On Oct. 11 a new sign appeared at the entrance to the Small Assembly room of the Community Center where the Ceres City Council meets. It’s too bad that the conduct of an audience member prompted the city to post the sign to address the lack of decorum displayed throughout this year.
The sign reads:
1). Persons attending meetings of the City Council shall at all times conduct themselves in a courteous manner with regard to other members of the public attending the meeting and to councilmembers and city staff.
2). Persons attending the meeting shall refrain from the use of profanity and rude or derogatory remarks.
3). No person attending the meeting shall engage in disorderly conduct which disturbs the peace and good order of the meeting. Continuation of such conduct after an admonition from the mayor will result in removal from the council chambers.
4). Any person who willfully disturbs or breaks up any assembly or meeting is guilty of a misdemeanor and will be subject to arrest. (Cal. Penal Code Section 403).
5). Nothing in these rules prohibits the right of the public to criticize the policies, procedures, programs or services of the city or of the acts or omissions of members of the City Council or city staff. (Cal. Govt. Code section 54954.3(c)).
People who are tuned into council meetings know this sign was posted because of the past conduct of John Osgood who now wants to be appointed to the council – which he threatened to sue on Sept. 27.
Check it out for yourself. Listen to the audio of an exchange at the Sept. 27, 2021 Ceres City Council meeting on YouTube.com. Search for the city of Ceres channel and find the Sept. 27, 2021 meeting. A shortcut URL is https://youtu.be/UORjV4h-Eco and fast-forward to the 4:23:52 mark and watch until 4:27:17.
As far as his rant in that exchange, the council had the right to determine the process for which it would fill appointments.
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What Contra Costa County has done to private business is unforgivable and evil.
Contra Costa County health officials last week unjustly shut down an In-N-Out Burger in Pleasant Hill for violating the county’s vaccine mandate on indoor dining. What was their sin? For not enacting gestapo-like tactics by checking diners if they have a vaccination card or a negative test result.
I must have entered 30 restaurants in our county in recent months and at no time was I asked to show my papers. It’s not even constitutional to require a vaccine card to enjoy American liberties and I hope the burger chain sues the hell out of any county that carries things as far as Contra Costa.
I get that In-N-Out has been a target because it’s Christian based and it supports conservative causes. Liberals would want nothing more than to see this popular chain fail.
I’m telling you, folks, it’s time for pushback and a revolution at the ballot box. You had your chance, California in September, and you absolutely blew it.
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Here we go again. More name changing as we cleanse our history to erase realities of our past.
I recently wrote how they renamed Squaw Valley. The liberals have removed statues of Junipero Serra and Columbus and taken the names of governors off of schools in favor of some Hispanic villains like Tiburcio Vasquez.
Now they wanted to rename Hastings Law School in San Francisco. The school is named for its founder, Serranus Hastings, one of the wealthiest men in California in that era and the state’s first chief justice. In 1878, Mr. Hastings donated $100,000 in gold to establish the school and his name was to “forever” be attached to it.
The enlightened generation claims he was responsible or partly responsible for 283 Yuki tribe people massacred by officially sanctioned militias and U.S. troops. Naturally, they want his name stripped from the institution.
David Faigman, the chancellor and dean of Hastings Law, wants the name to stay the same, asking, what would it accomplish? Faigman said a name change could result in fewer student applications and a loss of philanthropic and alumni support.
Col. Claes Lewenhaupt, a great-great-grandson of Serranus Hastings who also sits on the Hasting’s board of directors admits the treatment of Indians – whoops, I can’t use that term anymore, sorry, Native Americans – was “awful” but doesn’t see any benefit to the institutions.
It’s just a feel good move and nothing else.
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Our governor, who has so many problems in California he hasn’t taken care of – nor does he really want to solve them – had planned to go out of the country playing like he is a head of state to attend a stupid climate change conference in Glasgow, Scotland.
He oddly cancelled his plans to attend on Friday, no doubt because he was getting hammered in the press. Newsom claimed the cancellation was due to undisclosed “family obligations.”
Instead California Democrat Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis led the way. Her junket, paid for by our tax dollars, had her and 22 other Democrats flying on a carbon-emitting jet. One way of travel is 4,962 miles, which takes 10 hours, 25 minutes on a jet plane, consuming more than 20,000 gallons of jet fuel, to discuss the world’s need to cut fossil fuel energy. This is a bit ironic after forcing months of students to attend class via Zoom, as well as holding government meetings via Zoom and everything else.
The climate has always changed naturally on its own before mankind came along. But here we go with the radical environmental agenda.
In Scotland they preached how us peons need to change of our lives and lower our standards. Newsom brags about California’s “move away from fossil fuels –reducing demand for oil by ending the sale of new gas cars by 2035, moving to phase out harmful oil production in our communities and no later than 2045 statewide, and advancing a historic $15 billion climate package this year to tackle wildfire and drought challenges, help communities transition during the climate crisis and support the state’s Zero-Emission Vehicle goals.”
Newsom is proud how the governor is promoting a sweeping new regulation to ban any new oil or gas development from being within 3,200 feet of all schools, healthcare facilities, nursing homes, and homes statewide – and killing jobs as well as our access to lower priced fuels. Remember, California lawmakers don’t care that you will be paying through the nose to fill up your vehicle because that is their goal – to make you give your car and ride on mass transit systems or buy electric cars with those large lithium-ion batteries made with rare-earth minerals and that aren’t environmentally friendly. Never mind that to charge those batteries we have to make electricity that isn’t always environmental.
Meanwhile the state refuses to classify hydroelectric power – the cleanest energy of all because it’s generated by only running water through a turbine – as clean energy, presumably because the Sierra Club and other environmental lobbies have waged war on dams in California.
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I enjoyed seeing Friday’s parade of Carroll Fowler Elementary School students walking around their campus and Smyrna Park with signs in hand proclaiming a message to say no to drugs. It was a tangible expression of Red Ribbon Week.
I thought about these kids as they grow up and how sadly some of them will indeed say yes to drugs. After all, you just need to travel up and down Highway 99 and see the billboards promoting marijuana dispensaries.
Since I was a boy, marijuana went from a taboo narcotic to a socially acceptable “substance.” It’s funny how we’ve rebranded the drug – and it is a drug. It’s destroyed millions of lives. Rehab clinics are loaded with people who cannot deal with their addiction to pot.
People who begin using marijuana before the age of 18 are four to seven times more likely to develop a marijuana use disorder than adults, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Research indicates that using marijuana can cause or exacerbate problems in daily life. Heavy users tend to report lower life satisfaction, poorer mental and physical health, more relationship problems and less academic or career success when compared with non-using peers. Use of the drug is also associated with a higher likelihood of dropping out of school. Several workplace studies associate marijuana use with increased absences, tardiness, accidents, workers’ compensation claims and job turnover.
Marijuana abuse has also been associated with other mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, personality disturbances, suicidal thoughts (among adolescents) and a lack of motivation to engage in typically rewarding activities.
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Just when you thought corporate America couldn’t go deeper off the left edge of the spectrum comes this report from National Review: AT&T is now penalizing its white employees if they are unwilling to admit to being complicit in so-called “white privilege” and “systemic racism.” AT&T’s initiative called the Listen Understand Act encourages employees to read an article titled, “White America, if you want to know who’s responsible for racism, look in the mirror.” The article by Dahleen Glanton, says: “White people, you are the problem. Regardless of how much you say you detest racism, you are the sole reason it has flourished for centuries.”
The article adds that “American racism is a uniquely white trait” and that “Black people cannot be racist.”
Time to boycott AT&T before this cancer of illogical thought poisons our nation entirely.
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I warned you Biden would be a disaster and he has been. His approval numbers are tanking faster than the Titanic and Americans are not at all confident Kamala Harris is qualified to lead the country should the 78-year-old have to be removed because he’s faltering.
The latest YouGov survey shows Americans say Harris is not qualified to be president if something happens to Biden by a margin of 45% to 37%. Independents are especially wary of her taking over, with Independents saying by a margin of 50% to 31% that she isn’t qualified.
Around nine in 10 Biden voters, Democrats and liberals unsurprisingly think Harris is qualified to be president, as do almost 60% of Blacks and 44% of Hispanics.
Not surprisingly, college educated white women say Harris is qualified by a margin of 49% to 42%, but college-educated white men say she is not qualified 54% to 38%.
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There is a public service announcement running on KFIV radio station which is from vaccine.org, which is the Centers for Disease Control. The commercial raises my ire because it makes reference to “pregnant people,” not pregnant women.
The left would have you think of pregnancy in gender-neutral terms but only women can get pregnant. To say otherwise is the ultimate in science denial. Of course, Democrat Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri caused uproar when she used the term birthing people in a hearing. What it does is erases women and mothers as significant segments of our society. As Ann Romney, wife of Senator Mitt Romney said: “The Biden administration diminishing motherhood to ‘birthing person’ is simply insulting to all moms.”
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
