What was up with that ridiculous show last week shutting down the state Capitol buildings across the land, including ours in Sacramento?

There was no indication that masses of Trump supporters were going to converge on the State Capitol building and do what happened in Washington on Jan. 6. As we know, 99.9 percent of the Trump protestors voiced their feelings about a stolen election in a peaceful fashion on Jan. 6, and it was only a small bunch of radicals who caused trouble.

And what was up with that bogus narrative of Democrats like Rep. Cohen who suggested that National Guardsmen couldn’t be trusted to protect Biden and the Capitol because 90 percent of them voted for Trump? What kind of cockamamie belief system does that Tennessee Democrat have? Those guardsmen are patriots who believe in law and order despite who they voted for. Contrast that with the leftists who were burning down police stations, city buildings, torching police cars, assaulting police officers with bricks and frozen water bottles last year. They were and are the danger!

Remember how on June 1, 2020 Trump walked to St. John’s Church (which was earlier set on fire) near the White House? Remember how the media declared that Trump had the police sweep away the “peaceful protestors” with teargas? The truth is that rocks, bricks and bottles of frozen water were being used to pummel police, thereby making it a violent protest. Remember how the left made fun of Trump for holding up a Bible during that incident?

The shut-down-the-capitols media cycle was all about creating the narrative that Trump supporters are so dangerous and out of control when really tend to be the most peaceful. However, what we saw on Jan. 20, 2017 – the day Trump was inaugurated – were buildings only blocks from the White House being destroyed in protest of the new president with far fewer National Guard troops in place. On the day Trump was inaugurated Franklin Square erupted in violence with six police officers suffered injuries when protesters flung bricks, trash cans and other objects, and ignited small fires. In addition, four businesses were vandalized and sustained significant damage and a limousine was torched.

The media seemed to be okay with that day of rioting.

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On a recent drive to Los Angeles, I grew a little peeved while spying the monstrous concrete platforms being built in and around Fresno as the state continues with this boondoggle high-speed rail project, which still needs a whopping $60 billion. Peeved because sections of Highway 99 are still two lanes in one direction, where traffic backs up.

The priorities of Democrat governors have been mindboggling. There are some legislators with common sense, though, like Republican Assemblyman Devon Mathis who said: “It’s costing more than we were promised and would tear up perfectly good farmland in our district.” Like me, he thinks the state should be fixing aging bridges, crumbling roads and expanding lanes. But that’s part of the Democrats’ radical climate change agenda: forcing the public to use trains and buses by making drivers so frustrated at the state’s unwillingness to fix or expand infrastructure.

Last year the estimated cost to complete California’s high-speed rail line rose another $1.3 billion, to $80.3 billion. Only about a quarter of the track has been laid and the rail authority has not obtained all of the right of way to lay the tracks. Contractor Tutor Perini is livid at the state’s incompetence.

It’s too bad that lawmakers stick to this project which few will use, when they could be taking those billions of dollars are expanding our freeways and fixing our roads.

Meanwhile the new president pledges to expand high-speed rail throughout the nation. I’m left shaking my head.

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I find it almost hilarious that Democrats spent four years trying to remove Trump from office by every means imaginable, yet when Californians have good reason to remove Gov. Newsom, the leftist pundits resort to calling it a “right-wing coup.”

Never mind all the vast reasons I’ve cited in recent columns about why Newsom is a cancer on the state, the Democrats are scared now and trying to link this to their favorite hive of villainy: white nationalists. Never mind that this recall effort happened long before the Jan. 6 breach of the capitol, state Democratic chairman Rusty Hicks said the recall effort should be called “the California coup” and suggested that it is being led by “right-wing conspiracy theorists, white nationalists, anti-vaxxers and groups who encourage violence on our democratic institutions.”

That is a bald-faced lie.

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Couper Condit said something interesting at the Jan. 11 Ceres City Council meeting when pushing for an extreme Conflict of Interest code change: “This is a problem in government … local government, state government, federal government, where this is a revolving door. People get into politics, they see opportunity, they leave office after they’ve made their relationships and they go make a lot of money. I don’t feel like that’s right.”

Let that sink in. Does any family come to mind?

It was an interesting comment given that Couper’s political campaign financially benefitted from the political alliances outside of Ceres either he formed working with state Assemblyman Heath Flora, or his dad’s political connections or even that of his grandfather, former Rep. Gary Condit. We even noted how Steve Peace, a former legislator who was part of the Gang of Five with gramps back in the 1980s gave Couper a $100 donation; and Mike Lynch, Gary Condit’s former chief of staff, donated $500.

Couper Condit raised over $10,000, including $1,500 from a labor union, for a council seat to generate 1,229 votes. Part of that included sending out a slick mailer attack piece on incumbent Mike Kline, who didn’t spend any money and earned 757 votes.

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When do the Democrats drop the narrative that there is systemic racism in the country? Millions of us are scratching our heads when politicians like Biden say it exists, as he mentioned again in his inaugural speech. But then again I don’t believe the planet is screaming out like he does. He’s a Catholic so he knows the planet is not an entity like a person – it’s a creation of God, not something to be worshiped but something to be cared for certainly.

Biden also made a point to bring up white supremacy, because in his mind all Republicans are racist. But the new president failed to call out the violence caused by radical left groups, such as BLM, Antifa and the anti-white racist group, Black Hebrew Israelites.

Most of us do want a more unified nation. If only the president would unite America by calling out extremism on both sides, including extremists in Congress going to ridiculous extremes like “impeaching” someone who is no longer in office. Let’s face it, the only reason you’d want to impeach” a former president who doesn’t hold office is because you’re afraid he’ll run again – and win.

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Pittman High School gave us one of the most controversial athletes in American history. But not all students from there have swallowed the liberal Kool-Aid.

An AP government class recently communicated with Rep. Josh Harder via a video conference and brought up some good issues. Kamaldeep Kaur lost her job due to the government shutdown related to the pandemic and expressed her desire to see businesses opened. Harder suggested we haven’t taken the pandemic seriously and need to before we open things up again.

But again, I’d ask why are we unconstitutionally shutting down certain businesses and not others when the survivability rate of COVID-19 is something like 99.5 percent?

Harder said something just incredulously dumb when he told the class: “It’s hard for the government to prop up businesses...the best way to do it is to make sure that our economy’s getting back on track.”

Did it ever occur to him that government should never have shut down any business and destroy the economy? That’s not a heartless comment; if you’re at risk, stay home. But there’s no reason to close restaurants if you can sit shoulder to shoulder on an airplane. America must function or it will die.

Student Abel Medina, exposed to a steady drip of stories propped up by an anti-police media bias, mentioned how it’s leading to the stigma of police officers as enemies. Harder suggested that distrust between officers and the public is not exclusive to the Valley. I bet like me, dear reader, you don’t distrust police because you aren’t doing anything illegal for which to get in trouble.

Sara Cisneros asked Harder what could be done to reduce wildfires in California, saying “I think a lot of it was due to the forest management that was in place.” Bingo. Harder agreed, noting that his office is putting forward an initiative to better clear vegetation. It was a wringing admission that California’s strict environmental policies put in place by Democrats, are to blame. Of course, Harder had to give his plug for climate change policy when he said fires were also due to “warmer summers” that dries up vegetation. You know, like the summer of 1913 when it was 114 in Ceres.

If anyone googles earth temperature, the algorithms will give you mostly the liberal narrative that the planet is burning up. Blaming every single summer heat wave or extreme weather event on global warming is a stale and discredited tactic in the alarmist playbook. Remember how Al Gore predicted that all Arctic ice would be gone by 2013. But isn’t it up by 50 percent since 2012?

Surely Harder is aware that the planet’s climate runs in cycles with warming and cooling trends; and that the temperature of the earth has only warmed a half a degree in like a century.

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