school” to which the audience howled with laughter. What a buffoon.

This column is the opinion of Jeff Benziger, and does not necessarily represent the opinion of The Ceres Courier or 209 Multimedia Corporation.  How do you feel about this? Let Jeff know at jeffb@cerescourier.com