The Democrats are playing dirty again.

They sent out a press release last week trying to convince people that Republican Congressional candidate Scott Baugh is some kind of religious kook as he seeks the 47th congressional district in Southern California.

They state that Baugh is “bankrolled by a right-wing advocate for biblical law” and “has relied throughout his career on money from (a) bigoted mega donor.” The “bigoted donor” is Howard Ahmanson Jr., a conservative. The ridiculous hit piece suggests that Ahmanson advocates for “’biblical law’ – including death by stoning as a punishment for gay and lesbian people.”

Let’s get something straight. Christians who want to see “biblical” concepts don’t necessary advocate Old Testament law which did include stoning for certain sins. Ahmanson does not believe in stoning gays so for the Democrats to say that is outright BS.

I wouldn’t expect many modern Democrats have cracked open the Bible and studied it to even know that Jesus brought forth a new covenant that do away with the old laws found in the Old Testament.

Dan Gottlieb, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, suggests that former state Assemblyman Baugh’s accepting of money from “wealthy megadonors seeking to ban abortion and marriage equality” is somehow a “dangerous and discriminatory values.”

Really? It’s dangerous to protect the lives of unborn children? That’s a pretty radical thought process, Dan. I can’t think of anything more dangerous to the human race in finding it acceptable to kill a fetus before its time with maybe the exception being a nuclear holocaust.

And, Dan, you don’t have to go far back in American history to where it was unthinkable that a man could legally marry a man and a woman marry a woman. It’s just not natural despite your party insisting how normal it is.

I totally agree with Baugh that life begins at inception and millions of Americans do as well. I also agree with Baugh that wokeness is a threat to the fabric of our nation. We are seeing some dangerous ideologies at play, one of them being that somehow our constitutional form of government needs to be changed.

I have no problems with Ahmanson donating to Prop. 8 back in 2008 that called for marriage to be only between a man and woman and his support of an anti-abortion crisis pregnancy center.

We live in a country in which Christians are routinely attacked for their principles and the modern Democratic Party is no friend of any Christian. Remember that they removed God from their party platform a few years ago.

I get that the 47th Congressional District is far away from Ceres but here’s hoping that the voters of the there will be see through these kind of tactics used to malign good people and have the sense to vote Baugh into Congress.

* * * * *

I tell you what … one elected local official sure thinks a lot of himself.  I’m not sure if flexing muscles is an appropriate pose for an elected official during photo ops but it shows up quite a bit. He even posted a photo of himself on his Facebook page in the White House under the presidential seal and captioned, “One step at a time.”

Good luck with that.

For now he just needs to concentrate on getting re-elected mayor – and maybe learn how to pronounce words like Presbyterian. He should also do some homework to brush up on city policy for on Monday he thought a term on the Ceres Planning Commission was for two years when it’s a four-year term.

Things seem to be unraveling at City Hall in a number of different areas.

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I had commented about this issue before, but the Democrats in Sacramento enacted a change in law that has prostitution flourishing in California’s major cities.

Newsom signed Senate Bill 357 in July 2022, which repealed a previous law that banned loitering with the intent to engage in prostitution. The bill was championed as one helping protect transgender women from being targeted by police. What it really did is give prostitutes a license to dress like total sluts to troll for customers without fear of police investigating their plies.

When he signed the law, Newsom gave some pathetic line of BS that “It simply revokes provisions of the law that have led to disproportionate harassment of women and transgender adults.”

One business owner in San Diego said “It makes me still blush at times. These are some very confident women. … They are wearing G-strings. …. Their breasts are completely exposed. There was one that was wearing a Letterman’s jacket and nothing else.”

Societies through the ages have fallen when they give in to moral depravities.

* * * * *

During the Ceres Planning Commission meeting last week there was a discussion about the proposed Copper Trails master plan. I was surprised to hear rural Ceres resident and farmer Robert Conway express his dismay that Ceres is looking to expand. He said: “You guys keep pushing out and pushing out and affecting how we operate out there because of certain chemicals that we use, things that are just affecting the environment out there. I understand growth but there’s a certain point to where enough is enough to be honest with you.”

As a lifelong Valley resident who grew up in the country outside of Oakdale, I, too, cringe when I see cities gobble up valuable farmland for housing. But here’s the problem: People are reproducing and need places to live. As long as people keep having babies, we’ll need to build more housing – especially since you have a president with a hemorrhaging border and letting in millions of poor and needy illegal immigrants.

I was also stunned to hear a woman ask why build houses when people can’t afford them now. Well, the obvious answer is that the reason houses are so expensive is because there are too little of them. It’s a matter of supply and demand. According to the California Association of Realtors, the state is about 3.5 million units short of what is already needed.  If we started building up supply, maybe costs will come down.

* * * * *

I vacationed for a few days in Mammoth Lakes, a beautiful mountain community on the east side of the Sierras, backed up to Yosemite National Park. In the hotel elevator we encountered a couple who had just arrived from Truckee. They told us how it took them six or seven hours and I remarked something like, “Wow, that’s longer than we took.” He explained that they had a Tesla and had to stop to charge it. I was curious about how long it took to charge and he said charging time depends on how far they wish to travel, in this instance about 25 minutes sitting before they could move on. Gee, I can tank up in three to five minutes and be on my way.

I just don’t see EVs as being practical for that reason. Of course, there are the impacts to the environment mining for the minerals used to make the batteries, plus all the impacts caused by creating the electricity to power those cars.

Recently making its rounds on social media was an article claiming that the 98 EV charging stations at the Harris Ranch along I-5 were powered by diesel generators. Harris Ranch claims that isn’t true. But energy analyst David Blackmon, author of the “Energy Transition Absurdities,” said the use of diesel-powered generators is not limited to the Harris Ranch station. He notes that a Whole Foods store in Houston has a diesel generator that kicks on when customers use the charging station.

* * * * *

When I was a young man I wanted to go into politics. In fact, I did. At age 29 I was elected in 1990 to the Waterford City Council and for served four years. In all honesty, I probably ran for the prestige. You realize how little you accomplish for the community for the long hours spent in meetings away from family.

I’ve seen so many politicians come and go throughout my 41 years as a journalist and have seen how politicking is nothing but an ego and PR game, a lot of backslapping and butt-kissing. At the state and national level it’s all about showing how much money you can snatch for your constituents, who can bring home the bacon from the pork barrel.

Politicians over the years have bypassed impressing their constituencies at large for virtual signaling, looking after the class that guarantees to reward them with a vote. You see this mostly in the Democratic Party. And if a Democrat can keep harping on “climate change” to wring out millions for favorite classes, so be it. In short, it’s all about the money.

State Senator Anna M. Caballero – who used to represent Ceres until redistricting installed another Democrat, Marie Alvarado-Gil – heralded Newsom signing her SB 306, dubbed the “Climate Change: Equitable Building Decarbonization Program, Extreme Heat Action Plan.”

Caballero said her bill “prioritize communities that suffer from extreme heat.”

It’s difficult to cut through the bureaucratic jargon to figure out just actually what her bill does. Her explanation is that SB 306 “establishes reporting guardrails on the newly funded Direct Install Program at the California Energy Commission, and codifies the state’s Extreme Heat Action Plan with required updates every three years to ensure strategies for heat mitigation impacts are successfully implemented.”

Confused? I am.

In a nutshell, all Caballero’s bill does is add more bureaucratic work. It requires the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission to submit a report to committees of the Legislature about the progress of the direct install program until the $112 million in state General Fund monies are used up for Equitable Building Decarbonization Program. That program is basically a continuation of the welfare state, buying ceiling fans and installing energy-efficient appliances for low-income folks on the backs of all taxpayers and the corporations milked of carbon credit taxes.

Her law also requires the office and the Natural Resources Agency to update the state’s Extreme Heat Action Plan every three years and post that crap online where nobody will ever read it.

Caballero acts like Valley heat is something new, saying: “When the temperature rises above 100 degrees in places like Fresno County, where there are few trees and plenty of hot asphalt, and the houses are ill equipped to conserve energy and cool the air, people suffer during heat waves. Extreme heat can be deadly, and reduces the quality of life for those living in areas where battling the heat leads to health issues, hospitalization and even death.” 

* * * * *

Mitch McConnell, 81, is blanking out at press events.

Joe Biden, 80, is walking off the stage like he’s clueless.

Now Nancy Pelosi says she’s running for office again. The woman is 83. At the end of another term in 2026 she’ll be 86.

Rep. Maxine Waters, 85, is running for re-election next year.

Where is the young blood? Why do American voters keep the oldsters in office?

* * * * *

Elections have consequences.

We went four years under Trump without any threats of war. Biden becomes president and Putin invades Ukraine. Trump also stood up to China.

Obama was the one who paid started this practice of paying Iran after seizing Americans as hostage. In 2009 Obama sent $1.5 million to release three Americans. In 2016 he paid $1.7 billion to free five Americans. Iran, understandably saw this as a way to make some bank.

Biden gave $6 billion – billion with a B – in ransom money to Iran to free American hostages, stating the money is to be used for humanitarian purposes with no way to check that. Instead, it’s likely those American tax dollars helped fund the Hammas attack on Israel.

You can’t fix stupid, folks.

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