I’ve long observed that the nation’s mainstream media has been engaged in seriously slanted coverage against conservatives and have not hidden their abject hatred all things Donald Trump. Millions of us know this to be the case while the other half of the country goes along with the old notion that the news media tells it exactly the way it is.
Emmy Award-winning Kari Lake, a 51-year-old Phoenix anchor at KSAZ-Fox 10 decided last month to walk away from her job, saying she wants out because of the way the news media has gone.
“Sadly, journalism has changed a lot since I first stepped foot in a news room and I’ll be honest, I don’t like the direction it’s going,” Lake said on the air. “The media needs more balance in coverage and a wider range of viewpoints represented in every newsroom at every level and in each position. In the past few years I haven’t felt proud to be a member of the media. I’m sure there are other journalists out there who feel the same way. I found myself reading news copy that I didn’t believe was fully truthful, or only told part of the story and I began to feel I was contributing to the fear and division in this country by continuing on in this profession.”
The straws that broke the proverbial camel’s back were the lopsided coverage of the presidential election and the media hysteria and fear-mongering over COVID. “It really got difficult for me when COVID hit,” Lake said. “I felt the stories I was reading were not fully truthful. The cancel mob’s insistence that certain COVID-related stories not be told or even whispered while others were told over-and-over made me feel as if I was not giving a balanced view of the situation to viewers.”
I’m certain that the hype over COVID was the Left’s way to weaponize against Trump in an election year. Remember how they insisted that Trump was a racist for calling it the China flu? Well, last week former CDC Director Robert Redfield told CNN that he believes the coronavirus escaped from a Wuhan lab, a stunning assessment that echoes claims made by other members of the Trump administration.
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Last week I wrote about California Teachers Association President E. Toby Boyd rushing to judgment by suggesting that white supremacy was the motive in the Atlanta massage parlor shooting. However, Cherokee County Sheriff Frank Reynolds said that shooter Robert Aaron Long, 21, of Woodstock, Georgia, told his investigators that he had a pornography addiction and saw that massage parlors are “a temptation ... that he wanted to eliminate.” How many shooters have we seen time and time again who had some twisted thought process about sex or a fetish or a sense of being denied something? Virtually all of them.
While the Left was quick to jump on the narrative of a white man killing Asians because of “white supremacy,” it approached the Boulder, Colorado shooting much differently. Boyd did not send out a press release condemning the Colorado shooting as the result of a Trump hating Muslim. While the media focus on Atlanta was “yet another assault on Asians because of MAGA cap wearing Trump supporters,” consider this headline from Yahoo! News the day after the Boulder King Soopers store shooting: “Colorado shooting rampage investigation yet to uncover motive.”
I’m not saying that Muslim shooter Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa carried out his evil plot because of his religion. Indications are that he has a mental illness, suffers paranoia and has been violent. He also passed a background check; so much for gun control measures working to end acts of violence. What I am saying, however, is the Left pushes a far different narrative when a white male southern hayseed commits mass murder versus the ones committed by a foreign-born immigrant of the Muslim religion.
No, the media and the Left did not make anti-Muslim accusations – they resorted to their playbook narrative of “let’s get serious this time about banning guns.” Our mentally bumbling president comes out with the cue card script about ending gun violence. No human being ever has been able to end violence, sir.
Guns are not the problem requiring a solution! Defective people using guns are the problem. Sick souls are the problem, not bullets. After the instances of where a person uses a car to run down people on a sidewalk, liberal lawmakers don’t demand car control or waiting periods to buy cars.
Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana said something profound last week: “You don’t stop drunk drivers by getting rid of all sober drivers.” Why then do the lawmakers – who have armed guards – always offer that as a solution?
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A measure by state Senators Melissa Melendez, R-Lake Elsinore, and Scott Wilk, R-Santa Clarita, that would have held drug dealers accountable for a death from poisoning people with fentanyl-laced drugs was sidelined recently by Senate Democrats.
Senate Bill 350 would have treated drug fatalities the same way drunken driving deaths are treated in California. Despite emotional testimonies from parents who lost a child to fentanyl poisoning, Senate Democrats rejected the measure.
Senate Bill 350 would have required a court to issue an advisory to convicted drug dealers who sell or distribute controlled substances that they could be charged with murder if their actions resulted in a customer’s death. This advisory could then be used as proof of implied malice by prosecutors to charge drug dealers should their products lead to a person’s death in a following conviction. The bill was defeated in the Senate Public Safety Committee because no Democrats joined Republican Senator Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh (R-Yucaipa) in supporting it.
Way to go, Democrats – giving drug dealers more rights than people who die from fentanyl poisoning.
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There were some interesting suggestions for the naming of the Eastgate Park, which of course is now being renamed Guillermo Ochoa Park at a cost of $3,500. At least Linda Ryno had the courage to say she couldn’t support the renaming of the park after 15 years of plans and ordering a sign that reads Eastgate Park. The park had more to do with political pandering when Channce Condit made his late suggestion last September.
More than one person urged the park named for Ochoa because he was Latino. One person wrote: “The park should be named after Guillermo Ochoa. Hispanics in our community would be happy.”
And some folks dis the idea of identity politics.
A vast number of impassioned folks lobbied for the name Veterans Park, for obvious reasons, since so many have given so much for our freedoms – like voting privileges which many don’t exercise. Less than 40 persons recommended Howard Stevenson Park, the sergeant who was slain outside of George’s Liquors in January 2005. As you know, Ceres named Sam Ryno Park after Sam because of his involvement in the same tragic incident. Stevenson has been remembered in the memorial grove at Ceres River Bluff Regional Park and the naming of the Whitmore/99 interchange not far from where he was murdered in cold blood by a cowardly assassin who set up an ambush.
Sixteen folks, just like Ryno, wanted Eastgate Park to remain named Eastgate Park.
Twelve folks recommended Louie Arrollo Park after the former police commander, mayor and school administrator. I was one of them.
Nine wanted Sheri Moring’s name attached to the park because of her 35 years teaching at Ceres High and coaching sports and the dance team.
Ray Baltz, the late former educator and scout leader, received four endorsements.
The late Sid Long, a farmer and TID board member, received the backing of two.
Juana Navarro Arrellano Park was the suggestion of one for she was slain in 2006 while in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. You might recall that two years ago the Ceres Post Office lobbied was named in her honor.
One person offered up the name of Don Donaldson who coached thousands of Ceres youth for decades.
Someone suggested Citizens Park, saying Ceres is blessed with “so many remarkable citizens. Sam Ryno, Howie Stevenson, Sid Long, Louie Arrollo, John Chapman, Eric Ingwerson, Adrian Condit, Renee Ledbetter, Mae Hensley, Pete Peterson the list could go on and on so I thought Citizen’s Park would encompass all of our citizens).
Another wanted the park to memorialize the late Farren Williams, the city IT guy and former Courier reporter.
Other ideas tossed out were Almond Blossom Park, Country Edge Park, Civilian Park, the Ceres Park, Corona Park, Proserpina or Prosperine (who was the daughter of the Greek Goddess Ceres), Florence Nightingale Park (to honor nurses helping in the pandemic), Rocky Fisher Park, the William and Betty Bilson Park and Kiwi Park. Then there was the interesting suggestion of an Eastpark Park and Cadet Park.
Some of the more curious suggestions were from parents wanting to name the park after their own children (Raiden and Lexi). Okaaaayyyyy.
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Yes, it’s true. Oakland city officials are racists – against white folks.
Oakland city leaders are test driving a $500 “guaranteed income” program called “Oakland Resilient Families,” which is raising private donation – and currently has $6.75 million – to give away to struggling families of color.
The money is strictly for “black, indigenous and people of color communities.” So if you’re a struggling white person in Oakland, to hell with you.
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said: “Guaranteed income is one of the most promising tools for systems change, racial equity, and economic mobility we’ve seen in decades.” She wants Uncle Joe to adopt a similar program too.
The uber-liberal Schaaf believes that “The poverty we all witness today is not a personal failure, it is a systems failure.”
No, no, no. No way could a person living in poverty actually be that person’s failure. It must be that evil inherently racist system. I could write a book about how folks of EVERY COLOR overcame their poverty and obstacles through education, and having the courage to make a change through determination and hard work. That formula actually works, despite what Kamala Harris types believe. Doling out cash for doing nothing only fosters laziness and results in zero productivity.
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I’m sick of legislators doing away with laws on the notion that “citations are disproportionately given to low-income people of color.”
Those were the words of state Assemblyman Phil Ting (whatever a San Francisco Democrat) as he introduced a bill to decriminalize jaywalking.
Everyone knows that jaywalking is an infraction and exists to protect pedestrians from the dangers of walking across a road outside of a designated crosswalk. It is also intended to protect the driver from damage and the trauma of running over somebody.
Ting introduced AB 1238, which he dubbed the “Freedom to Walk Act,” which would make it legal to cross a street when not at a crosswalk or against the crosswalk light when it is not an “immediate hazard” to do so.
He should have named it the “Freedom to Be a Dumb - - - Act.”
While nearly 60 percent of American pedestrian deaths occur outside of crosswalks, fewer than 20 percent occur in close proximity to a crosswalk.
As predicted, the liberal Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area came out in support of the law suggesting that black adults in California are up to 9.7 times more likely to receive a citation for local infractions such as jaywalking than white Californians. Did it ever occur to this committee that regardless of their color, those cited of jaywalking were caught jaywalking? And should we be surprised at their 9.8 times figure considering that jaywalking tends to be enforced in the larger cities where the percentage of “people of color” population tends to higher?
The real kicker is the committee said those citations for jaywalking “sometimes leads to fatal encounters with police,” because, as liberals think, police like to kill people for no reason at all. An officer shooting a person of color would never have anything to do with defiance of police commands or any stupid actions like rushing an officer or grabbing his gun.
The lawyer group is concerned that people who are charged with jaywalking can face hundreds of dollars in fines and fees “they cannot afford, and, in some counties, warrants and arrests for people who do not pay or appear in court.”
And I thought the whole idea of a fine was to make it hurt financially so you don’t violate that law for a reason. So-called progressive lawmakers like Ting and Newsom seem hell-bent on delivering “people of color” from any consequences of their own action while the rest of us are held to a much different standard.
We really do need a part-time state Legislature like in Sacramento. Folks in Sacramento have far too much free time on their hands to keep meddling with laws that were passed for a reason.
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I have to weigh in on that ridiculous comment made last week by President Biden who suggested that requiring a registered voter to show an ID at the polls “makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle.”
Shame on Biden for treating people of color as though they are so stupid they’re incapable of obtaining an ID with which to prove their identity at the polls or banks or airports. And why is it only the polls where Democrats have no concerns of proving actual identity? You’d never get away with not proving who you are at the Social Security office or the airlines.
And shame on Biden for suggesting that only bigots want voters to be verified before casting votes. To suggest that wanting to verify that a voter is who they claim to be is worse than lynching and segregation is morally repugnant and offensive.
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
