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Is it about racism, COVID or about getting Trump?
Opinion

This country keeps getting nuttier by the day.

I think they’ve gone nuts from being cooped up at home too long and losing their jobs and they’ve snapped. Plain bonkers. Nutso.

The leftist politicians who have said for months how unsafe it was for churches to gather (even if masked) or enjoy a nice day at the beach six feet apart, had absolutely no problem allowing protestors to gallivant around in the streets shoulder to shoulder with or without masks. Ask yourself why. Think good and hard and honestly tell me that they aren’t allowing rioting in the streets for political reasons.

Can’t you see, folks? This is all about election tampering. It’s about creating and allowing civil unrest (looters) and poverty (economic shutdown). Why? So people will desire a change in leadership when – before COVID-19 hit – we had the best economy ever.  Seems like  sowing discord for political change.

I get that people hate the president for his lack of a filter. He does let people have it – and hard. Most certainly because of his political incorrectness. I’ll be the first to admit that I am critical of his endless impromptu ramblings at press conferences where he repeats himself and speaks in fractured sentences. But his policies have been good to build our economic health and make people less dependent upon the government. When you see young people protesting against police brutality holding up “F*** Trump” signs then you suspect this is all about a protest of the president who had nothing to do with the lawless actions of that officer in Minneapolis.

It’s an organized effort to tear apart the country, as we know it, so they can reassemble it into a socialist platform that robs the rich to reward the poor – for giving up on life.


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The real problem of bad apple cops seems to be in liberal cities run by liberal mayors and police chiefs. I find it ironic that Minneapolis has a black police chief and a liberal Democrat mayor. Why aren’t protesters laying blame on them instead of the president who has no direct control?

It’s a valid question. After all, Officer Derek Chauvin was the subject of 18 complaints – one for each year that he worked – that went to Internal Affairs. He was only reprimanded twice. Apparently two times for verbally using demeaning tone and derogatory language. The fact that his wife filed for divorce the day after his arrest might tell you something. He simply was a bad cop who should have been flushed out by his superiors, at least from this perspective of this editor.

When I think of police officers in general I think of the ones I know. They are flesh and blood required to be as professional as possible. But they are human. That’s why I am appalled to see skulls of mush and little understanding of the world screaming obscenities at police officers – likely some being their neighbors whom they don’t even know. Ask Don Cool of Ceres who watched it happen in Oakdale last week. They were also screaming obscenities at him and he was only there to shoot photos.

Mark Twain once said: “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”

Modified for today’s immaturity level, I’d say the age of enlightenment Twain was referring to needs to roll back to age 35.

It was a different scenario when protesters gathered in Placerville where the police chief is none other than Joe Wren, the former Ceres sergeant who was in charge of code enforcement just years ago cleaning up the crap and filth of some slovenly kept Ceres properties. Joe was present at a peaceful demonstration against the death of George Floyd. He publicly stated that “what happened to George Floyd sickens me and was disturbing. I am reluctant to even call that man (Derek Chauvin) a police officer.”

Indeed, few officers would put up with Chauvin.

Ceres police has been good about firing its bad apples. One example was in April 2013 when Officer Chris Melton kicked a surrendered Daniel Reagan in the groin and laughed about it. Officer Ross Bays reported it and Melton was ultimately fired and went on trial.

But to protest across the country what was a problem in Minneapolis is a bit off. Candace Owens, a popular and outspoken black conservative, said the black community is unique in that it caters to the bottom denominator of society. She said while not every black American is a criminal Owens noted “we are the only people who will fight and scream and demand support and justice for the people in our community that are up to no good.” She noted that Jews don’t do it, whites don’t do it and Latinos don’t do it.

George Floyd, while certainly not deserving of the inhumane treatment that ended in death, was not an upstanding citizen. In 2005 a man knocked on the door of a pregnant woman’s house and tried to pass himself off as a water worker. She realized it was a set-up and shut the door but the man and his buddies jumped out of the car and barged into her home. Floyd was one of them; he stuck a gun to her belly and kept her at bay while they ransacked her home. They were tracked down through a license plate a bystander took down. George Floyd served five years behind bars in 2009 for an assault and robbery two years earlier, and had been convicted of charged with theft with a firearm and cocaine offenses. At the time of his death on May 25 he was high on meth and Fentanyl.


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You have to wonder what our schools are teaching.

I saw Yari Gutierrez holding a sign with a pink pig on it and the words, “Defund the police. Hold COPs ACCountable.”

I asked her how that would work. She said defund the police and spend it on healthcare and other areas for minorities. I said, “So you don’t want any police then?” She replied, “You said that, not me.” I responded, “Well, if you cut off their funding there won’t be any police. They don’t work for free.”

It’s an example of how futile the thinking of this generation has become. The quest to defund police is an idiotic concept dreamt up by liberals. If your aim is to destroy any community and promote lawlessness, defund all police.


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I’m also quite appalled that Samson Gonzalez spoke at Sunday’s protest in Whitmore Park and said: “... I’m not saying all police officers are criminals or are bad. But what I’m trying to say that the bad by far outweigh the good. Not only in the force but in white individuals too.”

Can you imagine the backlash if somebody were to say that the bad in black people far outweighs the good? Yeah, racism goes both ways.


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You knew it would happen, right? Somebody gets coronavirus and someone dies and the loved one sues, presumably to cash in. The widow of a man who died in the Turlock facility is suing, as is Norma Zuniga, the widow of a Safeway warehouse employee who died because she said the company didn’t protect her husband enough. Of course her attorney, Paul A. Matiasic, is quick to jump on the cash bandwagon, saying, “Safeway put production and profits over the protection of its workers. Tragically, the Zuniga family was forced to pay the price of Safeway’s misguided priorities.”

You’re darned right Safeway wanted to continue making groceries available to feed families – at least the ones who wanted to eat. Why is every greedy attorney always quick to vilify a company for wanting to profit. Isn’t the whole purpose of a business to make a profit? Why are legal people and leftists trying to condemn anyone wanting to make a buck?

It’s not like Pedro Zuniga didn’t have a choice if he was in questionable health. I don’t know the man but based on his picture, I’d say he struggled with obesity and likely diabetes, which are risk factors for dying for dying from this.


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A little more perspective above the hype.

Stanislaus County has had 30 COVID-19 related deaths. Eighteen were within the confines of Turlock Nursing & Rehabilitation Center. Subtract those and we had 12 outside of that facility. Take 12 and divide it by county population of 550,660 and you can see that 0.00002179 percent of the county has died from it. Like a 3/50000th chance of dying.

And why are we continuing this social distancing and mask sham? Why are state officials hardly letting anyone dine or shop like they did on March 1?

Stop the shoppers but let’s not restrict any woman who wants to kill her fetus, though. That’s a priority.

State Attorney General Xavier Becerra continues his obsession with suing Trump. The newest suit – we can’t keep count now – is aimed at the FDA because it is restricting Mifepristone, the RU-486 abortion pill, to only be dispensed by certified providers at a hospital, clinic, or medical office and not by pharmacy or mail. You see, Becerra thinks killing a baby should be as convenient as possible and doesn’t want pregnant women to have to go into an office for a prescription to “minimize transmission of the COVID-19 virus.”

Who is he fooling? He and his party of death don’t want ANY restrictions on abortion. Remember, it’s also the party that doesn’t believe in any consequences for questionable and bad behavior. Let all prisoners out of jail, go soft on crime, protect people who can’t pay their bills, give people money for not being successful in life, let those who sneak across the border stay and pay their medical bills, bail people out when they default on mortgages or student loans, let men use the women’s bathroom, pay for sex change operations of prisoners and now excuse people who torch police vehicles as free speech. But you church people had better not speak out against anyone’s lifestyle or, or, or, well, just wait until we come up with hate speech legislation.

Again, COVID-19 doesn’t seem to be a liberal’s concern as rioters throw frozen water bottles at cops or walk through the broke down of the clothing store to steal bras and panties. But how dare you make a woman go into a medical office to get a pill to kill the life growing inside her.


And by the way, I became a grandfather again last Thursday so I’m a bit sensitive about killing babies.

I’m not going to ask the rhetorical question, how did Becerra the Radical get elected as attorney general. I already know how. I’d guess that about 80 to 90 percent of voters have zero idea who or what they are voting for. They vote solely because of the “D” or an “R” and to heck with knowing what the candidate stands for. We live in the age of the low information voter who only gets his information through a filtered social media that is intentionally designed to squelch conservative voices. They watch cable TV news that puts a 99 percent negative slant on all its coverage of Trump and Republicans in Congress. It’s the same news media that builds up Gov. Cuomo of New York as being brilliant for his COVID-19 response when he made the idiotic decision to stick COVID-19 victims in rest homes. Brilliant.

People are waking up to the lies of the national news media … such as the repeated  lie that peaceful protesters were tear-gassed so Trump could walk to St. John’s Church burned the day before. Want the truth? Protesters were told three times to push back one block but became more combative and threw frozen water bottles and caustic liquids instead of compliance. Some attempted to grab officers’ weapons, so officers used smoke canisters and pepper balls. There were also caches of glass bottles, baseball bats and metal poles hidden along the street and ready for use against police. So tell me again why Trump was the bad guy?


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Becerra fails to keep his nose out of other state’s affairs. Now he’s muscling into Hawaii, trying to be the big brother defending little brothers’ passage of gun laws there. Specifically, the biggest liberal in the nation, Becerra, wants Hawaii to mimic him … background checks for ammo, making it illegal to build a gun. KITV Channel 4 reported that Honolulu Police Chief Susan Ballard said two such ghost guns were used in officer-involved shootings last year. Their report said: “Ghost guns are typically put together using home kits with 80% of the parts. An owner is required to register the assembled firearm with police, but criminals don’t.”

Well there you go. Because criminals don’t report ghost guns after they make them, Hawaii is going to make sure law abiding citizens who do can’t make guns either. News flash, Hawaii Legislature: criminals also don’t obey laws against shooting people or robbing stores with guns either. So will your ghost gun ban work?

Gun laws only prevent law-abiding citizens from owning them so it makes it harder to defend one’s life and property.


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I saw a funny video sent to me by former Ceres resident Robert Fauss. Now I don’t know if that was real or staged but the point is nonetheless well taken. It was shot by an older man in a shopping center parking lot. He explains how two young punks were sitting on a tailgate of a truck and demanded his wallet as they drank beer. He said “Give me the beer and we’ll forget about it.” The man said one of the punks flipped out a switchblade and challenged him to come get the beer.  The shopper lectured the two about social distancing and how they needed to stay six feet apart. He said the two ran off across the parking lot running over a hill (as the camera pans up to show the direction – pointed by the gun in his left hand.) The man grabs the Corona beer and leaves.

People sometimes need to take of situations with their gun! Especially if police are going to sit by and do nothing when mob violence occurs.


* * * * *

I’m a history buff. I enjoy learning about our past. The Civil War fascinates me. It fascinates me that Ulysses Grant actually visited his brothers-in-law in Knights Ferry long before the War Between the States. It fascinates me that John Muir walked along the Merced River as he made his way to Yosemite the first trips. It fascinates me that outlaw Bill Dalton is buried in a Turlock cemetery, 2,100 miles from where he was gunned down.  Old cemeteries fascinate me.

So when this history lover hears about politically correct politicians tearing down statues, I cringe. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam now wants to remove the iconic statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from Richmond’s Monument Avenue. Like him or not, Lee was a huge historical figure and the statue itself is historical. Instead of tearing his statue down, why can’t we use it as a teaching moment for our kids? Why not take kids down there and say, “Kids, this guy was an important general who scores some major victories against the Union. But he was a mean slave owner and he helped divide the nation. You see kids, we’ve advanced since that time and slavery has been abolished.”

Or has it? Maybe that’s the time to start educating our young men about sex trafficking, the biggest human rights violation in our country.

What a great time for a lesson on a divided nation instead of a wrecking ball. But as we can see, a large segment of the country is all about tearing down.

The violent idiots in the street who attacked St. John’s in D.C. need some enlightenment. As White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany noted, that same church supported the civil rights movement and 1963 March on Washington where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous “I have a Dream” speech. Apparently Antifa is ignorant of U.S. history.


* * * * *

What happened to the concept of being responsible for one’s self? By that I mean, when did we decide to allow government to feed our kids, forgive our loans, save us from financial mistakes? 

What happened to the concept of self-control? By that I mean being upset about a situation while having the self-control to not pay evil with evil?


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So a Latino group wants Ted Howze to bow out of the congressional race because of the flap about social media posts that were removed a long time ago? Oh yeah? Since they didn’t offer a suggestion of a Republican to take his place I’m going out on a limb that they are only interested in eliminating any competition for Josh Harder. And how much would you care to bet that if this was Josh Harder’s social media flap their response would be: “Oh, Harder didn’t post those, somebody else did. You Republicans are always on the attack.”

Admit it – I’m right.

Howze said somebody else posted them. I don’t doubt that. Here’s why.

When I worked for Congressman Tony Coelho in 1979, my job as an intern was to scour the newspapers and find stories about people so that I could then compose congratulatory letters based on the story I gleaned. Tony would sign the letters on the weekend. The recipient would feel puffed up that a congressman took notice when it was an unpaid volunteer only making it look that way.

The same thing is going on today in social media with candidates giving out likes on others’ posts.

So why do people predisposed to the Democrats have a hard time believing somebody else had the Howze password? Makes sense to me. Why would Howze, a candidate for Congress, sabotage his own candidacy with posts considered politically insensitive? He wouldn’t but a lackey could.


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