There's bad folks on both sides of the political spectrum.

We all get that. But as usual, it's the hot-headed young people of America who are getting carried away with politics.

It's April 15 in Berkeley. Leftist students at U.C. Berkeley are protesting Trump again when all hell breaks loose. I'm watching video of fists flying but the media singled out one culprit, Nathan Damigo for punching a woman. Damigo, a student at CSUS in Turlock, started Identity Evrope, which calls for European descent persons to "protect your heritage" much in the same way that Latino populations wanting to protect their heritage in the United States. The left calls him a white supremacist.

Reacting to that incident, Stanislaus State students held a protest because they don't "feel safe" after the appearance of some of Damigo's flyers on the Turlock campus last year. Feeling safe is a rather subjective term. Students saying they "don't feel safe" is a bit of an overreaction given that students have not been beaten up, punched or harassed. It reminds me of how kids will play up an injury inflicted by a sibling so that your parents will clobber them. No, best I can tell everyone has lived in a very safe environment at CSUS despite "feelings."

CSUS President Ellen Junn said the college has zero tolerance for violence and would investigate anyone threatening safety. That wasn't enough for the snowflakes who press for Damigo to be expelled as a student. Junn is apparently unwilling to suppress viewpoints like those espoused by Damigo and others, and for that she should be applauded. That didn't sit well with the likes of Jennifer Morales. Good for Junn who also cautioned Latinos that they "may be" confusing the line between free speech and "hate" speech. No, they are confusing the line. She aptly told them that "speech that is offensive does not necessarily cross the line into hate speech." Bravo.

As she was explained what they should have learned in sixth grade Constitution class, protestors chanted: "If racism is what you preach, you can't hide behind free speech."

Try again. Wrong. Free speech can most certainly include speech you don't like. If anything, the left needs to learn that they don't have a right to throw bottles, smash up police cars and city halls and assault police in the guise of free speech. That's not free speech - that's anarchy.

I wasn't there at Berkeley so I don't know how many fists and bottles were flying but it looked like a lot. I don't know how it started or why Damigo ended up throwing a punch; maybe he did it in self-defense. If he did it as an outright assault, he should have been arrested.

I didn't know a lot about Damigo until this incident so I checked out his YouTube channel. He states slavery was not a good thing and calls for the defeat of fascism. While Europe and now the United States is reconsidering wanton immigration policy leading to acts of terrorism, violence, lack of community cohesion, and economic calamity, Damigo suggests the narrative of diversity being our greatest strength has become a cult-like mantra.
It's unfortunate that anyone who calls for white pride - if that's what you want to call it - is vilified as racist while it's quite alright for other races to promote their cultural pride. Damigo suggests that his movement was birthed from the left's and the media's "weaponizing language in order to shut down discussion of these things." He also questions if cultural diversity and further dividing the nation leads to disrupting societal cooperation and thus thwarting progress for all.

It's unfortunate that calls for enforcement of immigration law - prompted by Trump's run for the presidency - has turned into a Latino-Anglo race war. After all, then President Bill Clinton gave lip service to border security and deporting illegal aliens while doing little on either accounts.

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There's always much ado about fractures among the Republicans. The press picks up on those real quick. But I haven't heard much in the media about fractures in the Democrat Party.

Last week the California ProLife Democrats blistered the recent proclamations by Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez that only those who unreservedly embrace unlimited abortion-on-demand would be approved by party leadership.

Alice Fahey of California ProLife Democrats repudiated Perez. It's nice to see someone in the party stand up against bullying.

"The oppressive tenor of the state and national Democrat Party Leadership is now inescapably clear," she said. "This is a controlling, Borg-like, unthinking, mob mentality. They demand our obedience for the sake of their power. They have enjoyed attacking and undercutting dissenters like Bernie Sanders, or pro-life, blue collar, salt of the earth workers, like us, who make up nearly 30 percent of the Democrat base. If they don't want us, they don't need us."

Louis Shapiro, a pro-life political activist who has long remained in the Democrat party was even more vociferous.

"This is giving clear instructions to faithful Catholics and evangelicals, as well as conservative Jews that we are no longer welcome if we carry any moral convictions on the sanctity of human life," said Shapiro.

"So they don't want us around. Well fine. We believe the right to life of the vulnerable is more important than the ‘right to power' that a corrupt party offers people like Mrs. Clinton or whomsoever the party bosses try to anoint. As far as we can see, you party bosses have ‘lost your anointing.' If this is growing the base, it's a strange way to do it."

Both Shapiro and Fahey said they will work now only for pro-life candidates and do so without regard for party.

"Abortion on demand, at any time, for any reason or for no reason in particular - just for ‘choice' is reprehensible to us," said Fahey. "If the Democrat Party machinery insists we simply obey, then they need to understand: you are right, we are not part of a machine."

I can respect that kind of conviction! But why do they remain in that party?

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California is still being held hostage by Sacramento liberals.

Democrats last week killed a common-sense, regulatory-reform measure authored by state Senator Tom Berryhill, R-Twain Harte, which would have started to unwind costly regulatory constraints placed on businesses and individuals in California.

B-181 would have required state agencies to identify and repeal two regulations for every new one created. The California Code of Regulations is 28,000 pages long.

The Berryhill bill would have placed the responsibility of identifying regulations for repeal with the agencies, instead of the Legislature, giving those agencies the freedom to use their regulatory expertise to implement the "one-in, two-out" rule most effectively.
Berryhill aptly notes that "something needs to change" in California since "businesses are leaving California for friendlier environments, while individuals are frustrated by the government progressively chipping away at their freedoms and their incomes."

State Senator Steve Glazer, the Democratic chairman of the Governmental Organization Committee, opposed the bill as an abdication of the Legislature's oversight responsibilities. But he hinted he would work with Berryhill for future on other bipartisan regulatory reforms. Glazer likened Berryhill's approach to a meat clever and felt it wasn't "the most thoughtful way to look at each one, because each one does matter."

You may not be aware of just how policies enacted in Sacramento are driving businesses from California to states where it costs less to do business. Nestle is leaving Glendale for Rosslyn, Va. As Investor's Business Daily reported in February: "many companies have found, California is an awful place to do business." The magazine went on to report that "Nestle and its corporate brethren in California that actually make things are overtaxed and overregulated, and elected officials treat them not as honored members of the community but as rapacious pirates..." They also go on to report that: " ... apart from having higher taxes, absurd housing costs and more regulations than nearly any other state, California's wacky laws have turned the Golden State into a venue of choice for activist groups to file costly class action lawsuits - or to launch anti-corporate PR campaigns against big, wealthy targets like Nestle."
The state's increasingly liberal policies have driven over 1,680 companies to leave the state since 2008.

The increase in the minimum wage rate is causing jobs to flee the state to cheaper places like Nevada where the minimum wage is $8.25 an hour; or Texas where the minimum wage is $7.25. In California the same work costs $10.50 an hour. In 2021 it will be $15 an hour. The wage hike is killing off the California garment industry. Los Angeles County once had 5,000 apparel factories. It's fallen to about 2,000 now.

When companies leave, so do the payrolls and taxes. That means restaurants and gas stations and stores see less business.

State leaders don't care. They believe the state is still growing economically in spite of their tax-and-spend policies. Texas still outperformed California over the past 15 to 20 years in overall employment growth. California jobs that have moved to Texas tend to pay higher wages than the Texas jobs that have migrated to California.

Kubota Tractor Corp. and Kubota Credit Corp., the company's financing arm, plan to mare moving their headquarters from Torrance to Grapevine, Texas. President and CEO Masato Yoshikawa said Texas' friendly business climate was "a big factor."

H.J. Heinz Co. closed its Chatsworth condiment plant last year and moved operations to Mason, Ohio, a move that resulted in the layoff of 145 workers in California.

RifleGear, a Fountain Valley company that sells a variety of firearms, moved its corporate headquarters to Plano, Texas, last year.

Walt Disney Parks and Resorts plans to transfer manufacturing of costumes for the company's theme park workers from Fullerton to Orlando, furloughing 85 employees in the process.

Of course the people of California fall in lockstep with the liberals. They voted to soak the rich with Prop. 30 in 2012 and Prop. 55 in November.

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Speaking of hurting the little guy, Gov. Brown just signed the $52 billion tax hike for transportation. Assembly Republican Leader Chad Mayes (Yucca Valley) issued this statement: "Governor Brown and Capitol Democrats just gave us the largest gas tax increase in state history - a deal so bad they needed $1 billion in pork to buy the votes to pass it. California deserves better."

Remember $4 million in pork projects were given by Brown to Anthony Cannella, who ran turncoat on Republicans and helped pass the deal.

Do you have any feedback about this column? Let Jeff know by emailing him at jeffb@cerescourier.com. He will read it, promise.