Nothing about the governor’s lockdown makes sense.
My daughter-in-law has been the most careful of anyone I know in fact she and my son have purposely avoided family celebrations for Thanksgiving and Christmas. She has stayed away from stores, preferring for home deliveries. Who gets COVID-19? She does. My son, who is her husband, doesn’t get it.
All of the people I know who have tested positive for COVID-19, all are fine.
I am aware of some recent deaths in Ceres and I don’t make light of their COVID related deaths. But if the most careful of people are getting it while quarantining themselves then why are we shutting down our country and destroying the economic livelihood of millions of people who have to feed their families?
The mask mandate makes no sense. The idea of a mask being able to filter out a microscopic virus – said to be about 50 thousand times smaller than the width of a human hair – is akin to the idea that you can contain mosquitoes with a chain-link fence.
I have not adhered to the stay-at-home mandates of our governor. He has no right to restrict our liberties of free travel. Thus, on a recent weekend trip to Angels Camp I dropped into my favorite pizza parlor. I went inside and saw people sitting at three tables. When I inquired that we could indeed eat inside, I was told no. It was explained to me that those people were allowed to sit at those tables without masks because they were waiting for their pizza. I was told if I wanted to order a beer I could sit down and drink it (presumably not through a mask) but I could not eat a pizza at the same table. My head was spinning trying to make any sense of a differing treatment of those drinking beer or those eating pizza.
While I can’t go into a Chili’s or any restaurant to eat I can go into a strip club, according to Superior Court Judge Joel Wohlfeil’s ruling on Dec. 16. He said that strip clubs are exempt from Newsom’s most recent coronavirus restrictions and issued a preliminary injunction on the San Diego County restrictions, after two strip clubs sued over them.
It’s time for a ballot box revolt and it’s time to get rid of a governor so power drunk he wouldn’t know how to live without COVID-19 controls he excises over our lives. I don’t ever expect to turn on the news in the morning and ever hear Gavin Newsom tell us that we’re going back to normal. He’s addicted to the power and the attention.
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They can argue about $600 COVID-19 relief checks or $2,000 checks all they want in Congress. I have a better idea: Let everybody go about their business and back to work and quit offering us laughable amounts of hush money that Uncle Sam does not have to give. Let people support themselves.
The last thing that progressives want people doing and that’s being self-sufficient and not needing government to do anything but get out of the way. Progressives don’t want you succeeding and not needing them. They get their power from taking away and then redistributing resources. It also makes them feel important. Let’s face it, if you properly manage your life and do well for yourself, you don’t need a politician; in fact, they are the bane of your existence. They dig into your pockets and give your money to people who didn’t take their days in school seriously, those who don’t try very hard, those who slack, and those who made very bad decisions.
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Things never seem like they get better in society, for example, what things are socially acceptable now as opposed to 1940s.
Last week I ran an old photo of an eighth grade class shot outside of the old Whitmore School and I saw Walter White standing there. Mr. White was known as a no-nonsense, strict disciplinarian. He believed in values that made this country great, among them, hard work, applying one’s self, being kind, doing for others, investing in others, believing in God and serving the community.
Mr. White died in Florida in the early 1970s. If I could bring back Mr. White into 2020 and talk to him I wondered how that would go. Maybe like this:
Me: “It’s a pleasure to meet you sir. I’ve read so much about you. You are a legend in Ceres along with Mae Hensley. There’s so much I want to ask you but as a former principal and superintendent, can you believe that the school district is now feeding all the kids?”
WW: “Why? Don’t parents send their kids to schools with lunches?”
Me: “Surprisingly not, the state has just kind of taken over everything so parents don’t have to. It beats me. My parents always sent me to school with a lunch. But, Mr. White, you’d be surprised at what’s going on today. The things you see on TV and in movies can be real bad. The words that would send a kid to your office for a paddling are commonly used in the classroom and on the playground.”
WW: “A good paddling always set a child straight. And they respected me for it later.”
Me: “Sir, you’re not allowed to paddle today. You’ll get sued. Maybe that’s why kids don’t show a lot of respect for authority. Why, you wouldn’t believe how insane the newest generations are getting. Last summer a whole bunch of Ceres High students called for the defunding of police. And I read about this Renea Goddard, a 22-year-old former public radio reporter, last week was charged with firebombing a police car during a protest. This is a reporter, mind you.”
WW: “My, my, what’s happened to morals of people of this generation? Their pastors need to get serious with them in the teaching of right and wrong since apparently their parents are derelict in their duties.”
Me: “What pastors? This generation doesn’t go to church, Mr. White. Few even believe in God. Oh they say they believe in heaven but their minds are far from God. I read that a quarter of adults under age 30 describe their religion as atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular. It’s quite sad.”
WW: “Sad indeed. We had rebel youth around the time I died with the war and all. I would imagine without church the morals are slipping?”
Me: “Yeah, for sure, sir, for sure. When you get rid of God, you dispense with his rules and make up your own. We have a group in this country, BLM, that protests in the streets chanting about police: “Pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon.”
WW: “BLM? The Bureau of Land Management said such things?”
Me: “No, no. BLM is Black Lives Matter. It’s a group that protests every time a police officer has the unfortunate job of shooting a suspect of the minority community. They don’t think it’s okay for officers to use lethal force when somebody does something stupid like charge at officers such as in the Michael Brown case.”
WW: “This young lady, Renea Goddard, sounds like a real rabble-rouser?
Me: “Yeah, and she also was a contributor to an LGBTQ news outlet.”
WW: “What is LGBTQ?’
Me: “Oh, that’s right. You don’t know about that. LGBTQ represents everyone who lives a bedroom lifestyle other than heterosexual. They also keep trying to say there’s more than male and female gender. We have people signing up to be altered so they can pretend to be another gender. We even have an Olympic track runner who decided become a ‘woman,’ even though he is biologically a male. His name was Bruce but he calls himself Kaitlyn. If you call him Bruce they accuse you are ‘deadnaming.’ ”
WW: “Sounds like there’s a lot of people fooling themselves today. But I guess once you’ve shoved God in the closet that anything goes.”
Me: “Absolutely. They always said you were a wise man.”
WW: “Say, I’ve noticed that I don’t see any of the kids roaming the streets like they did when I was principal. Where are the children of Ceres?”
Me: “Oh you’ll find very few at the parks having fun but I’d say 95 percent are inside playing video games!”
WW: “What, pray tell, are video games?”
Me: “Um, okay. You know about TVs, right? They also had computers back in your later years. Remember those rooms that had computers and computer tape? Well now we have computers that fit in the palm of your hand. We have TV like screens that are the size of your hand where people can manipulate images and play war games and other things.”
WW: “I always knew the future would hold technological innovations that would amaze but it also sounds very concerning if kids aren’t getting much physical conditioning today. PE was always important to us and I coached sports too. It sounds as if a kid is playing video games all day that he’s not getting much instruction or bonding time with mom and dad.”
Me: “You are right again, sir. In the past three decades, the prevalence of childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and tripled in adolescents.”
WW: “Oh how sad.”
Me: “I think what is sadder is how families have kind of fallen apart. But right now kids aren’t even going to school fulltime because we have a governor who doesn’t think they should, but that’s another topic.”
WW: “I’m not sure I like my country in 2021.”
Me: “Sadly, it’s not your country any more, sir.”
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Want to make the year 2021 better than 2020? For starters, find a petition to recall Newsom as governor. The effort is picking up steam – and for many reason. Apparently 7,721,410 Californians thought he’d be a good pick because he had a “D” behind his name but his approval rating is in the “you suck” strata. I knew he would be a rotten governor, and was one of the 4,742,825 Californians who voted for John Cox. (Stanislaus County preferred Cox).
Mike Netter of the recallgavin2020.com campaign thinks there are a number of good reasons to send Newsom packing his bags and head back to his ritzy enclave in Marin County:
1). Letting prisoners out of jail because of his bleeding heart.
2). Nullifying the death penalty after telling the Modesto Bee editorial board that he absolutely believed in the death penalty.
3). Not allowing kids to attend school because of his lockdown policies.
4). Destroying small businesses because of his COVID-19 lockdown policies while states like Texas and South Carolina are freewheeling it.
5). Passing countless new gun and ammunition laws.
6). Supporting sanctuary city policies to harbor illegal aliens.
7). Enacting policies that only exacerbate the homeless problem.
8). Making it legal for illegal aliens to sit on state boards.
9). Giving California the highest sales tax and income tax in the nation.
10). Supporting the assault on Proposition 13 protections against out of control property taxes.
11). Presiding over the highest poverty rate in the nation.
12). Implementing vaccine requirements for children or face fines.
13). Proposing a statewide water tax for all to pay.
14). Constricting the ability of law enforcement officers to do their jobs to keep us safe from criminals.
15). Supporting a policy that teachers cannot discipline of disruptive students.
16). Granting clemency to some really horrible people behind bars.
17). Endorsing Prop. 47, which reduced many thefts from felonies to misdemeanors.
18). Failing to act on a report that the EDD was sending $40 million in unemployment checks to prisoners.
19). Adopting COVID policies while violating them himself (French Laundry restaurant).
The recall effort has garnered 820,000 signatures as of three weeks ago and has until March 17 to hit 1.5 million.
If you don’t think it’s possible to recall Newsom with so many Democrats in California, consider that there are five million registered Republicans and seven million voters who are NPP, or No Party Preference. That’s 12 million out of 18 million voters in California who are not Democrats!
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Did you hear about this? Five armed officers from the California Department of Consumer Affairs raided the Pomp Salon in North Stockton’s upscale Lincoln Center owned by husband and wife, Dino Ballin and Vicki Kirk. Why? Because they were doing business when Newsom said they can’t. Kirk didn’t expect the raid as a state inspector had been in two days prior to ensure the salon was following safety protocols. I like the way the Federalist Papers website put it: “Talk about a dirty dealings! Nothing like sending an inspector out under the guise of verifying safety protocols, telling them they are doing a fine job and then send in the goons to shut them down and cite them.”
Ballin asks why is it okay for Target or Walmart to stay open but not a hair styling salon?
In complete defiance, Pomp Salon did not close their doors once the officers left. The San Joaquin County DA’s Office said they did not participate or sanction the raid conducted by Newsom’s goon squad.
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So Newsom thinks it’s compassionate to allow the homeless up camps wherever they want to, including along the freeways? His policies have allowed another death. A Dec. 31 brush fire east of Highway 99 north of R Street in Merced killed at least one person camping in tall brush.
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The Bible suggests that at some point people become so depraved that they turn their thoughts to do those things that are not proper. That passage of Romans 1:26-29 came to my mind when I heard Sen. Chuck Schumer give a prayer to open the 117th Congress that ended with “amen and a-women.”
Schumer is one fry short of a Happy Meal. Amen is Latin for “so be it.” It’s not in reference to gender.
The stupid ending was just part of Nancy Pelosi’s new gender rules in Congress. Instead of dealing with real issues like restoring American’s lifestyle, Pelosi was busy banning the use of gender specific words like mother, father, sister, brother, aunt and uncle.
Pathetic pandering to the left indeed. nstead, only gender-neutral terms such as “parent,” “child,” “sibling” and “parent’s sibling” would be allowed in the text of the House rules. Pelosi touted the new rules, calling them “the most inclusive in history.”
Not really. She’s alienating more and more people in this country who see this kind of behavior as foolish pandering to fringe groups.
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
