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GregStevens,Publisher Chip Thompson, Editor EDITORIALBOARD How to have your say: Letters must be signed and provide the writer's home street address and home phone number. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and no more than two double-spaced pages or 500words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section will be published. Email: editor@ redbluffdailynews.com Fax: 530-527-9251 Mail to: P.O. Box 220, 545 Diamond Ave., Red Bluff, CA 96080 Facebook: Leave comments at FACEBOOK.COM/ RBDAILYNEWS Twitter: Follow and send tweets to @REDBLUFFNEWS In a column I wrote a couple months back, I listed five reasons why Donald Trump could actually win this election, to our everlasting national shame. Here's reason number six: A Democratic party torn asunder. Tuesdaynight,afterwin- ning Oregon and losing Ken- tucky, Bernie Sanders told his tragically credulous acolytes: "We have a possibility of going to Philadelphia with a major- ity of pledged delegates." The truth, to which he remains al- lergic, is that under the Dem- ocratic rules of proportional delegate allocation, he would have to beat Hillary Clinton by whopping landslides, 35-point margins or more, in each and every remaining primary. That is not going to happen. In re- ality, he has been been burnt toast for so many weeks that his crust has the consistency of ash. And yet — destructively so — he still wants his "revolu- tionaries" to believe. And be- cause they believe, they con- tinue to feed on the delusion that somehow Bernie is being "robbed" by a system that is "rigged," despite the fact that Hillary has won three mil- lion more votes than Bernie nationwide. But unless or un- til Bernie grows up and talks to them as adults, they'll take their delusions to Philadelphia and put their tantrums on na- tional display. And every day that happens is a great day for Trump. What happened this past weekend at the Nevada Dem- ocratic convention gave us a taste of those sour grapes. The gist is that even though Hill- ary won the February caucus, 53 to 47 percent, Bernie's fol- lowers went ballistic because they felt he didn't win enough delegates. (Like, a majority.) They threw chairs, screamed obscenities at Clinton surro- gates, and, in numerous texts and cell phone messages, threatened the life of the state party chairwoman. "Despite their social me- dia frothing and self-righteous screeds, the facts reveal that the Sanders folks disregarded rules, then when shown the truth, attacked organizers and party officials as tools of a conspiracy to defraud the sen- ator of what was never right- fully his in the first place," said Jon Ralston, the smartest political reporter in Nevada. "Instead of acknowledging that they were out-organized [by the Clinton campaign], the Sanders folks have decided to cry conflagration in a crowded building, without regard to what they burn down in the process." And this was a fight over the allegiances of only four delegates; it didn't matter whether Bernie won them, be- cause that's a drop in his def- icit bucket. Even political commentator Charles Pierce — who's no fan of Hillary — is repulsed by the behavior of the "revolutionaries." He writes that "the Sanders peo- ple should know better than to conclude what has been a bril- liant and important campaign by turning it into an extended temper tantrum. I voted for Bernie Sanders .... But if any- body thinks that, somehow, he is having the nomination 'sto- len' from him, they are idiots." And the idiocy is fed from the top. Bernie seems deter- mined to play it ugly all the way to the convention, and to threaten further displays of wrath on the convention floor. Some of us are old enough to remember the last time there was such a spectacle. I happen to remember it well, because it was my first conven- tion as a journalist. The year was 1980, Ted Kennedy took his losing liberal insurgency all the way to the floor, exac- erbating the breach with the forces committed to incum- bent President Jimmy Carter. The resulting Democratic dis- unity helped fuel the autumn victory of Ronald Reagan, a guy who Democrats once de- rided as a joke. Is that really the way Ber- nie wants to play it? Is he bent on becoming the next Ralph Nader? Ed Kilgore, a longtime Dem- ocratic operative and commen- tator, wisely says that "the best step Sanders' supporters could take to promote their long- term interests in the Demo- cratic Party would be to get a grip before they wind up help- ing Donald Trump win the presidency. And Bernie Sand- ers himself has a responsibil- ity to talk his devoted follow- ers off the ledge." But Bernie seems averse to taking responsibility. Jon Ralston warns: "If what hap- pens in Vegas happens in Phil- adelphia, the chances of a uni- fied Democratic party in the general election are virtually nonexistent and the odds of a President Trump suddenly don't look so long." That's what I'm saying. Rea- son number six. DickPolmanisthenational political columnist at NewsWorks/WHYY in Philadelphia (newsworks. org/polman) and a "Writer in Residence" at the University of Pennsylvania. Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com. Dick Polman Trump loves the taste of Bernie's sour grapes Cartoonist's take I see the relaxed drought-re- quired conservation measures being responded to in varying degrees, depend- ing on the munic- ipality, geographic location and lo- cal water supplies. Readers may recall when I wrote in this column that there was no ratio- nal reason for Red Bluff residents, and Red Bluff of- ficials, to implement—or even consider—the mandates from the water wizards in our Emerald City to the south. I noted at the time Assem- blyman Gallagher's report of a water district to the south that prevailed upon the water over- lords; they contended that they used no water from the sources of the State Water Project and should therefore be exempt from conservation targets. The exact same case could have been made that Red Bluff had no obliga- tion to restrict water usage be- yond the need to conserve due to aquifer levels of our wells. Will common sense and reality-based courage prevail among our lead- ers? Can Oak Hill Cemetery visi- tors once again see green grass? Regarding California's water woes, I reviewed the capacity of the 2 most-often mentioned res- ervoirs: Sites (Glenn County) and Temperance Flat (on the San Joa- quin watershed). From Wikipe- dia, Sites will hold 1.8+ million acre-feet while Temperance Flat will hold 1.25 million acre-feet. Usable releases will be obviously less but the 3+ million acre-feet is more than the entirety of resi- dential conservation in the whole state for a year. I see the foot- dragging over building the dams as just another example of envi- ronmental wacko-driven efforts to deprive Californians of the wa- ter, highways and energy a grow- ing state's population needs and requires. Last Tuesday's Daily News ran an Associated Press report, "Ma- jor ruling in birth control dispute avoided." The news was carried by major papers, broadcast and cable sources; an odd pattern seemed to repeat throughout. The primary litigant, the Little Sisters of the Poor, found scant mention—buried in the AP arti- cle in paragraph 12 in a 17 para- graph story—similar to the treat- ment of that group's name in the Washington Post, New York Times and elsewhere. It's very likely, as I see it, that avoiding naming the Little Sis- ters of the Poor simply helped to obfuscate the truthful narrative that Emperor Barack Obama's Big Government was threatening the Little Sisters charitable or- ganization's existence. Why? Be- cause they had the temerity to insist on their personal, religious and constitutional freedom to choose to have no involvement in the provision of abortion-induc- ing drugs to employees via their health care. "Birth control" is just a euphe- mistic umbrella for every method of ending pregnancies, even some forms of abortion. The govern- ment lawyers' contention was that all the Little Sisters had to do was sign off on an acknowl- edgement that those methods and products would be provided, if only under separate arrange- ments. The Little Sisters insisted that it would be nothing less than a cardinal sin to have any- thing to do with ending the life of a human pregnancy. The gov- ernment lawyers insisted that they "bend the knee" and vio- late their conscience—but those same lawyers admitted that there were alternative means to accomplish the same end that required no complicity by the Sisters. Totalitarianism is revealed when such strong-arm tactics prevail over the supreme arbiter of a person's sovereign values— their own soul's beliefs. The four liberal justices sympathetic to such despotic mandates sent the dispute back to the lower court and "avoided" revealing their willingness to crush the Little Sisters of the Poor with $70 mil- lion annual fines. As we approach the somber task of putting our mark on a ballot to choose our leaders and representatives, I find wisdom in "James Madison's Ultimate Test," by Steven Hayward. He provided a quote from Harry Jaffa of Hill- sdale College from 1996 which bears on our quandary: "[Madison] believed that the statesmanship of the wise and the good that went into the ar- chitecture of the Constitution would compensate for the lack of wisdom and virtue in those who would thereafter dwell within its precincts. But neither Madison nor anyone else ever imagined that it would compensate en- tirely, or over too great periods of time, or in the presence of great crises, for the absence of wisdom and virtue. Above all, it would not compensate for too great ig- norance of the Constitution itself, or of the reasons why the Con- stitution—if not the politicians and parties—deserved to be re- spected and revered." Hayward: "The Constitution's design is intended to be able to survive even the assaults of an anti-constitutional president such as Obama. But the survival of constitutional government de- pends more upon the public's un- derstanding of and attachment to the principles of the Constitu- tion. "It is a fallacy common to both left and right to look for the 'leader' who can, through the presidency alone, repair the na- tion's ills. This trend, long in the making, represents the erosion of constitutional literacy on the part of the people at large. "On the other hand, without the occasional president who has a serious understanding of and commitment to constitu- tionalism, the succession of con- stitutional assaults by Obama and (perhaps) Hillary Clinton will erode the last residual re- straints of our system. This di- lemma is what makes the cur- rent election scene so perilous." It appears to this writer that, in a general sense, the Demo- crat/left marches to the drum- beat of a militant upheaval and overturning of America's Consti- tutional system. Will the Republi- can/right muster the will and in- sight to hold those we elect to ad- here to that heritage? Don Polson has called Red Bluff home since 1988. He can be reached by e-mail at donplsn@ yahoo.com. The way I see it Water, freedom and elections Instead of acknowledging that they were out-organized [by the Clinton campaign], the Sanders folks have decided to cry conflagration in a crowded building, without regard to what they burn down in the process. Don Polson StateandNational Assemblyman James Galla- gher, 2060 Talbert Drive, Ste. 110, Chico 95928, 530 895-4217, http:// ad03.asmrc.org/ Senator Jim Nielsen, 2634 For- est Ave., Ste. 110, Chico 95928, 530 879-7424, senator.nielsen@senate. ca.gov Governor Jerry Brown, State Capital Building, Sacramento 95814, 916 445-2841, fax 916 558-3160, governor@governor. ca.gov U.S. Representative Doug La- Malfa, 507 Cannon House Office Building, Washington D.C. 20515, 202 225-3076 U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, One Post St., Ste. 2450, San Fran- cisco 94104, 415 393-0707, fax 415 393-0710 U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, 1700 Montgomery St., San Fran- cisco 94111, 510 286-8537, fax 202 224-0454 Local Tehama County Supervisors, 527-4655 District 1, Steve Chamblin, Ext. 3015 District 2, Candy Carlson, Ext. 3014 District 3, Dennis Garton, Ext. 3017 District 4, Bob Williams, Ext. 3018 District 5, Burt Bundy, Ext. 3016 Red Bluff City Manager, Rich- ard Crabtree, 527-2605, Ext. 3061 Corning City Manager, Kristina Miller, 824-7033 YOUR OFFICIALS The exact same case could have been made that Red Bluff had no obligation to restrict water usage beyond the need to conserve due to aquifer levels of our wells. Will common sense and reality- based courage prevail among our leaders? Can Oak Hill Cemetery visitors once again see green grass? OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Tuesday, May 24, 2016 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6