Kern County Republican Party

🚨Today the scales of justice tipped in favor of the victims of child s*x trafficking. SB 1414 has passed out of the Assembly Appropriations Committee and is moving to the Assembly for a full floor vote. Thankfully, once signed, predators who purchase any child ages 15 and below for s*x would be charged with a felony. The original version of my bill included protections for children of all ages. However, Senator Wahab, the Chair of the Senate Public Safety Committee forced amendments on the bill which left 16 and 17-year-old children out of these additional felony protections, allowing a misdemeanor to be charged for this heinous crime. I will not stop fighting until all of California’s children are equally protected, but I am thankful we are stepping in the right direction. Love Never Fails 3Strands Global Exodus Cry National Center for Missing & Exploited Children Breaking The Chains ZOE International Childhelp Garden Pathways Global Hope 365 emPOWERment DP Community Action Partnership of Kern Visit Connect 2 Change Crime Victims United Jenna McKaye Foundation Santa Barbara County District Attorney

Today I presented SB 1043, Accountability in Children's Treatment in the Assembly Appropriations Committee. SB 1043 would create more transparency surrounding the use of restraints and seclusion rooms in Short-Term Residential Therapeutic Programs, also known as S.T.R.T.Ps.
We are asking to publish data to the public to ensure there is the highest level of transparency when it comes to caring for our most vulnerable children.
Survivor has been an incredible advocate to work alongside as we fight for California children.

Trump signs have arrived!!!
Come by the Kern GOP headquarters to get your!
Signs are available at cost of $5 each with the stake.
Due to high demand only three (3) signs per household

While reading the recent opinion piece by Robert Kretzmer in The Californian, I began to question my sanity. Is Mr. Kretzmer seeing the same protests that the rest of the world sees? Or is he merely gaslighting to excuse the inexcusable?

His article attempts to launder the actual nature and motivation of the violent protests we’ve seen on college campuses around the country by imputing noble intentions to the perpetrators. In doing so he makes a case that they themselves do not make.

He claims that the protesters merely want a cease-fire and that they do not actually support Hamas. Are we to believe his assertions or should we believe the signs carried by the people he defends — signs that say “death to Israel,” “death to Jews,” and “death to America”? No one who advocates death to Jews has a belief system compatible with American values, and anyone who proclaims “death to America” is a self-declared enemy of our country. We certainly should not condone or make excuses for these sentiments, and neither should we pay off student loans for the spoiled and entitled reprobates who express them.

Kretzmer attempts to wrap these antisemitic protesters in the mantle of the Civil Rights Movement by invoking John Lewis and the concept of nonviolent civil disobedience. This comparison is an insult to the American Civil Rights Movement and the principles upon which it was based.

The fact is that Hamas has acted on a belief system that pervades many cultures in the Middle East by murdering Jews in an effort to destroy the Israeli state. This belief system was the fuel for the terrorist acts of Oct. 7 and is the foundation of the wailing protests against Israel’s entirely understandable response. If Hamas wants a cease-fire, they can come out from behind the women and children they’re using as human shields, release all of the hostages they’ve r***d and tortured for the past several months, and surrender unconditionally to the Israelis.

But Hamas won’t do this. Hamas is relying on people in the West, led by people who share the views of these fools protesting on our campuses and before our city councils, to pressure Israel into allowing them to survive. Survival for Hamas means survival of terrorists — survival to commit atrocities again.

The First Amendment to our Constitution protects the right of the people to “peaceably assemble” to “petition the government for a redress of grievances.” This right does not extend to vandalism, theft, trespassing, assaulting police officers, or any of the other crimes we’ve seen on these campuses in the name of protest.

I’m not an Ivy League postgraduate student researching a doctoral thesis on 21st-century Marxist feminism and its effects on climate, so maybe my intellect isn’t comparable to these protesters. But seeing the evil in crime, even crime committed by earnest idiots, is easy. Seeing the evil of Hamas is easy. Seeing through terrorists’ flimsy efforts to paint themselves as victims is also easy, perhaps easiest of all. - Clayton Campbell, Kern GOP

https://www.bakersfield.com/opinion/community-voices/community-voices-see-the-evil-in-crime-and-hamas/article_00ea05ac-1229-11ef-8190-0b359471265a.html

Letter to the editor: Homeless shelters, not bike lanes I could be wrong, but I'm thinking $1.275 million for a bike lane in Shafter is a big waste of taxpayer money.

"An article in The Californian on climate stated that California’s cement plants have some of the planet’s most polluting cement plants. A two-pronged pollution solution and money saver is obvious. Shut down the high-speed rail project. It requires a large cement supply. If it were carried out to completion, Los Angeles to San Francisco, it is obvious the taxpayers are going to be paying for completing this major cost overrun project.

California can’t seem to keep from declaring a surplus when it wants to spend money then declare a budget deficit later. A tax increase is always a solution. Quit wasting our money."

— Dick Sloan, Bakersfield

Letter to the editor: Shut down high-speed rail An article in The Californian on climate stated that California’s cement plants have some of the planet’s most polluting cement plants. A two-pronged pollution solution and money saver is obvious.

"This state is a total disaster. We are spending so much money on hotels being converted to apartments for the homeless. They are milking the system with almost everything free for them. We just had a job fair. I guarantee not one of the homeless that are given a place to live even went to the job fair. But we will continue to allow all these homeless people to just sit all day and not better themselves.

I drive around Bakersfield. And I'm ashamed how dirty it is, with weeds growing everywhere and trash scattered everywhere. Why not go by and pick up these homeless people at the hotels that we pay for and make them clean our streets and do some weeding? It would be a payback for them living in the hotels.

I lived in Ontario, Canada, and I will tell you this much: You don't see trash and overgrown weeds. Freeways are well-maintained. Our Highway 99 is a dump. But this Democratic administration is a complete joke.

— Dave Stiner, Bakersfield

Letter to the editor: Homeless need to go to work This state is a total disaster. We are spending so much money on hotels being converted to apartments for the homeless. They are milking the system with almost everything free

Drop off your ballots at headquarters;
5329 Office Center Court Suite #120

The Kern County Republican Party encourages you to vote early! Bring yours and any other completed, signed, and sealed ballots to the Headquarters.

Defending Kern's Oil & Gas jobs

"Reader: The headline in the Jan. 28 edition refers to “Activists target Hurtado for being among majority of state Democrats taking oil money.” I am not a Democrat and am not a Hurtado supporter. But I am trying to figure out why this article is front-page headline newsworthy.

My question is: Why do we keep giving headlines to political activists whose interests are most likely not aligned with most Californians? Their intent is to promote causes and legislation to control you, what you do, where you can drive, what you can eat, what kind of car you can drive, etc., and socially reengineer our country. Are these the people you really want to follow?

Go out and look at the organizations funding the activist group mentioned in the article. It would appear most are political action committees and labor unions. From my perspective, these special interests aren’t the type of organizations that are looking out for the taxpaying public.

What is wrong with supporting our oil industry? The oil and gas industry provides jobs and pays significant taxes that support our government and taxpayers and has contributed something tangible and mightily to our economy for decades. We can all have different opinions, but we have to show some common sense and stop killing the golden goose (our contributing business and workers paying their taxes) and pandering to these progressive political action committees that are making no contributions for the good of the cause."

— Geoffrey B. King, Wasco

Letter to the editor: Why endorse candidates who don't reflect our values? It always amazes me that the one major newspaper in Kern County and one of the few in the Central Valley continues to support and endorse candidates who are so

Community Voices: It is our turn to be united, and affirm the American spirit As Councilmember of Bakersfield's Ward 6, it is truly an honor to be able to represent not only the ninth largest city in California, but also, I believe, the most

Letter to the editor: Age is numbers; actions are mental and physical Mark Salvaggio took a cheap shot at President Trump and praised President Joe Biden in the Nov. 26 newspaper. Biden rides a bike and falls off. President Trump eats fast

Mr. McCarthy was removed as speaker of the House because he did what he felt was right to keep the federal government operating. I applaud him for doing that, knowing it could well cost him his position as speaker by angering some of his fellow Republicans.

We shouldn’t overlook, however, that the Democratic Party provided all but eight of the votes that resulted in the speaker’s removal. For the House Democrats, this was a purely political decision, not done with the best interests of the country in mind. That makes them equally responsible for the chaos that has resulted. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and his fellow Democrats would certainly not earn a place in President John F. Kennedy’s book “Profiles in Courage.”

Saul Brenner

Great Neck, N.Y.

As printed in the Wall St Journal – Oct 6 2023

“McCarthy gave his all for us!
Now will GOP dissidents, Dems tear it down?"—by Stu Witt of Ridgecrest


This is my Publisher’s Pen and as some say I buy ink by the barrel….so I get to tell my story about my friend Kevin McCarthy.

You see I knew Kevin long before he was involved in politics. I first met him at Kevin O’s Deli. It was there he learned the rough roads of running a business,

But it laid the foundation for his belief that if you work hard and keep after it, good things can happen.

Even politics didn’t come easy for Kevin. He was rejected when he applied for an internship. But he marched on. Eventually finding his was to the California assembly where he became minority leader.

There he cut his teeth on “political compromise” and securing success for his district and California as a whole. It was there I received some near midnight calls from Kevin and we talked state politics.

Fast forward….

A week ago he was Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Congressman Matt Gaetz was threatening McCarthy at every turn with a motion to vacate the Speakership.

Congress was at a turning point. Shut down the government and create chaos for America or do the right thing and compromise for the good of all.

In essence govern. That’s what Speaker McCarthy did….he chose to govern in defiance of Gaetz.

With that decision to reach across the aisle and adopt a spending bill to keep the government open Speaker McCarthy did the right thing, but sealed his fate.

McCarthy is an astute politician. He is an exceptional vote counter. In my heart I know he realized his actions’ pitfall long before the Tuesday vote to oust him from the Speakership post.

He knew what the end result would be as he crafted the “CR” spending plan with Democrats. Yet he forged forward on behalf of the American people.

If you missed his press conference after the vote, you missed the real Kevin McCarthy in full display. Answered every question with dignity. It was a class act. He even gave a bit of a history lesson, parts of which I heard during an event in Bakersfield.

The “CR” expires during the kickoff of the holiday season next month. Supposed to be a happy time. But I’ve got a hunch the GOP far right will hunker down and bring forth extreme budget cuts that will be DOA at the Senate.

Hello Government shutdown. Matt Gaetz and his cronies will be known as the Scrooges of Congress. They have no such word as “compromise” in their dictionary.

So…..today he is Congressman McCarthy,our representative in Congress. I am confident he will work harder than ever for his district.

Letter to the editor: Homeless need to give back I think everyone will agree to what I am about to say.

Letter to the editor: Parole for murderer is an insult Like Kern County District Attorney Cynthia Zimmer, I too am outraged at the parole of Jose Hernandez. This murderer, with seven previous DUI convictions, is a less than human killer.

Letter to the editor: Student loan repayment — it's a loan! Help me with this. The news media is once again reporting that those who signed up and received student loans will once again begin paying the amount of their loans

Last 2 days to come by the Kern GOP fair booth -- meet with Kevin ( well, sort of!) and vote your pistachios for your top candidate or top 3 ..

Kern GOP fair booth – hottest spot in town –Cast your vote ( pistachio) for president ..salute Speaker McCarthy! Pick up some ‘swag’, And register first-time voters AND many switch parties from Dem to GOP. We’re here through Sunday in Bldg 3.

Heading to the fair? Stop by building 3 and cast your "vote" for your favorite candidate(s) and while you're there get your photo with Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy!

Newt Gingrich - Memo for House Republicans: It’s More than Biden Family Corruption House Republicans must dedicate themselves to digging out the truth and sharing it with the American people wherever it leads and to whatever elements of government and power it threatens.

Calif GOP National Committeeman Shawn Steel came to Kern County to share his presentation on the importance and number of school board elections and added a lot of fun and flair to the discussion. Thank you, Shawn!

Community Voices: The second American Revolution In 1787, 55 men gathered in Philadelphia with the goal to rewrite the failed Articles of Confederation. They quickly decided to scrap the Articles and write a new set of

Senator Grove Applauds Funding for Critical Highway 58 Upgrades Jul 20 2023 Time to read less than 1 minute Read so far email facebook twitter reddit Senator Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield) today applauded the California Transportation Commission and Caltrans Director Tony Tavares for supporting improvements to Highway 58 between Tehachapi and Bakersfield. The Sen...

SAVE THE DATE! Wednesday, August 23rd
The Kern County Republican Party will be holding a GOP Debate Watch Party!
At The Stockyard "Next door to KC's Steakhouse"

** SAVE THE DATE **
Mark your calendars for the Kern County Young Farmers and Ranchers
FARMER’S MARKET !!
Kern County Young Farmers and Ranchers annual Farmer’s Market Fundraiser will be held on JULY 15TH from 8AM-12PM in the Chuy’s parking lot located at 8660 Rosedale Highway.
We are raising funds for the edible garden at Kern Resource Center.
If you would like to volunteer, donate produce, or learn more about the event, please email us at [email protected]

Letter to the editor: Proud of Republican stance on welfare We are fortunate to have a Republican majority in the House of Representatives because they are reinstituting "work for welfare," or a better description is to stop paying people to