My jaw hit the floor when state Senator Anna Caballero couldn’t wait to tell the audience of Friday’s Legislative Breakfast that she supports protecting immigration lawbreakers from federal ICE agents.

“The bottom line is we have undocumented workers who have lived here for many, many years, that have contributed to the economy…” said Caballero, an attorney by trade.

So by her definition people should get a pass after breaking the law if they work hard. I wonder if that works for bank robbers too. Heck, if after they rob Wells Fargo Bank and get back to their regular job, hey they’re contributing to our economy so leave ‘em alone.

What kind of logic is she dishing out?

And what about illegal immigrants who aren’t working, like stay at home moms?

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Anna was having a Nancy Pelosi kind of morning, stammering and coming up with wrong words. She talked about using radar technology to measure snowpack in the Rockies before correcting herself, the Sierras. She also stated that California is one to two million housing units short “which means that we don’t have enough housing.” That would be a “thanks, Captain Obvious” in my circle. She also said people are living in “garage and attics.” I don’t know a single person who could stand to live in any attic of any modern day home in the Central Valley.

Caballero said people are paying “way too much money” for rent. Obviously but why is that, Anna? Because of things like CEQA and regulations that not only make it hard to build but also drives up the cost of housing. And her party won’t make any concessions! 

Sen. Caballero said she has three top priorities (water and poverty/housing first) but had to consult her notes to remember the third one, which was job development. Those are priorities you can’t remember.

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Really? Gov. Newsom is taking some heat for gas prices being so high and is blaming others besides his party?

Newsom and his fellow band of Democrats were the ones who pushed the largest gas tax increase in history and then the voters went along with it in November after those scary ads from labor unions.

Since gas is 47 to 87 centers per gallon cheaper in neighboring states, maybe it’s something California is doing differently.

Here’s a list of the California policies that add to the cost of gas:

• Gas Tax Increase (SB 1): 12 cents per gallon;

• Other state taxes: 29.7 cents per gallon;

• Summer-blend required by California lawmakers: 12 cents per gallon;

• Low carbon fuel standard enacted by Democrats: 16 cents per gallon;

• Cap & trade policies supported by Democrats: 14.2 cents per gallon;

• Underground storage tank fee: 2 cents per gallon.

Instead of taking responsibility for driving up the cost of gas in the form of gas taxes, Newsom alleged there may be “inappropriate industry practices  at play. Never mind that gas prices are dictated by supply and demand and the cost of making gas, Newsom wants us all to forget about how his party jacked up taxes exorbitantly high in California. We’re not stupid, Guv’nah.

Rather than looking for a scapegoat to distract from their record of driving up gas prices, Democrats should focus on bringing down costs that eat into family budgets and make life in the Golden State even more expensive.

Anyone want to take bets on whether that’ll happen?

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Los Angeles had a three-hour live TV news drama last week when police chased after a so-called man suspected of beating his female passenger. During the pursuit, the suspect violated virtually every traffic law on the books and nearly struck a pedestrian while plowing through a chain-link fence.

We have since learned that this loser was a beneficiary of Democrats’ dangerous realignment policy that releases criminals long before they serve their original sentence. The suspect, an admitted gang member, had just been let out of prison following a DUI conviction.

Thanks to Democrats soft-on-crime policies, law enforcement and civilians around LA were put at risk yesterday. If Democrats don’t act to change their misguided laws, even more Californians will get hurt.

But then again Democrats like Kamala Harris believe the Boston Marathon bomber should participate in voting.

Unbelievable.

* * * * *

On Friday Supervisor Jim DeMartini related how he once met inmates interact with then Sheriff Adam Christianson. The sheriff asked the men – all who were at least 30 and learning how to read – for a show of hands if they were raised in a single-parent; they all did. Then he asked how many dropped out of high school; all did. Then he asked how many suffered from substance abuse problems; again they all did. How many fathered kids; all did.

He said this is what needs to change. The county has a prevention program and he said “this is where local government can make a difference.”

Maybe.

I know Jim reads this column so I appreciate the effort the county is making. But honestly the real prevention will only come through faith and houses of worship. Faith reaches into the heart and soul – places government cannot. God inspires change. Faith teaches us to rely on God and live by rules that prevent us from doing harmful things, such as abuse drugs or get carried away with drug, or create single-family or not reaching our potential, to be the best student, father or mother or wife or husband. Faith teaches us to be thankful with our circumstances and rise among them if they are bad; to not take what’s not ours; to make smart decisions; to seek wise counsel, not mock authority.

Let’s tap into that.

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Is anyone else really bothered that Democrat senator Corey Booker wants to give reparations to minorities?

In answer to that I saw an excellent meme. It shows Booker pointing to his brain with the following caption: “I want to take money from people who never owned any slaves … and give it to people who were never slaves. Wow! I’m smart!”

Hopefully voters will recognize this platitude for what it is: trying to buy votes. The ones who will pay surely don’t support this pandering nonsense.

* * * * *

Poor Congresswoman Maxine Waters. She seems dumber than a brick.

During a House Financial Services Committee hearing Waters tried embarrassing bank executives during her grandstanding. She said: “Today there are more than 44 million Americans that owe … $1.56 trillion in student loan debt.  Last year, 1 million student loan borrowers defaulted which is on top of the 1 million borrowers who defaulted the year before.”

She then asked bank executives, “What are you guys doing to help us with the student loan debt?”

She was schooled when all of them said their banks stopped making student loans when President Obama effectively nationalized student lending by cutting banks — which had been offering government-backed loans to students — out of the equation and having the government make the loans itself.

Obama said “By cutting out the middleman, we’ll save the American taxpayers $68 billion in the coming years. That’s real money.”

I’ll say. As a result, federal student loan debt shot up from $154.9 billion in 2009 to $1.1 trillion by the end of 2017.

* * * * *

MSN, that dishonest media in conjunction with BBC News, put out another bogus environmental scare story, headlined, “Thousands of penguin chicks wiped out.” Of course it’s one of those global warming garbage stories. Problem is that the penguins allegedly died in 2016 when their Antarctica sea ice was destroyed in severe weather.  But read on: “Quite why the sea-ice platform on the edge of the Brunt shelf has failed to regenerate is unclear. There is no obvious climate signal to point to in this case; atmospheric and ocean observations in the vicinity of the Brunt reveal little in the way of change.”

Repeat: Little in the way of change.

But not content to leave it there the article had to throw in this scare: “But the sensitivity of this colony to shifting sea-ice trends does illustrate, says the team, the impact that future warming in Antartica COULD HAVE on emperor penguins in particular.”

Future global warming? You mean like that future recession the experts said we’d be having this year yet the first quarter report on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) shows a 3.2 percent increase?

Could have on emporer penguins?

Don’t let them kid you. A 2018 National Geographic headline reported: “Deep bore into Antarctica finds freezing ice, not melting as expected.”

I thought Al Gore predicted the end when in 2006 he said “humanity may have only 10 years left to save the planet from turning into a total frying pan.”

* * * * *

Former Veep Joe Biden started out his presidential run last week on deception, saying that our president is a racist who backs the KKK. What a crock. Biden cited Trump’s out-of-context remarks after the August 2017 violent protests in Charlottesville, Va. Whites were protesting the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue but were met with violent counter protestors. A car driven by one of the whites ran into Heather Heyer and fatally killed her.

Biden paints Trump as racist by using a partial quote of Trump’s: “You had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.” But Biden is a dishonest man, because he conveniently left off what Trump said right before that. Trump said: “Excuse me, they didn’t put themselves down as neo-Nazis, and you had some very bad people in that group.  But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides.  … You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.” After another question at that press conference, Trump became even more explicit: “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and white nationalists because they should be condemned totally.”

So Biden is repeating a falsehood for political gain. Despicable him.

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