I laughed at a letter to the editor of the Bee written by a Harold Groth. He started out asking, “What is with these people who refuse to wear a protective mask?”
He might as well be directing that to me because for the past nine weeks I have not donned a mask.
Harry wants to segregate us. You know, give us a red letter to wear on our chests. He likens this to the smoking law and second-hand smoke.
Hey, Harold, a lot of us are looking at the statistics and thinking we’ve a better chance of being killed in a car crash than getting COVID-19 yet we continue to drive each and every day. Should we cower in fear and stay out of our cars?
I find masks are uncomfortable and make my face hot. I know that because I put on one to go into Walmart, thinking I had to – but didn’t – but left it on anyway because I was embarrassed to be buying my mother a product that a 58-year-old man shouldn’t be buying and the mask would disguise my identity. True. It was the last time I wore a mask.
I’m not walking into the grocery store sneezing and coughing so I doubt if COVID-19 would float on my breath and infect the 99-year-old in front of me who does have a mask on and shouldn’t be out if they’re so scared of this virus. Besides if you have COVID-19, every can of tuna, door knob, bag of potato chips and refrigerator door handle you touch at a store may have your cooties on it so tell me again the value of a face mask?
When you look at the statistics, COVID-19 is overblown and HAS led to my freedoms being usurped. I get that Mr. Groth thinks the Constitution has the same worth as the toilet paper you wipe your butt on and flush but it’s not.
I’d bet dollars to donuts that Mr. Groth is no conservative.
I actually like his idea of separating those in fear from those who aren’t. I bet at the end of it, the immune systems of mask wearers will be compromised greatly.
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The American Civil Liberties Union – more aptly the American Communist Liberation Union – is at it again. In their latest press release sent out last week, the ACLU condemns district attorneys in Stanislaus and Tulare counties for refusing to “depopulate jails.” In other words, they’re ticked off that criminals aren’t being released onto the streets where they will surely fail to stay on the straight and narrow.
If you’ll remember state officials gave an order for district attorneys to dispense $0 bail on some felonies so that defendants already jailed can walk out the door. According to the ACLU, busting people and putting them in jail “has the greatest impact on low-income black and brown people who cannot afford jail. Well, well, well, isn’t that shame a person of any color can’t afford bail after being arrested for a crime? And why didn’t the ACLU mention low-income white people incarcerated who are affected by $0 bail? Racist against white folks much?
According to the ACLU it’s a disgrace that Birgit Fladager doesn’t want to hand a “GET OUT OF JAIL FREE” card to those committing burglaries, petty and grand thefts. I say cut the crap, ACLU. Maybe if people weren’t stealing from people and stayed at home like the rest of us are forced to then maybe they wouldn’t be concerned with social distancing inside of the county jail. I say consequences have actions.
Where do these ACLU types come from anyway?
And why didn’t ACLU lawyers immediately board a jet to help out Texas hair stylist Shelley Luther who was jailed because all she kept her salon open so she could feed her kids?
Talk about whackos.
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Is it just me or has anyone seen the Josh Harder in the Democrat Party ad that shows him speaking at his computer telling about how he’s fighting for us all and wondered what kind of filter they put on his face? I am into video production so I know there are filters and plug-ins designed to smooth out the flaws but Harder. Not that Harder has bad skin but it’s kind of funny.
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I also had a good chuckle when I read John Crisp’s op-ed in the Bee saying Biden would make a good president. This comes as lots of folks are noticing the 77-year-old speaking incoherently in interviews and stump speeches. At least Crisp acknowledges that Democrats are hypocrites for failing to express the same outrage over Biden as they did Brett Kavanaugh and Donald Trump.
Look, I don’t need to go on a witch hunt against Biden because I know he is a badly flawed candidate who won’t survive Trump in a race. But I’ve seen his creepy advances on women in public settings and know he probably is a creep in personal life. But I wouldn’t trust him to run the country.
The Democrats are in a quandary because the same ones who were suggesting Reagan was senile are now defending Babbling Biden as the right man to assume the presidency.
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Creators Syndicate writer Steve Chapman wrote a piece recently about how he is pessimistic about the future after coronavirus. He then insults our intelligence when he writes: “It wasn’t the stay-at-home orders that started the economic collapse we’re enduring. It was the pandemic itself and the fear it engendered.” Spare me. It was the hype of the news media that created the fear. When the governor of California comes out and suggests that over half of Californians would catch the virus with millions dying, yeah, you create panic.
So where are we in relation to the millions of deaths forecasted back in March? 81,552 as of Monday.
Deaths in California: 2,770 out of 39,927,315 residents, or 0.000006938 percent.
Deaths in New York: 26,874 out of 19,491,339 residents, or 0.00137877 percent.
Your chance of being killed in a car crash: one in 103.
Your chance of being killed by lightning: one in 700,000.
You had been be quaking in your boots, folks. A car or lightning is more likely to kill you than COVID-19!
I have encountered more people out there who think this is shutdown is a bunch of horse dung.
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Apparently Harris County in Texas spent $17 million on a temporary 250-bed hospital and is now closing it after not seeing a single patient.
Oh, and Uncle Sam is paying for 75 percent of it while that county (which includes Houston) is on the hook for $4.25 million.
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I’m not a conspiracy theorist unless the evidence points to one. We all know Google has a liberal bent, supporting rabid environmental causes and Democrats. Google owns YouTube. YouTube removes all videos it doesn’t like. The latest one was a 26-minute video of Dr. Judy Mikovits who contends the isolate-everyone policy is a big mistake and claims officials have a financial incentive to implement mass vaccinations. Why is YouTube and Vimeo trying to silence those bucking the coronavirus shutdown narrative?
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What is wrong with Michael Moore? He called the coronavirus pandemic a “gentle warning” from the planet before it takes its “revenge” on humanity over climate change.
So apparently Earth is a living being, like a person, who exacts revenge for cars belching exhaust into the atmosphere? A celestial body which fights back with viruses, a biological function?
You see, Moore and his ilk don’t believe in God nor his powers but they sure exalt Mother Earth and her powers of wrath. They are the people spoken about in Romans 1, foolish people with dark thoughts who “changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator.”
That’s what’s wrong with Michael Moore.
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I tell you, folks. I sometimes look at the values of our society and I just shake my head in utter disbelief. And it has changed since I was a child.
Arizona inmate Alfonso Salazar, 56, died in a hospital of COVID-19. The virus did what the system wouldn’t do – put him to death. I hope he got right with his Maker because he was sentenced to death in 1988 for first-degree murder.
His attorney, Dale Baich, accused the prison for being too “slow to act” in response to his illness. I would agree with part of it. They were too slow in executing him back in 1988.
Bleeding heart liberals want you to feel sorry for our poor Alfonso while forgetting that he and a friend broke into a house on July 25, 1986 to commit burglary and murdered a 5-foot-tall, 89-pound, 83-year-old grandmother inside. Can you imagine a more despicable cold-hearted human being? In case you’re wondering, Alfonso participated in her beating and strangulation by phone cord.
The truth is Salazar shouldn’t have lived to see 1989, let alone be around for COVID-19 to do the job.
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This is another head shaker. Aaron Commey is a Libertarian running for mayor of New York. He has a slight PR problem. He tried to hijack a plane with a gun in 2000. Commey was found not guilty of hijacking by reason of insanity and diagnosed with delusional disorder. He finally got out of federal prison in 2015.
That’s one I’d stay away from. But given the track record of how New Yorkers – electing AOC types – I’d say he has a good a chance as any.
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Parents, do you know what your kids are up to after dark? They should be at home but apparently some are out causing problems.
At 11:30 p.m. on May 1, Holly Motley of Ceres heard a loud thud and saw a rock rolling off her roof. She looked but nobody was around.
Others on social media chimed in. A Jim Andrews reported kids were throwing rocks at his dogs and at his son’s car near the Pine Street overpass. He went to speak to the parents who were nowhere around.
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I have a pretty fertile imagination but this is not far-flung.
We now listen in on a secret conference call to the Democratic National Committee with Democrat governors:
“Okay folks, listen up. We gotta milk the coronavirus for all its worth, hear us? Don’t let this crisis go to waste! We gotta take Trump out this year! Got to, got to, got to! We couldn’t do it with Stormy. The Russia probe was a dismal failure. And accusations that he dragged his feet on COVID-19 hasn’t put a dent in his base support. They say Clinton was made of Teflon but this Trump is iron clad. A rip roaring economy would have sealed Joe Biden’s fate but we have a chance to kill this good economy and take down Trump too. You blue state governors need to drag your feet as long as you can while we keep the walking gaffe machine’s mouth taped shut. We gotta stretch this shutdown until October. Gov. Brown of Oregon? You there? Say doll, you were great in announcing the lockdown would go until July 1. Newsom, listen to me man, appear like you’re re-opening the state when you really aren’t. Say you’ll let people go to dog groomers. Yeah, yeah, that’s it. And open up the drive-in movie theaters. Hey, Cuomo, do you even have any in your state? And don’t any of you dare open up your state parks until fall.
Stress how bad this thing is affecting state finances are going. Talk about raising taxes. Cuomo, fantastic that you announced you wanna tax healthcare workers who came in from out of state. We gotta go belly up so the feds bail us out so we can take care of our labor union folks and unfunded pensions. To hell what Mitch McConnell said about no bailouts and bankruptcies. They won’t us hang out to dry.
Gov. Northam are you here? Ralph? Hello, Ralph? Oh there you are. Say, that was brilliant how you signed that bill forcing churches to allow transgendered men to go into the women’s bathroom. Perfect timing with all this focus on COVID. Brilliant. It’ll play well to our base. Maybe they’ll forget about that blackface thing you did. Ralph, for God’s sake, stay away from the greasepaint.
Oh and we got our people putting the fear of Jesus that the red states are gonna see people dying like ants in a crop dusting of Raid the minute they free up their states. Even though Georgia opened up 15 days ago and they just had their lowest hospitalization count, keep the lie going. Keep everybody in fear. We got our people in CNN and MSNBC driving that one into American living rooms. Sure, sure. We know that the blue states have the biggest death count but keep fooling the people. Oh and send out a memo to NBC that their reporters gotta keep wearing their masks on camera even if they’re out on the prairie with nobody around. The optics! The optics!
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Speaking of the Democrats, let’s talk about a vicious presser that was sent out by our good friend at the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee Andy Orellana, the distorter of truth, the Democrat Spin Doctor. He’s already in attack mode. He’s attacking Ted Howze, the man who wants Josh Harder’s seat. Of course, Andy is paid to attack Republicans across the country, this time accusing Howze of sharing “racist, conspiratorial Tweets.”
Orellana seized on a Politico article reporting on the “treasure trove of racist, bigoted and conspiratorial social media posts and tweets from failing GOP candidate Ted Howze.” Failing is Orellana’s word.
It is reported that Howze described the Islamic prophet Muhammad as a rapist and a pedophile, mocked a survivor of the Parkland high school shooting, and accused a sitting Member of Congress of “hitting the crack pipe too hard,” along with various other racist and demeaning posts mocking individuals and communities of color. Politico made hay out of some tweets that came out from Howze’s twitter account back in 2018 but were promptly removed. Some were in poor taste, others about Muslim extremists killing people were not. One suggested Maxine Waters – who inexplicably began her “Impeach 45” rant before he even took office – smoking a crack pipe. Another dissed David Hogg, the Parkland High School student who became the Left’s poster child for yet more gun control. Some of it was just downright funny, but you know, the Left has no humor and is offended at everything.
Orellana concludes (surprise, surprise) that “it’s abundantly clear Howze is a bigot who has no business representing a diverse district like CA-10 in Congress.” Of course, Orellana is in the business of defending every Democrat running in any congressional race.
Howze told Politco: “Like many folks in my middle-age group, I learned the very hard lesson to never allow anyone access to social media accounts or passwords. I made the mistake of allowing others access to these accounts unknowingly — and I am angered, horrified and extremely offended that these ugly ideas were shared or posted by those individuals several years ago.”
Do I think Howze made those posts? No. Why would anyone running for Congress do that? And they were removed within hours but a little too late from the “gotcha squad” waiting for any wrong move. Such is the politics of personal destruction of Media Matters. So, Mr. Orellana, Howze was not “hiding evidence” as you put it; he removed posts he didn’t like.
Orellana then just had to go on and make issue over Howze’s residency.
When Democrats like T.J. Cox and Michael Eggman are proven to be carpetbaggers it’s never an issue with Democrats. Cox, if you remember, ran for the 10th C.D., but when he saw he was losing decided to go south to a district he could win.
But let’s go ahead and set the record straight about Howze’s residency. After vet school, Howze lived behind Blaker Kinser Jr. High in Ceres for five years. In 1999 he moved to Turlock.
He and his wife lived in the same Turlock house for about 15 years. She passed away from cancer. He remarried wife Laura. Howze’s son wanted to go to school where Laura teaches at St. Mary’s High School in Stockton. Ted sold his Turlock house and Laura sold hers and they moved to Stockton. They bought one big house together. As soon as Howze’s youngest son graduated and left home. Ted rehabilitated a house he owns in Turlock and began spending Sunday through Thursday nights in Turlock because a lot of his vet work is south of Merced.
Candidate Bob Elliott knew the truth because he had been to Ted’s Turlock house. But when things grew desperate for the failing candidacy, Elliott planted the story to the Bee.
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A $12 billion state budget surplus turns into a $54 billion budget deficit, thanks to the Great Government Mandated Economic Shutdown of 2020. This is what happens when government screws with a great economy. So what now Gov. Newsom? Maybe turn the economy around before you go running to Uncle Sam or California taxpayers with your hand out? Here’s an idea: End your unconstitutional lockdown because you can’t raise taxes on people who are out of work. An 18 percent unemployment rate – which is higher than the 12.3 percent we saw during the Great Recession.
This column is the opinion of Jeff Benziger, and does not necessarily represent the opinion of The Ceres Courier or Morris Newspaper Corp. of CA. How do you feel about this? Let Jeff know at jeffb@cerescourier.com
