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Jury: it’s OK to steal animals to save them
Opinion

You cannot make up stupid as stupid as this. The group of animal rights wackos who staged a protest of Foster Farms slaughtering chickens at its Livingston plant in September 2021 by stealing a few of them, were acquitted of misdemeanor charges.

The charges should have stuck. It was outright theft conducted by a fringe group.

One of those participating was a “Baywatch” star named Alexandra Paul. We all know the intellectual prowess of Baywatch stars. She was part of an animal rights group called Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), which is leading a campaign to establish the legal “Right to Rescue» animals from abuse. The group asserts that Foster Farms method of killing chickens is animal cruelty.

Attorney Justin Marceau believes the Merced court case is “represents an important, legal affirmation of the right to rescue farmed animals who are suffering, diseased, or otherwise in danger of an inhumane death.”

“Rescue” in their screwy way of defining it, equates to stealing animals. So since the stupid chicken is going to be killed and eaten, they believe they have a right to steal.

If you use the jury’s line of reasoning, it is then okay for anyone to break into your house and steal your possessions if funds the ability of a thief to prevent his death by starvation.

Here’s the deal. Animals don’t have human brains or a level of a sophisticated way of thinking. So I’m quite sure they don’t experience the same trauma as human facing their own demise. Chickens and other foul, which are quite plentiful, have a purpose for being on the planet and one of them is to be eaten by other animals and human. Even coyotes and bears attack cows for food. After all, God gave man dominion over the animals to feed humanity. It’s part of the cycle of life. 

I don’t know of any of acquiring any kind of meat through a non-violent way, whether by shooting, decapitating, electrocution or throat slicing or pulling up on a hook. So I bet our misguided attorney would be fine if we ended all meat consumption on the planet, even though we have been doing so since the dawn of man.


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As if the appointment of Pete Buttigieg as transportation secretary wasn’t enough, now the president wants to appoint another disaster of a public servant to his cabinet.

Who does he go to for a Secretary of Labor? Julie Su. I guess she checks all the boxes in terms of gender and ethnicity but is he aware of her disastrous performance as California’s Labor Secretary?

Remember that she presided over the largest unemployment insurance fraud in U.S. history? Remember that she allowed the California Employment Development Department to wrongfully deny more than one million unemployment claims?

She also backed AB 5, which threatened the livelihoods of 2.7 million freelance workers like Uber drivers.


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I doubt if Assemblyman Jesse Gabriel, D- Woodland Hills, realizes that his new legislation is an admission of guilt in how government regulations hurt business in California.

His Assembly Bill 1217 would “preserve the current regulatory flexibility related to outdoor, patio, and al fresco dining and enable restaurants to continue to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic as they navigate rising costs.” In his press release Gabriel goes on to say how these “beloved establishments” are “barely hanging on by a thread” and only survived with outdoor dining, which, of course, the state relaxed regulations over because of COVID.  It seems that now that COVID is over, some bureaucrats are licking their chops to go back to over-regulations.

A lot of restaurants invested a lot of money to create beautiful outdoor dining spaces to increase capacity to recoup some of losses suffered in these past few difficult years. But alas, some cities like Los Angeles want to crack down with new restrictions on outdoor dining and require restaurants to apply for expensive new permits for existing patios. AB 1217 would tell LA don’t even think about it.

It’s sad that we need Sacramento laws to keep cities from further burdening the one industry that already has a high failure rate, but so be it.

But it’s nice to hear we have at least Democrat in Sacramento admitting how regulations have burdened businesses and driven some out of business. Perhaps he can – and should – open his eyes to how a vast array of regulations his party supports are killing off other businesses and also driving them out of California.


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If you want to know what entity is causing the deep division in America today, look no farther than the corporate TV news media. They have a credibility issue, publish false narratives and rarely apologize when they are caught reporting falsehoods (such as the Nicholas Sandman incident that cost CNN, NBC and the Washington Post millions in a defamation suit).

Take for example the crap that happened at UC Davis when conservative activist and radio talk show host Charles Kirk, who founded Turning Point USA with Bill Montgomery in 2012, was about to speak there. The Sacramento Bee (which is no different from the liberal sister paper the Modesto Bee) published an opinion piece by writer Hannah Holzer, “Another fascist is coming to UC Davis. How should the community respond?” and claimed that Kirk called for the “lynching of trans people.”

Kirk wasn’t going to take it and threatened to sue the Bee for “defamation and libel.” The Bee apologized and back-peddled their hateful narrative.

But such media narratives did their damage and caused Antifa (who should be categorized as a domestic terrorist group), to get violent at the Kirk speech on campus. They threw a violent protest by smashing windows, throwing eggs, using pepper spray and vandalizing the campus with paint in an attempt to shut down free speech. A police officer was also injured.

All because of lies propagated by our media – and activists who think it’s okay to get violent to stop speech they don’t like.

So where did the Bee get such incorrect information about Kirk saying he favored trans people being lynched? By parroting what they heard others jumping to false conclusions about.

Kirk was on camera interviewing female college swimmer Riley Gaines when the topic came up about trans swimmer Lia Thomas  exposing his male genitalia in front of women in the locker room. Kirk replied, “someone should have took care of it the way we used to take care of things in the 1950s and 60s.” Some activists took that as meaning a lynching when what Kirk actually meant was that we used to call police over such lewd acts.

All this goes to show how quick people jump at any chance to destroy people with whom they differ politically.

It’s concerning how so many radicals try to shut down the free expression of speech.


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Our culture has become increasingly narcissistic so I guess it shouldn’t surprise us that our local elected officials are that way too.

Past mayors did not play a slick video and bring in a band to play introductory music as they strolled to the podium deliver a “State of the City” address. Nor had we previously seen such self-serving social media posts touting personal accomplishments and posts filled with selfies taken at events. 


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I’m convinced that what we are seeing in our country – the rampant homelessness due to narcotics and alcohol abuse and the rise in violent crime – is a result of a spiritual decay in our land.

When people have a spiritual foundation, they don’t need to take drugs and ruin their lives and end up on the streets. When people respect God they respect others and don’t go around stealing, robbing, assaulting and killing. People of faith don’t go around killing others like they did on Lassen Avenue in South Modesto or stealing a kid’s sweatshirt and shoes in a Keyes park. However, when you have no fear of or respect of God, you have no regard for others’ lives, limbs or property.

On the other hand, if you value a good relationship with your Maker, you live out the Golden Rule of “Do unto others the way you would have them do unto you” by doing for others and treating people with love and tenderness. But our society mocks and ridicules the very faith that could deliver the very things it seeks – peace and harmony.


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Our politicians are a bit of a reflection of us because we put them in office. We used to pay attention to their resumes and position papers; now voters are fooled by slick mailers and TV spots. What do we get for that? People who are irresponsible spending money like drunken sailors in port, and the loss of our security – all for the sake of holding onto power – while our nation drowns in red ink and a people willing to let government do everything for them.

I’m mindful of one famous politician named Joe Biden who talked about “putting ya’ll back in chains.” It was wrong of him to suggest the GOP would do that to blacks but his statement about chains is appropriate when you view how his spending plans are enslaving us to more debt and ushering in more Nanny State control.


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As I watched video of a Chicago reporter eviscerate Mayor Lori Lightfoot at one of her last council meetings following her stinging defeat, I noticed how his words apply to all things Newsom.

Reporter William Kelly – whose press credentials had been previously revoked by Lightfoot for his hard-hitting questioning during her years as mayor – spoke as a private citizen last week when he pointblank told the unpopular and defeated mayor: “You should down our schools. You shut down the churches. You shut down the business. You did the one thing I thought could never happen and as somebody who was born on the south side of Chicago I never thought in my life that I would ever see the city of Chicago brought down so low … I hope that after today’s city council meeting you will pack your suitcase and get the hell out of my city.”

Wow. But you know, Newsom did the same exact things, yet he was not only rewarded by being spared of a recall, but was given another four years to continue damaging the state! What is wrong with the 59.2 percent of the voters – mostly along the coast – who thought he deserved to stay on the job?


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San Quentin has been known for incarcerating the worst criminals in California history. And it is historical. Charles Boles, otherwise known as Black Bart, was held here as were Charles Manson, Eldridge Cleaver, Charles Ng, William Bonin, Cary Stayner and Scott Peterson.

I don’t want to leave out Merle Haggard, the famous singer. Haggard never murdered anyone but he spent time there. He also turned his life around and contributed much to society through his entertainment. So obviously some prisoners do turn their lives around and redeem themselves and we all want that for them and society in general.

Most, however, do not turn their lives around. It’s a choice. According to a 2012 report by the California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation, more than 65 percent of those released from the state prison system return within three years.

Now Newsom wants to spend $20 million (just to do the design work) to transform San Quentin from a maximum-security prison into a rehabilitation and education facility that will focus on preparing inmates for their transition back into civilian life. He claims this will build a “brighter and safer future.”

The plan includes moving the Death Row inmates – the ones Newsom has spared from the executions they deserve – to other prisons.

He wants to reform the harsh conditions into a more comfortable place for the 3,800 inmates there with less punitive measures and teach them how to cook and do laundry. Does anyone think that’s going to work?

Three months after becoming governor, Newsom back-peddled on his “I support the death penalty” stance as a candidate and issued an executive order in March 2019 to suspend executions in California. He called the death penalty “inconsistent with our bedrock values and strikes at the very heart of what it means to be a Californian.”

Bedrock values of Californians? No, sorry, Governor.  In 2016 California voters rejected a ballot initiative to repeal the death penalty, and voted to expedite executions of inmates on death row! In flipping the bird to the voters, Newsom said: “We cannot advance the death penalty in an effort to soften the blow of what happens to these victims. If someone kills, we do not kill. We’re better than that.”

Marc Klaas, the father of murdered Petaluma girl Polly Klaas, was dumbfounded and felt victimized by Newsom, saying: “Did I feel like I was being victimized again? Are you kidding me?” After spending 25 years with the expectation that the sentence would finally be carried out on Polly’s killer, to have the governor kind of look me in the eye and say he was declaring a moratorium… I can’t be the one to execute 700 people.”

Klass added: “the death penalty is now all about Gavin Newsom and what a wonderful guy he is for sparing these poor men who just didn’t get enough hugs from their moms and dads when they were little kids.”

Newsom suggests he has “deep reverence and respect” for victims and survivors yet appears to have even greater respect for vile men like Richard Allen Davis, who kidnapped 12-year-old Polly Klaas  at a slumber party in 1993 from her bedroom, tied up all the girls and put pillow cases over their heads. Davis kidnapped Polly, raped her, killed her, and discarded her body off of the side of the freeway hidden under a piece of plywood. Her body was not found for two months. Nice guy who deserves mercy?

Some folks are just so evil they need to be executed to end the evil.

Newsom’s bleeding heart, soft-on-crime approach, whether letting felons out of prison early because of COVID or because he doesn’t want to build more prisons to house those who would otherwise victimize us, or allowing killers to live, has been an abject failure. Consider how we have a dead officer in Selma because the state released 23-year-old Nathaniel Dixon, an admitted gang member who hadn’t served anywhere near his 5 years and 4 months in state prison in March 2022 for robbery, weapons and drug charges. Dixon was released in September 2022, having served only seven months and was walking around on the Post Release Community Supervision program!


And does anyone find it ironic that his heart bleeds for people who deserve the death penalty while promoting women to take the innocent lives of their babies? God have mercy on his soul.


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At the Newsom San Quentin announcement, state Senator Mike McGuire made the bold statement that black men are imprisoned six times more than white men and that Latino men make up 44 percent of the prison population and “this is simply unacceptable.” Of course he was inferring that’s the case because of systemic racism but isn’t honest enough to spotlight the real root of the problem: fatherlessness in the black community.

According to the latest Census figures, about 50 percent of African American boys under age 17 live with a mother only, compared with 16 percent of their white counterparts. Research shows that children in fatherless homes are more likely to drop out of school, exhibit behavioral problems, end up in the criminal justice system, suffer unemployment, and are at a greater risk of substance and drug abuse.

Why doesn’t Newsom ever talk about that? Because putting the blame where it belongs doesn’t play well. You can’t get any political mileage telling the black community that they have a problem that they need to take care of. It’s easier to pull out the race card and blame white people.

So, Newsom blames the prison system. I think it’s a pretty simple concept why we should lock up people: so they can’t continue to kill and steal and destroy; and secondly, to consider changing one’s ways in the great timeout. “Where’s the public safety in that?” asks Newsom. Plenty if you keep the ones who don’t learn behind bars.

Twenty million dollars won’t change hearts that refuse to turn their life around. 


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Newsom announced last week that he wants us taxpayers to spend $1 billion to deliver 1,200 small homes to Los Angeles, San Diego County, San Jose and Sacramento to provide safe, interim housing for people experiencing homelessness. I understand that 350 units are going to Cal Expo. Nice going. Who will want to go to the State Fair now?

Providing a roof over someone’s head at taxpayer expense won’t solve the problem. The more important issue is addressing the cause of homelessness – drugs, alcohol and mental illness.


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