Left slanting newspapers – like the so-called legacy TV news media complex – are in decline. That’s because of how they treated Trump and other conservatives, Americans see through their obvious bias.
While newspapers had greater influence in America in years past, the liberal newspapers have shriveled faster. Every time I check the Modesto Bee website I see another negatively slanted view against Donald Trump. It’s headlines like “Stanislaus farmers, home-builders could lose vital workers to Trump’s mass deportations.”
It’s true that it’s hard to find any white guy framing or finishing houses but you’re telling me that all of those folks building houses in Hughson or Manteca or the neighboring to building-dormant Ceres are all illegal aliens? If that’s the case, the builders who hire illegal immigrants have been in serious violation and should be fined. They would be contributing to the problem of being a magnet for illegals to come to the country.
Or how about these McClatchy opinions: “Trump disrespects Capitol police with pardons. But he wants cops to catch illegals?” We can debate all day whether or not Trump’s pardons were appropriate for those who assaulted officers and more about mercy during a political frenzy, but Donald Trump is about the most pro law enforcement president in recent history. Certainly more than Barack Obama who refused to condemn Black Lives Matter which marched in the streets chanting “Pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon.”
I’m not sure that McClatchy ran any opinions mentioning how wrong it was for President Biden to pardon most of his family members of any wrongdoing in his last 20 minutes of his presidency. That raises the question of why but some in the House suspect they all financially benefitted from the millions obtained through Hunter Biden and influence peddling. Americans need to know about the corruption that has been rife in the Biden family so that future presidents don’t get away with the same. Now that pardons have been issued, Biden’s brother, James Biden; his sister-in-law, Sara Jones Biden; sister Valerie Biden Owens; brother-in-law John T. Owens; and youngest brother, Francis Biden can no longer shield themselves behind the Fifth Amendment and not answer questions Congress may pose of them in any upcoming investigation.
Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said that Biden’s pardons were “a confession” of the Biden family’s corruption.
Keep in mind that Biden soundly said in 2024 that he would never pardon any of his family since no person is above the law.
Biden also issued a pre-emptive pardon for Adam Schiff, who was unfortunately elected by Californians to represent them in the U.S. Senate. Schiff pushed the Trump-Russian collusion lie for years until special counsel Robert Mueller said he could find no evidence – evidence Schiff said he had in hand. Schiff was censured by Congress in June 2023 for lying.
He also issued pardons for members of the Jan. 6 Select Committee looking into the Capitol incident. It’s been reported the reason he did so is because they destroyed documents which would not play into their narrative that Trump masterminded the whole raucous affair.
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I’m questioning the city’s justification to continue with the fishing ban at the pond at Ceres River Bluff Regional Park.
The city claims the liner could be damaged and that it’s expensive to replace. (Never mind that the liner is nearing the end of its 20-year life guarantee). But there must be is a good foot of muck – duck crap, decayed vegetation and dirt – on the bottom of the pond shielding the liner from any possible fishing hooks.
Then I started thinking about the manmade 13-acre Naraghi Lake in northeast Modesto which doesn’t have a liner. According to Wikipedia, the lake was excavated and lined with bentonite to prevent percolation. Granted there is a water inlet valve to refill it, Naraghi Lake rarely seems to be on and yet the lake is full year round.
If the dual purpose of the Ceres lagoon is to retain storm water and offer a habitat for wildlife, what would be the tragedy to see the pond go dry in summer months like what happens in nature? Wildlife would still have the nearby Tuolumne River.
Okay, so let’s concede that families can fish the river. That’s reasonable but Councilwoman Rosalinda Vierra opined what should have been on every councilmembers’ mind and that is why can’t the city build a fishing platform on the river bank so that children and others can fish? After all, the city spent a whopping $371,690 on a 140-foot precast concrete kayak ramp which is not entirely conducive to small kids fishing from since it has no barriers to prevent little ones from falling in.
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There are about 12,000 structures in Los Angeles County that were standing on New Year’s Eve but gone today – a staggering loss of property.
It seems to me that if the Republican lawmakers come up with a good plan that the Democrats will be there to say no because they don’t want them getting credit.
Last week Assembly Republicans introduced a proposal for $1 billion in additional fire prevention funding. This was introduced as an amendment to the existing budget proposal that is only focused on aid to Los Angeles - but provides nothing to prevent future disasters. Democrats rejected the additional fire prevention funding.
Just last year, Newsom and legislative Democrats cut $143.9 million for wildfire prevention.
Assemblywoman Alexandra M. Macedo (R-Tulare) introduced Assembly Bill 267 to reallocate the funding to the High Speed Rail (HSR) project to fund wildfire prevention and water infrastructure projects.
HSR has spent $13.7 billion in total, including $1.6 billion on professional marketing materials and consultants. The only completed segment so far is between the Kern-Tulare line and Shafter, and has cost $1.4 billion for 22 miles of raised dirt; and 11 overpass structures. Zero feet of track have been laid.
Once promised to be completed for $34 billion, HSR’s budget has ballooned to $128 billion.
The devastation in Los Angeles County is estimating the losses at $275 billion. So it seems a $1 billion investment makes some sense.
But you know who will be paying for it – all of us, even us 300 miles away.
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We don’t know the exact cause of the Pacific Palisades and Altadena fires but there have been cases of arsonists arrested for adding to the carnage.
Assemblywomen Heather Hadwick (R-Modoc) and Kate Sanchez (R-Temecula) have introduced legislation to enhance sentencing for arsonists.
The 2024 Park Fire, which burned over 400,000 acres and destroyed 709 homes in Butte and Tehama counties, was set by sex offender Ronnie Stout, an arsonist with an extensive criminal record who set his mother’s car on fire and calmly pushed it down a 60-foot gully.
I could argue that idiots like Stout deserve to take their last breath in the gas chamber but AB 297 would add a sentencing enhancement of three to five years for arsonists whose evil deeds result in the burning of 500 or more acres of forestland.
CalFire estimates that about 20 percent of wildfires are set by arsonists.
It’s definitely time to get tougher on all criminals after the progressives’ failed soft-on-crime approach. Let’s start with the death penalty for drug dealers. Every week now the CHP is pulling over some car along I-5 with enough fentanyl to kill the country. Their poison is killing so they need to be exterminated.
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A new year starts out like babies full of hope. 2025 ushered in hopes for a better year, didn’t it? It didn’t take long for the new year to be stained with ugliness. On New Year’s Day, some nut job ran his car into a crowd of revelers on Bourbon Street in New Orleans killing 14.
Then Los Angeles County starts burning up Jan. 7, destroying thousands of expensive homes. And it’s only January.
When we gaze at babies we don’t think about the bad that comes. Sure, we think this baby will grow up to become president or cure cancer or become an astronaut. Some babies, however, grow up to become killers. Not all babies live long lives; some babies get ill and die before adulthood.
Nobody would ever have the courage to live if they knew how their final exit would be or when. That thought occurred to me from an old family slide.
My dad – who will be 85 this summer – documented my life growing up on transparencies. I never pondered the days he would be old.
Whenever family got together, Dad’s 35mm Petri camera came out, invariably to take a group photo like the one printed at the bottom of this page just so you follow context.
I ruminate on this slide. Of the seven people in the photo, only two still remain 62 years later – me and my brother.
The photo was taken in Ceres – specifically at the home at 2108 Seventh Street then occupied by my great Aunt Dorothy Holland. Dorothy and my grandfather were sister and brother.
I’m the tyke in the dark shirt being held by my grandmother who is standing in the middle. My brother Kevin is the arms of our mother at left.
Aunt Dorothy has her arms on the shoulders of her young twin sons, Garry and Larry Holland. I think Garry is the ones with folded arms.
Judging by the look of our ages and the shadows cast by the sun, this photo would have been on a spring or summer afternoon in 1963. We lived in the Bay Area, specifically Mountain View and later Milpitas, at the time of this visits to family in the Valley.
Four young boys with boundless futures reared by caring women.
Garry babysat me and Kevin on at least two occasions. I admired and looked up to him as younger boys will do older boys. Burnished into my memory of one of those occasions is us watching TV with him and Hawaii Five-O coming on with that dramatic intro of Jack Lord and its heart-pumping theme song.
Another time Garry asked if I wanted to go on a ride to which I eagerly consented. We didn’t travel far. It was dark and he drove to a park which I strongly believe was Whitmore Park where he met some friends at a picnic table. It was probably 1970 or 1971.
I was staying with my grandmother the weekend of Nov. 26-28, 1971 when the phone rang that Sunday morning. Something ominous happened. Garry, who was just 16, had been killed the night before in a car crash, losing control on a curve above La Grange on Hwy 132. He was driving to Sonora with friend Roy Allen of Ceres, eastbound on rain-slickened Yosemite Boulevard near La Grange Dam Road when he lost control with the car.
Speed and rain are never a good combination. His car crashed through a fence and rolled over several times before coming to rest on its roof. Allen escaped injury but Garry died seven hours later at Scenic General Hospital.
It was a tough loss for a 10-year-old to accept, especially being with someone to console them after the death of a loved one. I remember seeing Larry’s tears in his grief and feeling sorrow for him.
The years rolled on and my aunt’s family grew distant, particularly after she died in February 2001.
The third person in the photo to pass was my grandmother who made it to age 96 and dying in December 2015.
She was a simple, unassuming woman who worked very hard in her long 96 years of life. She loved her family deeply, grieved over their travails and their tragedies and worshiped the Lord with a pure heart. She prayed for all of us constantly. She wasn’t always appreciated but many great people in life aren’t. Nana taught me about Jesus and often told me Bible stories. I thank God for her faith!
I can hear her singing while cooking on a stove that was long overdue to be replaced. Scarred by the Great Depression, she had money but lived like possessions and a nicer house didn’t matter. She didn’t take many vacations but I wish she had. She deserved them. She had no aspirations other than family.
I wish everyone could have had a grandmother like she was mine.
The fourth to die was Larry who suffered from brain cancer died in 2020. My own mother died Halloween day same year.
That leaves my brother and me, ages 62 and 63 respectively.
I don’t know how people who lack faith in a loving God can do life. There’s too much tragedy without faith and hope of an afterlife.
I rue the day that sin entered the world and we were all destined to die. The trim and thin became pale and obese. Some, like Garry, die far too young. Young bodies simply wear out with time like an old dish rag.
Some of us grow old and fade away, like my grandfather. Most others in dad’s slide collection are gone, taken by drugs or cancer or old age.
I believe most of us have thoughts of life after death. Some don’t believe in it. I cling to that hope. Some day, in the blink of an eye, I believe that Jesus will usher me into His place where those loved ones in family slides will be found celebrating as if life on earth was nothing by comparison.
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
