If Democrats only can win by pulling the race card because their policies are failures, they’ll do it every time a presidential election comes around.
Last week the Dems and their cohorts in the media suggested that Trump’s visit to Howell, Michigan was because of the city being what they termed a “KKK hotbed.”
I hope Trump smokes Harris for such blatant dishonesty. The worst media outlet in the country, MSNBC News ran this headline: “Trump seems to think he has an airtight defense for visiting a KKK hotbed in Michigan.” Somehow the journalists with TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) attempt making sinister connections between what American cities Trump visits and their demented belief that Trump is a racist and supports the KKK.
When one of the TDS diseased reporters questioned Trump about his motives in Howell, Trump asked “Who came here in 2021?” She answered Joe Biden and he walked away. He shined a huge spotlight on their utter stupidity.
Trump is trying to win Michigan and Howell has voters. Next question?
Trump can’t catch a break. When he visited Waco, this so-called Woke journalist Ja’han Jones tried tying one of his remarks about support for police to cult leader David Koresh who led his followers to perish at the Branch Davidian compound in 1993. Smacks of desperation to dig that far back in history to smear a presidential candidate.
You have to be pretty full of Trump hatred to note that Trump campaigned in Tulsa and dig over 100 years into the past to make a connection to Trump for the 1921 race riot that killed about 300 persons.
My God, is not a presidential candidate allowed to visit ANY American city in search of votes without some dude engaged in journalistic malpractice? This is reprehensible, folks.
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Speaking of deception, at the DNC convention last week President Biden continued promoting the lie about Trump and Charlottesville. It’s as dishonest as the day as long but he’s hoping if he repeats it long enough that his mind-numbed voters will believe it’s true.
Trump never once praised or defended the KKK. What he said was there were “good people” on both sides of the controversy about tearing down historical statues. (I, as a history lover, hate seeing historical works of art torn down or vandalized). He did not praise the KKK. In fact, he condemned the KKK in the strongest terms possible. But through dishonest editing and false reporting, they pushed that narrative to no end, making them the con artists they claim Trump to be.
And Biden continues to push the “Trump said there will be a blood bath if he isn’t elected” narrative. Trump’s “bloodbath” comment followed his statements about how China was about to prepare an assault on the U.S. car manufacturing industry by making cheaper cars in Mexico and undercutting our markets. He said if the Biden/Harris administration continues unabated, there would be a bloodbath for American car companies. But the MSNBC type outlets edited out the entire narrative to make it appear differently.
There is so much lying going on in this election and voters need to be smarter about what is being fed to Americans.
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I was a bit miffed last week when an individual who shall remain nameless gave me a call and was a little upset. He was upset about the city wanting to deliver a walloping increase for Ceres Youth Soccer and that I hadn’t yet written a story in the Wednesday, Aug. 14 paper.
I explained to him that I monitor every meeting and that it is difficult for me to write all of my articles on a Monday night council meeting because of this one-man newspaper operation has a Tuesday deadline that has me grinding hard the entire day. (I also am the one who designs every page, which other newspaper editors have the luxury of someone doing that so them).
I also informed him that I needed the city manager or recreation director to explain what transpired leading up to Ceres Youth Soccer folks’ protest at the council meeting. I was unable to get a hold of Dunford until Tuesday morning as I was preparing to go to press and you all saw the story last week.
Dunford was honest to explain he screwed up and that approaching CYSO about an increase two days before the league started was a wise thing.
The gentleman who phoned me acknowledged that my opinion column does focus a lot of state and national issues but said “the city has a lot of problems.” Sensing he was inferring that I was neglecting city issues, my blood began to boil. Where has he been? I have routinely criticized the action of the council and mayor and suggested that he must not be reading my columns on a regular basis. He went on to blast Javier Lopez as not a Republican as claimed and told me he’s voting for Gary Condit for mayor. That’s fine, I told him. He’s either a Condit family fan or is opting for anyone not presently sitting on the council.
He had settled down by the time we hung up and was apologetic.
This individual is not in the newspaper business, and has no idea how challenging it is to cover a meeting that can last for hours, digest the information into a readable format – and be factual – and then turn around the next morning and began to spend the entire day paginating the paper all by yourself.
I don’t think that people quite understand or appreciate the effort it has taken – indeed over the last 37 years – in this demanding occupation. For the most part, I think most people have been pleased with the Courier while I see other community papers, putting out substandard coverage. There’s a local editor who rarely writes anything for her newspaper nor do they cover council meetings as steady as I do.
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Kamala Harris is playing the Santa Claus role that most Democrat presidential candidates play. As Mitt Romney stated, it’s hard to run against Santa Claus and the Santa Claus in 2012 was Barack Obama. Every four years we see a new voter buying scheme.
Harris announced that she wants to give first-time homebuyers $25,000 of taxpayer money.
First of all, we are $32 trillion in debt and cannot afford her giveaway. Secondly, an influx of cash will only push up the cost of housing. Thirdly, it won’t increase housing stock.
What would work better is to shrink government and its insatiable appetite for more and more taxes, reduce construction red tape and let the free market do what it does best: produce products.
I purchased my first home with a loan that I paid back for my grandmother. I then put sweaty equity into my enlarging my house and making it worth more. I’ve worked my entire life to pay the mortgage and moved up into a better neighborhood. It offends me that Harris wants to give people money for a substantial down payment when I was given no such benefit but yet I would have to pay for the benefit. If she’s going to do that, she might as well give $25,000 to everybody who bought their own home without government help which could pay down mortgages. But she won’t do that because those folks are older and more likely to be Trump supporters. Young people tend to vote Democratic. It’s a scheme to buy votes.
She also wants price controls, suggesting that our free market system is price gouging (holy cow, she said gauging). That’s quite an insult when you consider Biden’s inflationary policies caused the price of everything – fuel included –to go up.
Controlling what business can charge for product will only create shortages. Why? Well, let’s look at cereal. Cereal is made from grains. To harvest that grain you have equipment that runs on fuel which shot up under Biden. The grain has to be processed by people who have to be paid more. Sugar has gone up. The box and liners cost more to produce. It gets trucked to your store, which burns up higher priced fuel. The store employee puts it on the shelf of a store which is cooled or heated depending on the month which of course costs more.
That’s why you see boxes of cereal costing $8 and $9 now.
If the government tells that grocery store that they can’t charge enough money to make a small profit, where is the incentive to even manufacture it? If you take the profitability out of the manufacturing process it will curtail production. Our free market system is based on profit for production.
Rent control and price control does not work. If anything, the government is not the answer and needs to get out of our lives.
The free market system gave us the great advances, not government. Government only takes.
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I’ve been editor of the Ceres Courier longer than any other person in history.
On Sept. 12, I will have been covering Ceres news for 37 years. I was hired in 1987 during the Reagan administration.
That kind of tenure is rare considering that the average worker stays at his job 4.4 years according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Most Americans hop from job to job in their lives.
I’ve had a front-row seat to 37 years of news and newsmakers in Ceres. And while the pay isn’t stellar for newspaper editors in small towns, the experience has been rich. I’ve met so many people and had some great relationships with most of you.
I was very green when I started out at the Courier. I remember looking at the map of Ceres hanging on my dark paneled Fourth Street office and thinking I was the king of a vast domain, considering my only other paper was in a city much smaller.
I also remember the panic of learning new methods of the production as they came along. Back then we produced the paper by the old cut-and-paste method. Technology eventually allowed us to do all the composing on the computer. While learning the computer method seemed daunting at first, I would never go back to the old archaic method.
One of the first things as a 29-year-old editor did in 1987 was to meet the movers and shakers. Councilman Paul Caruso was one of the first. He excitedly showed me renderings of how downtown Ceres was to look. Real substantial renovation didn’t occur until 2018.
I also remember choking on the second-hand smoke of Police Chief Pete Peterson during my first interview with him. I recall Police Commander John Chapman sizing me up with a common mistrust of media folks. One of the best action photos that I ever snapped was of John and Adam McGill wrestling with a suspect who escaped the police department and hid in a nearby shed. Chapman did come to trust me and it was with sadness I reported on his cancer death.
My newspaper experience became more seasoned and more confident. My writing, I hope, has improved.
I’ve tempered my columns over the years. (I get fewer pieces of hate mail than I used to.) When I look back and see the number of editorial stands I took against gay marriage, the views likely would be universally condemned today.
Over the decades, I remember many people who have come and gone. I’ve said goodbye to dear friends along the way, people like Del and Shirley Davis, Jim Luton of Melody Corner Bible Book Store, Sandy de la Porte, John Chapman, Kay Beaver, Perle Brown, Homer and Ruth Jorgensen and others.
Mae Hensley used to come into my office, place her hands on mine and tell me what a good man I was. She was a dear.
Another school namesake, Virginia Parks, used to come in straight from her Soroptimist meetings at Alfonso’s to buy a copy of the Courier every Wednesday afternoon.
I also watched Joel Hidahl – another school namesake – accept the Agribusiness Man of the Year Award.
When I think of all the years I’ve covered Ceres news, it’s no wonder why the temples are grayer.
Here are some:
In the 1990s, Ronnie Dale Cadwell Jr. was fatally shot by Officer Mark Neri after his brush with Officer Jared Puryear. I was there.
Art deWerk, arrived in high praise and left 15 years later in a cloud of secrecy. I was there.
Howard Stevenson was promoted to sergeant – a job that would eventually cause him to lose his life in 2005. I was there.
I’ve covered my small share of celebrity visits.
Flamboyant TV personality and fitness guru Richard Simmons made a surprise visit at Anne Aubert’s Walter White School classroom on July 10, 1991. I was there.
I interviewed a parade of politicians and would-bes. George House went on to the state Assembly. Sal Cannella and son Anthony Cannella did too. Al Girolami came in promoting his candidacy for judge. He later presided over the Scott Peterson trial.
George P. Bush, son of Jeb Bush, sat in our office in 2000 to campaign for his uncle, George W. Bush.
At times I covered events in Modesto, such as the time when Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen held a campaign rally in 1988.
I followed Senator John McCain and Congressman Jeff Denham across I Street in Modesto to a press conference.
I watched George and Barbara Bush and two members of the Beach Boys – as well as son Jeb – at a 1988 rally at the diamond near Beyer Park.
When Gov. George Deukmejian held a press conference at the Modesto Centre Plaza, I lobbed one question at him as my heart was pounding.
I was present on the steps of the Modesto Library when Gray Davis came to campaign for governor.
When Bob Hope appeared in Modesto in 1989, I held the door open for him as he walked into the Modesto Centre Plaza for a press conference.
I’ve covered the building of the TID Almond Power Plant, the first Ceres Walmart, the Ceres Community Center, Westpointe, Eastgate, Home Depot and the new Walmart Supercenter. I also wrote extensively about things that never came to pass, such as San Carlos Cinemas and an ice skating rink.
I wrote about the demise of Memorial Hospital Ceres in a day when Ceres residents felt they couldn’t exist without one.
I covered the building of Virginia Parks, Sam Vaughn, Adkison, Berryhill, Sinclear, Lucas, La Rosa, Hidahl elementary schools as well as Central Valley High and Blaker Kinser and Cesar Chavez Junior High School.
When there were talks between the city and teenagers about a skate park, I was there, too.
I took a historical stroll with the late Grant Lucas who showed me where the 1880s school house sat in Whitmore Park.
I’ve watched untold tragedies, far too many dead young women in car crashes. The most graphic was when I saw the lifeblood of Melody Lynn Dixon, 21, of Turlock draining into the shoulder of Highway 99. It was Feb. 18, 1998 after her northbound vehicle went out of control, jumped the center median and was smashed up by two southbound tractor-trailer rigs. Her 1997 Nissan Sentra was unrecognizable.
I’ve visited the site of deaths on train tracks, and watched people cry as their houses were burning with pets or loved ones inside. Seeing such things gives you a sober view of life.
I wrote thousands of obituaries until it became a money-making proposition by papers and that job was taken out of my hand.
I’ve covered hundreds of Chamber ribbon cuttings, done a multitude of new business stories and the disappointing stories of businesses closing, such as Landon’s, Raley’s, Rancho San Miguel or Richland Market.
Old copies of the Courier often catch me saying to myself, “I don’t remember that.” I uttered that phrase when I stumbled upon a 1992 photo of a young Officer Adam Christiansen holding a radar gun on Whitmore Avenue. I don’t remember meeting the future sheriff and was shocked that I was the one who took the photo.
Politics has always been one of my favorite subjects and covering those has been no chore.
When Clare Berryhill announced in Whitmore Park that he was running against Gary Condit in 1989, I was there.
Condit cast his vote for himself for Congress in 1989, and I was there at Harvest Presbyterian Church to watch it. I was also there at the Stanislaus County Fairgrounds that night when he accepted victory.
I was also the only member of any media to interview Gary’s parents, Adrian and Jean Condit after the Chandra Levy scandal broke and dominated national news and eventually took Ceres’ favorite son down. My appearances on Good Morning America, Entertainment Tonight, CNN, the O’Reilly Factor and Paula Zahn drew mail from throughout the United States.
I’ve covered a multitude of elections, such as the bizarre 1993 race of unknown Kevin Johnson who breezed into town and tried buying his way to a mayor’s seat but was defeated by the first lady mayor in Barbara Hinton. There were the perennial candidacies of Mike Rego and Richard Felix. (Whatever happened to them?)
I was on the steps of the McHenry Museum in Modesto when Tom Berryhill announced he was running for Assembly in 2005.
I made trips to Sacramento to interview Gary Condit and Sal Cannella when they were state Assemblymen.
I’ve watched city managers come and go ... Jim Marshall, Gary Napper, Tim Kerr, Brad Kilger, Art de Werk, Toby Wells, Tom Westbrook and Alex Terrazas. I should add that the last one mentioned was the worst I’ve ever dealt with.
Mayors I’ve seen in action were Jim Delhart, Richard McBride, Eric Ingwerson, Leo Havener, Louis Arrollo, DeLinda Moore, Barbara Hinton, Anthony Cannella, Chris Vierra and now Javier Lopez.
There have been fewer Ceres school superintendents in that time as well: Bob Adkison, Bruce Newlin, Bea Lingenfelter, Walt Hanline, Scott Siegel and Denise Wickham.
There have been great stresses in my job – the greatest occurring when I juggled my duties while making two trips a week to UCSF Medical Center in San Francisco to be with my wife who was battling leukemia. It was an ordeal that was on and off according to her treatments from October 2012 until her death in July 2013.
Meeting deadlines were not fund but everyone should have a job that gives them so rich and varied an experience – such as being given permission to climb to the top of the Ceres water tower or fly aboard a KC-135 out of the now defunct Castle Air Force Base – and one that puts them into contact with so many wonderful people. And for that I have been grateful.
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
