If you want to know why California has landed in the hands of far left liberals, look no farther than the thinking represented in a comment made on the Stanislaus County District’s Facebook page. The DA staff announced that Lester Portillo pled guilty in murdering a south Modesto store clerk for not selling him “loosies,” or single cigarettes.
A Facebook user named Leslie Silva went on a rant of lunacy on Friday when she posted this: “Stanislaus County District Attorney & Local Government Representatives you hand out life sentences to youth of color, and the percentage of the prison population is exponentially more than any other race, you hand out those life sentences from the day they are born and have done so generation after generation. The history of Hispanic oppression is prominent to Central Valley but more prominent is the power of the people when we come together as one and when our rights come under attack, we stand up fight back. All children deserve better education, shelter, food, and environment they can thrive in but that is not the case in Stanislaus County.”
Wait. Lester Portillo KILLED SOMEBODY! This is not about Hispanics’ rights coming under attack. This is about somebody who took away all rights of a 31-year-old victim in Jagjeet Singh, and who deserves far more than 25 years in prison.
I fully appreciated the response of Carlo Alfaro, who replied to Silva: “I’m a youth of ‘color’(Mexican nationality). I have yet to receive my life sentence and I was born 23 years ago. Military five years now as well. You’re delusional, choosing victimization and playing the race card. Don’t tell me it’s any different from up here in Alameda County. You look past the fact that this guy killed somebody simply because he’s hispanic? And that he had no prior record? HELLO! He still killed somebody. Don’t forget to pray for yourself. Please don’t have kids.”
Don’t think for a moment that folks with Leslie Silva’s line of thinking voted for anybody but Gavin Newsom for governor. This is why California has no chance of curing what ails it – liberalism.
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Theirs is a confusing message. I agree with Renee Leveque who suggested last week that it seems silly that the City Council wants to outlaw parking on grass when they seem to be drifting to allowing people to keep their trash cans in public view.
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Willie Nelson, who appeared in concert at The Fruit Yard northeast of Hughson earlier this year, made news last week when he announced he has given up marijuana smoking – 65 years later.
He cited health reasons. He told a reporter: “I’ve mistreated myself since I was this big,” as he motioned toward the ground.
I could never figure out why people extol the virtues of smoking pot when it’s not good for anyone to put any kind of smoke in the lungs. It’s just common sense.
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It’s astounding how, in this age of information overload, ill-informed the public can be.
Last week our Facebook post promoting the article, “Council mulls controls on noise, junk vehicles,” drew a comment that couldn’t have been farther from the truth. One couple (Steve and Susan Gordo) wrote: “Wow. Because government knows best. Meanwhile, how is being a Sanctuary City helping Ceres? This kind of invasion of property rights bothers me.
Besides a non-running car, up on blocks, in the front yard, is a icon of ‘country-western’ heritage.”
My point here is not that some people think it idyllic that a car on blocks is symbolic of country western heritage but to not how wrong they are about sanctuary city status of Ceres. Ceres is not nor ever has been a sanctuary city, I informed them. The reply was: “Admittedly it was hearsay, but when I worked there in the late 2000s, I was given the impression it was. I am glad if it is not a Sanctuary City.”
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The coast lines of the world have been eroding for time immoral. There have been floods galore, including the great flood of the Mississippi in 1927 and the Los Angeles flood of 1938 and every flood to hit North America before recorded time. There’ve been mudslides, earthquakes and fires since the dawn of the earth. Galveston, Texas was wiped away in the hurricane of 1900. A tornado destroyed Natchez, Mississippi on May 7, 1840, killing 317 and injuring 109.
And now state agencies like Caltrans expect us to swallow the swill of climate change. You do understand it’s because the Democrats control the state government and love all the controls and taxes that come with the climate change hoax, don’t you?
I chuckled at a press release sent to us by Caltrans last week announcing “As part of an effort to identify how climate change will have on California’s complex transportation system that millions rely on, Caltrans is conducting region-specific climate change vulnerability assessments for each of Caltrans’ 12 districts.”
In the release, climate change Kool-Aid drinker and director Toks Omishakin said this: “Too many Californians have already experienced the effects of climate change including fires, flooding and mudslides impacting all modes of travel, the erosion of coastal highways, and dead and dying trees falling near roadways.”
So this state official – appointed by Gov. Newsom – thinks climate change is responsible for fires, floods and mudslides, the erosion of the coast line? In his mind it couldn’t have been the discourse of the planet since God created it! Problems like fires and mudslides and eroding coast lines tend to be magnified the more human population encroaches into areas not previously populated. I mean, a coastal collapse in Santa Barbara in 1455 wouldn’t have affected anyone for Highway 1 wasn’t there at the time. Everyone knows the coast line erodes and to put a house right at its’s edge is asking for trouble.
I think people are wising up to this constant drumbeat of climate change nonsense.
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If you’ve paid attention to the supreme arrogance of our governor, you’ve probably noticed how incredibly dismissive he is of questions from people who point out his hypocrisy.
Newsom suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome. He loathes the president. At his speech in Fresno last month, Newsom took swipes at Trump to antagonize the president by saying he wasn’t hugged enough by his father enough. When asked if trading insults with Trump and his supporters – I am among them – is good for political discourse, Newsom waived them off with his typical hubris. “You should ask him,” Newsom said. “I am just responding to these assaults.”
Doesn’t that sound like something your kid said when they continued a verbal fight?
When Trump called Newsom on his radically environmental-motivated lack of forest maintenance, Newsom was equally dismissive, saying, “You don’t believe in climate change. You are excused from this conversation.”
So with a sweep of his hand, Newsom ignores that his environmental worship has led to failure to clean up forest floors to avoid future fire. He doesn’t care.
Newsom said Trump’s “childishness is legendary.”
I say look in the mirror.
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I wish I had something to Jerry Nadler when I came face to face with him in Memphis in September. He happened to stroll by me and I recognized the congressman who is trying to conduct a coup against Trump.
I read last week that the Democrat congressman privately told others that “I’m not going to take any s---.” I wish now that I would have told Nadler he is “full of s---” for making up charges for impeachment.
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We can finally take a collective sigh of relief now that Kamala Harris is no longer a candidate for president. It was a disastrous candidacy, one in which she suggested all private health insurance needs to go the way of the dinosaur.
Unfortunately we have to endure as she takes her progressive brand of political ideology to represent us in the U.S. Senate.
It’s shameful that the Al Sharpton types bemoaned the fact that all white candidates were to be in the next debate.
She engaged in divisive rhetoric, claiming to side with the poor blacks in her native Oakland all while living in the celebrity enclave of Brentwood. Talk about a hypocritical situation.
Harris – indeed none of the Democrats – had a compelling message. It’s the same old class and race warfare bit. In January when actor Jussie Smollett said he was assaulted in Chicago by MAGA wearing Trump supporters, Harris (in Obama style) rushed without fact to condemn the attack “an attempted modern-day lynching.” When Smollett was caught staging the attack to get sympathy and publicity, a clueless Harris fumbled for 20 seconds on camera, looking to staffers, before faking this: “the facts are still unfolding and, um, I’m very, uh, concerned.”
The truth is, Trump is more popular today with blacks than other presidents – probably because blacks are faring much better under Trump than Obama.
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Is the Speaker of the House totally bonkers? Nancy lost it big time last week when a reporter asked if the impeachment effort against Trump was driven by hate. It’s a fair question given the Democrats have yet to produce any evidence whatsoever that our president broke any laws and were talking impeachment before he even took the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2017. Flustered, she took on the demeanor of a senile old schoolmarm lecturing a student about how her House members “don’t hate anybody in the world.” She does a darn good imitation of it though and went on to call Trump a “coward when it comes to helping our kids who are afraid of gun violence. I think he is cruel when he doesn’t deal with helping our Dreamers of which we are very proud. I think he is in denial about the climate crisis.” As she unraveled, realizing those were political issues having nothing to do with impeachment, Crazy Nancy said the impeachment was about the Constitution.
I’ll say there is a constitutional crisis – but not in the way she seems to think. She is thwarting the Constitution. The real assault to our democracy is lawmakers like Pelosi who brush aside facts to stay laser-focused on a partisan removal of a president because they don’t like his politics or his tweets. If anybody needs to be impeached it is the corrupt Democrat Party leadership in the House of Representatives.
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In April Speaker Pelosi said that a glass of water with a letter “D” next to it would win an election in a safe congressional district like the one represented by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She is being opposed by a number of Republicans. Safe bet is she gets re-elected in New York’s 14th Congressional District since there are 214,750 registered Democratic voters in the district and only 110,000 registered Republicans.
So when actor Rob Schneider read a Tweet made by Ayaan Hirsi Ali about the Left’s ignorance of Stalin’s tyranny, he responded with: “Unfortunately, people in California would vote for a bowl of s*** if it had “D” next to it.”
Sad but true.
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The Uber safety report is out. While most rides go off safely, the report should give pause for anyone climbing in a private car driven by an Uber, or Lyft driver.
During the years 2017 and 2018, Uber rides experienced 5,981 reports of sexual assault lodged against them, and of those, 464 were rape allegations.
The report showed that about 92 percent of the victims of rape were riders and about seven percent of the victims were drivers. Women and female-identifying individuals made up 89 percent of the victims with men and male-identifying individuals comprising about 8 percent of victims.
Just be careful out there.
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If you’re curious about what we’re getting for the money we spend on education, look no further than recently interviewed university students who thought President Trump was worse than Adolf Hitler, didn’t recognize Joseph Stalin, and ranked Mark Zuckerberg as better than Jesus.
The college in question of course is one in California – Cal State Northridge. Without providing names, Will Witt showed students pictures of Barack Obama, Jesus, Donald Trump, Adolf Hitler, Hillary Clinton, Ronald Reagan, and Mark Zuckerberg, and asked the undergrads to rank them from “worst” to “best.”
A number of students presented didn’t recognize Joseph Stalin, the major 20th-century figure and Soviet leader who murdered approximately 20 million people.
One black student freely admitted that he ranked Obama highly because he was a “black president” and then said, “black power.” When asked “What was your favorite thing about Obama?” the student replied, “Being black.”
The same black student and the female student at5 his side agreed that Trump was worse than Hitler and when asked why the young man said that Trump was “childish” while the young lady stated that the president wanted to eliminate food stamps. When questioned about whether that trimming government expenses were worse than killing six million Jews, the young lady said, “he (Hitler) did that?”
And you wonder why we get the elected officials we get in California?
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The CBS headline left me scratching my head: “California becomes first state to ban discrimination against natural hair.”
What was this about? There he was, Gov. Newsom signing another piece of earth-shakering legislation with that silly grin on his face.
The first paragraph: “A new law signed Wednesday by Gov. Gavin Newsom makes California the first state to ban discrimination against black students and employees over their natural hairstyles. The authors of this new law say women with kinky and curly hair are sometimes subject to unequal treatment, and can even be viewed as inferior.”
Specifically the legislation was based on Chastity Jones who fought a lawsuit for 10 years when her employer took back a job offer at an Alabama call center because Jones refused to cut her hair. She had dreadlocks and wouldn’t cut them off.
It’s news to me that dreadlocks are “natural.” Dreadlocks take a lot of work.Dreadlocks also don’t look professional, that’s why some companies ban them.
By the way, author of the bill state Sen. Holly Mitchell wears tiny strands of dreadlocks in her hair and my first reaction seeing them was they look like earthworms dangling about her head. Not cute.
My own daughter-in-law – years before she married my son – was hired from McDonald’s because she dyed her hair pink. She didn’t sue.
Newsom signed the bill, saying: “There’s a human element to this. We don’t want to diminish people, we don’t want to demean people … We have to own up to the sins of the past.”
What sins of the past is he referring to? Slavery? This issue of dreadlocks has nothing to do with race. I bet all the sloven employees who come to work wearing Phyllis Diller style just-got-up-in-the-morning hair are beaming that they are now protected from being fired.
So now that California and New York – bastions of liberalism – have passed the CROWN (Creating a Respectful and Open Workplace) Act, maybe Newsom will pass a law saying people can show up to professional offices in pajamas and torn jeans.
Maybe Newsom can do something worthwhile like a statewide ban on homeless people crapping or urinating on the sidewalks and in our parks. Or maybe lowering taxes since he’s sitting on a huge surplus. Or maybe get to the business of lowering construction costs.
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
