Four meetings on the same topic with the same results.
What a waste of time.
Mayor Lopez kicked the “who shall we appoint?” can down the road a lot, starting the conversation on Feb. 2, kicking it to Feb. 8, then Feb. 22 and then March 4 as the clock ran out. What was he expecting, somebody to cave?
In a normal world, it should have been a 4-0 vote for the appointment of Laurie Smith. But nothing is normal about having two inexperienced and supremely arrogant councilmembers.
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Nobody has had anything bad to say about Laurie Smith. In three meetings nobody complained about her. But alas, on Thursday came some rather bizarre comments from Ceres resident John Osgood. They need to be addressed because they are quite frankly manufactured.
Osgood accused Smith and the Planning Commission of “gross failures.” He might as well condemn all five members for voting in accordance with the Zoning Ordinance because that’s what has guided their decisions. Osgood suggests that Ceres has “added homes at the peril of our police, fire, our sewer system, our water systems, our roadways, our school systems.” I don’t suppose he views his own residence as ever perilously adding to the burden on infrastructure. Does he also know that new homes pay their share of that burden on sewer and water and police and fire and roads in the form of a developer fee and an operations fee?
Osgood then felt the need to attack Smith as director of city of Modesto’s Parks and Recreation Director, greatly exaggerating the condition of parks there. He alluded to crime in parks, which is a police issue. He claims Modesto parks are not well maintained. Being well acquainted with several parks I know Modesto parks are generally in very nice condition.
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Ever get the feeling that government officials enjoy fleecing us taxpayers? Treating our money like it is a never-ending fountain? I know what you mean.
In response to a couple of surveillance videos coming to light showing the assault of Asians on the streets in the Bay Area, Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco) managed to wrestle $1.4 million to research and track the trend. Ting said “we can’t solve a problem without knowing how big it is.”
A group called Stop AAPI Hate (where anyone can go to file a report of a “hate incident”) suggests there have been more than 3,000 “hate incidences” against Asians. Those are rarely assaults though because we’d be seeing a lot more of these isolated attacks captured on cell phone or surveillance video which the TV media would gladly run in their 6 o’clock newscasts as they blame Donald Trump, because he called the coronavirus the China virus, a dog whistle, of course in their narrative, to call for Asians to be pushed over in the streets. Judging by the few perps caught on video, they don’t exact fit the profile of any Trump supporters if you’re assuming only white people are believers in MAGA.
Politicians will stand before microphones to grandstand to appear like they are doing something good. We all know that this $1.4 million might as well be thrown down a rat hole.
Don’t get me wrong. Assaults on anybody of any color are terrible and are already illegal but they happen despite laws against them. But I don’t think they are widespread. As long as human beings populate the planet there will always be the defective ones who go around killing and assaulting and stealing. No government study will stop it. Spending $1.4 million on the problem won’t do diddly squat to stop thugs from being thugs – and the Democrats know it. They just want to look good at TV press conferences spending our hard-earned tax dollars.
Assaults are miserable souls who know they will likely get away with their crimes as long as Democrats tie the hands of law enforcement, attack gun rights, go easy on criminal sentences and let inmates out of state prisons for stupid reasons.
Government cannot come up with the answer. The solution to crime is a spiritual matter. We will never eliminate assaults until we change darkened and angry hearts. People who love God and his laws don’t do evil deeds like this. The church can help more than any bureaucracy. But we all know how Democrats have done all they can to marginalize institutions and people of faith. Obama called them bitter clingers. Newsom forbids them from meeting.
We, the people, need to take back our state and nation.
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The assault on America itself continues.
Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley introduced a new Amendment last week that will lower the federal voting age to 16; saying the move will “recognize the contributions that young people make to our democracy.”
I was a teenager once and know that I had my head up my butt – simply because I hadn’t lived long. I mean, when you’re 16, you are three years out from the biggest butthead period of one’s life – junior high. A teenager hasn’t owned a house, hasn’t paid taxes and surely doesn’t know what it’s like to manage a family or household or pay bills. Why in the hell would Pressley want them to vote? News flash: It’s because she knows they overwhelmingly vote the way their Democratic teachers tell them to, that’s why.
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I saw a great meme the other day: “I used to be black until Biden said that if I didn’t for him I ain’t black. Ever since then I have to identify as white and I can’t even look at myself in a mirror without calling myself a racist.”
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Gavin “Soon to be Recalled” Newsom just doesn’t get it but Texas Gov. Greg Abbott does. Abbott announced last week that Texans will no longer be required to wear masks, as of today, after an eight-month period. Naturally, our control freak governor blasted the Republican governor’s move as “absolutely reckless.” Biden suggested it was a Neanderthal approach.
It’s neither reckless or Neanderthal.
Gov. Abbott realizes we are adults who don’t want to get sick and we’re smart enough to play it safe.
Texas’ per capita death rate is on par with California’s. So is Florida’s. Both those states are run by Republicans. Texas has lived freely. Why isn’t California’s rate dramatically lower?
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem is about the only politician in the country who speaks the truth about the lockdown. She spoke at the CPAC Convention and stated that hers was the only state that did not tell businesses or churches to shut down or tell people to stay home.
“Let me be clear,” said Noem. “COVID didn’t crush the economy. Government crushed the economy. And then just as quickly government turned around and held itself out as the savior and frankly the Treasury Department can’t print money fast enough to keep up with Congress’ wish list.”
How true!
Michael Betrus, author of “COVID-19: Lockdowns on Trial,” explains in detail why masks did nothing to minimize the spread of coronavirus in 2020.
The groundwork for these intrusive government shutdowns began on the false scientific model of British Imperial College predicting that in a do-nothing scenario that two million Americans would die by the summer of 2020. It didn’t play out that way. If lockdowns work, he feels, restrictive states like California and Illinois and New York should be doing a little better but way better. There is no data to support the effectiveness of a shutdown.
When the government says that 517,000 Americans have died of COVID-19 thus far, that isn’t the case. They died with COVID, not necessarily because of it. When you look at the typical number of deaths that occur naturally, the excess deaths are closer to 300,000.
About 150 million to 200 million Americans have been infected with 900,000 hospitalized with it. Of those hospitalized, one out of two has died.
In Stanislaus County, the official record as of March 3 was a COVID death count of 953. Since most of those deaths involved underlying health problems, how many would have died of that condition without COVID?
How many deaths were in healthy people? Not nearly as many. Like I have said before, a better approach would be lockdown nothing and caution elderly and unhealthy people to wear masks and stay home.
Stanislaus County has a population of 550,660. Divide 959 deaths by 550,660 and you can see that supposedly 0.0017 percent of our county has died from COVID and you have to ask if those persons would have died naturally from something else like old age or heart attack or diabetes.
Was it worth destroying businesses, plunging people into economic ruin, depressing our kids to the point they are acting out or killing themselves or bleakly facing their abandoned career plans? I say no.
The anger is boiling. Newsom faces a great chance of being sent packing if he doesn’t follow the governors of Texas and Florida.
Look at this:
Florida has had 31,696 deaths among 21,646,155 citizens. A death rate of 0.00146 percent.
Texas has had 44,368 deaths out of a population of 29,087,070 residents. Death rate of 0.0015 percent.
New York has had 47,345 deaths among 19,491,339 residents. Death rate of 0.00242 percent (thanks to Cuomo).
California 52,789 deaths against a population 39,747,267. Death rate of 0.0013 percent.
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Former Ceres resident Robert Fauss gives us this thought: “I think wearing a mask is one of the most absolute idiotic things that has ever been done by Americans. For anyone to believe that a flimsy cotton mask would prevent a microscopic airborne virus from any type of transmission is beyond the realm of rational thought. I’m embarrassed to live in a land with so many idiots.”
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It’s amazing how little regard Democrats have to secure the border and finish building the physical barrier that separates the U.S. and Mexico. It is that broken border wall that is allowing heartless coyotes to bring in illegal aliens crammed inside of vehicles in dangerous conditions. We saw the devastating results of their policies last week when an SUV loaded with 25 crashed on Highway 115, killing 13.
Seems the mad dash to slip through the cracks has increased since Biden became president and sent the message that he will tolerate illegals flooding the border. The number of teenagers and children crossing without a parent has jumped fourfold since last fall.
Elections have consequences.
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Most of the biased journalists at MSNBC don’t think we have things figured out but we do.
On Thursday I see this headline: “Ron Johnson grinds Senate to halt, irritating many,”
And I thought, “Oh, Ron Johnson must be a Republican because they would never frame a Democrat in such a negative way.” Sure enough, the piece by Jordain Carney was completely slanted. Read: “It is just the latest step by Johnson, who is up for reelection in a state narrowly won by Biden, to burnish his Trump credentials, whether that’s by repeating unfounded theories about the Jan. 6 attack (it’s now an attack like Pearl Harbor and not just a peaceful demonstration hijacked by some xx thugs), or becoming the face of GOP opposition to the coronavirus bill that is broadly popular among Republicans.”
That fact that Johnson is one of the few in the Senate to be concerned about the drunken sailor spending spree that Congress has been on since the government unnecessarily shut down our economy should concern all of us. People like Charles Schumer and Nancy Pelosi would not survive as a CEO of a company with the disregard they have for spending money.
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Have you ever noticed how much time Mayor Javier Lopez spends focused on his pen during a council meeting? Is it a way of deflecting, of looking like he’s doing something important when he really doesn’t know what to do? According to wikiHOW, if you want to get out of doing something you don’t want to do, aimlessly take notes to look engaged to make it seem like you you’re doing something important.”
I study body language when watching council meetings and I see a lot of cockiness coming from the chair at far right.
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
