Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/314829
WithPresident Obama's favorabil- ity ratings among Democrats at 80% and among Repub- licans at 10% the latter are clutch- ing at straws to drive their voters to the polls. Since the economy is in much better shape now than when Barack came into office, and the Af- fordable Health Care Act sign- ups have exceeded expecta- tions there is little to complain about other than foreign pol- icy. Even here with the execu- tion of Osama Bin Laden, the dramatic draw down of Amer- icans at war in Afghanistan, and the use of sanctions and negotiation to keep from get- ting physically embroiled in Syria, Ukraine, and Iran there isn't much fodder for parti- san bickering. So alas, un- der the tutelage of Represen- tative Darrel Issa of Califor- nia, the Republican Party is taking a stand on the nearly two years past tragedy at Beh- ghazi, Libya. It was on the evening of September 11, 2012 that, Is- lamic militants attacked the American diplomatic mission killing U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and Sean Smith a U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Of- ficer. Several hours later, in the early morning of the next day, a second assault targeted a nearby CIA annex in a dif- ferent compound about one mile away, killing two CIA contractors, Tyrone S. Woods and Glen Doherty. Ten oth- ers were injured in the at- tacks which were condemned by the governments of Libya, the United States, and many other countries throughout the world. As a result the United States Congress provided in- creased funding for secu- rity worldwide at various diplomatic and military fa- cilities and began investigat- ing the Benghazi attack. In the initial fog of the attack it was reported that the Beng- hazi attack was a spontaneous protest, triggered by an anti- Muslim video, Innocence of Muslims that had been distributed by an American days before. But according to Finding #9 of the Senate Intelligence report there was no smoking gun of a cover-up since "press reports on protests...were simply cop- ied into intelligence products" of the intelligence community and that these "erroneous re- ports" "caused confusion and influenced the public state- ments of policymakers." Although in retrospect ev- eryone now agrees that this tragedy was apparently a well organized and deliberate act of terror no one can say that the outrageous video did not increase the likelihood of such an attack. Furthermore it is very easy to arm chair quar- terback our response to the attack in the light of facts only discovered well after the exi- gent events. Unfortunately the GOP members on the House Se- lect Committee on Benghazi have nothing better to do but make claims about administra- tion wrongdoing in an attempt to increase the fervor among their Obama hating compatri- ots. Of course they all disin- genuously insist the extended investigation isn't political as the November elections loom. Republicans say they need to find out why security was insufficient while failing to take accountability for the fact they severely restricted the funding requested by the Administration, what the president did the night of the attack without any first- hand knowledge of what happened, why the U.S. military didn't intervene without any assets in the area, and if initial explana- tions focusing the cause on a protest over a YouTube video was deliberate to hide non-existent evidence of misconduct. The select committee chair- man Trey Gowdy, a second- term tea partyer and former prosecutor from South Car- olina, says there is evidence of a "cover-up" in an email by White House national se- curity communications aide Ben Rhodes. By reading be- tween the lines in a far from objective viewpoint he claims the email "probably was the straw that broke the camel's back because that memo made it really clear we're going to blame an Internet video and not a broader policy failure in Libya." The White House has said Rhodes was referring to attacks across the Muslim world, not Benghazi specifi- cally. Gowdy also says former CIA Director Michael Morell "sanitized" a series of talk- ing points used by then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice five days after the violence, sub- stituting the term "extremist" for all references to "terror- ist," and "demonstration" for "attack." Republicans say this was part of an effort by Presi- dent Barack Obama's team to play down a major terrorist attack in the final weeks of his re-election campaign. In April, Morell testified that he made no changes to provide political benefit to Obama or then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clin- ton, who is considering run- ning for president in 2016. He said the CIA considers ex- tremist and terrorist as syn- onyms, and that references to al-Qaida in the talking points were avoided to protect classi- fied sources. Such mincing of words seems specious indeed and hardly warrants the ex- tended grandstanding on the Benghazi tragedy. RichardMazzucchiisaretired research engineer specializing in energy efficiency and renewable energy. He has travelled exten- sively and now makes his home in Los Molinos, where he is striv- ing to manifest a sustainable and spiritual lifestyle and oper- ate a barbecue equipment and supply business. He can reached at living-green@att.net. PositivePoint Benghazi tragedy used for grandstanding An emailed question prompted me to reply that no, I hadn't forgotten about the role that solar energy projects played in the confrontation that culminated in the BLM seizing cattle from Cliven Bundy's ranch. Col- umn limits simply postponed tell- ing that part of the story: It be- gan around 1994 when then-In- terior Secretary Bruce Babbit, having failed to acquire legisla- tive authorization for radically re- shaping BLM's management of its 260 million federal acres, simply pronounced "Rangeland Reform," doubling of grazing fees and more environmental rules to prevent "overgrazing." Babbit didn't even have sci- ence on his side; a National Academy of Sciences report "concluded that so little was known about the condition of U.S. rangeland that the new standards were essentially a shot in the dark" (Kerry Pickett, Breitbart.com). Moreover, higher grazing fees were based on fees charged to graze on privately owned acreage. Yet, private grazing cost more because there was relatively little of it; the fact that government owned the vast majority of grazeable land drove up private fees which Babbit's In- terior Dept. "reform" used to jus- tify hiking public fees. So, they ignored Congress, science and the marketplace to jam through self-fulfilling reg- ulations designed to inexorably strangle ranchers out of the busi- ness that they were induced into by the feds decades earlier, with promises of abundant grazing land. That's the heavy, hypocrit- ical hand of out-of-control agen- cies acting with authoritarian malice toward the people they exist to serve. Having established by regula- tory fiat that environmental con- siderations, absent specific Con- gressional authority, would drive the Interior Department's BLM policy, it's a short jump to more recent "green energy" agendas: Giving over vast swaths, thou- sands upon thousands of acres, to development—environmen- tal, habitat and species disrupt- ing development—under the aus- pices of arbitrary mandates for wind and solar projects. Here's where the ideol- ogy and agenda of "global warming" alarmism in- tersects grazing: The Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone (SEZ) was tasked for a massive solar energy ar- ray built, of course, with oo- dles of taxpayer subsidies and credits. Oodles of desert tor- toises would be disrupted in their underground homes. Therefore, 32 miles east, the Gold Butte ar- ea's 350,000 acres south of I-15 near the Arizona border were, for purposes of mitigating Dry Lake SEZ's tortoise displacement, "designated as an Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC) by the BLM in 1998 as part of a land management plan for the Las Vegas area" (Steve Kanigher/ Jim Robinson, FreeRepublic. com). Bundy's cattle were the only ones still using part of Gold Butte; his property and rights fell victim to progress, changing mo- res and arbitrarily shifting envi- ronmental mandates, which gave zero heed to pre-existing grazing agreements. The money quote: "One rea- son Gold Butte was singled out in the mitigation report was that research performed by the Na- tional Park Service for the Lake Mead National Recreation Area suggests 'under future climate change, high-quality desert tor- toise habitat will remain in the Gold Butte ACEC while most of the adjacent desert tortoise hab- itat in the national recreation area will decline and disappear'" (Jim Robinson). Like everything global warming/climate change/ climate disruption-related, the future is computed, modeled, and catastrophe-predicted. However, contrary to tem- perature and weather predic- tions, there has been no warm- ing for 15 to 17 years (95 percent of forecasts missed that); torna- does, hurricanes and droughts haven't shown any surge or up- ward trend over recent history (heightened news coverage to the contrary). Their comput- ing models and algorithms can- not predict the past, in that they can't explain the warming from 1910-1940, followed by cooling from then until around 1978 (CO2 rose the whole time). They are incapable of quantitatively dif- ferentiating the 1910-1940 warm- ing (lower CO2) from the 1978- 1998 warming. Neither can they apply computer models to why we had the Little Ice Age or the Medieval Warming Period and certainly not the warmer-than- now Roman Warm Period. They (warming alarmists) don't de- serve our trust. If you type "gold butte acec" in a search window you will find numerous links, three of which I opened: "Connection drawn be- tween cattle roundup and BLM report, KLAS-TV," "Nevada standoff: Yes, it's solar-indus- try cronies (but NOT the Chi- nese)" by J.E. Dyer, LibertyUn- yielding.com, and a green-leaning piece, "Mojave project tests Inte- rior strategy for stemming habi- tat losses" by Phil Taylor, eenews. net. The big picture is that Obama's policy prescriptions, like Jerry Brown's under AB 32, call for nearly fantastical mandates of supposedly carbon reducing "green" wind and solar energy, requiring massive land-use, envi- ronmental, wildlife, economic and ratepayer disruptions and costs. Complete the circle: "The new head of the BLM is a former Reid staffer placed … on Reid's recom- mendation. Harry Reid is known to be a corrupt politician, who has gotten wealthy on a pub- lic employee's salary … benefit- ing from sweetheart real estate deals. Does Harry Reid now con- trol more than 80% of Nevada? If you need federal authority to con- duct business in Nevada, do you need to pay a bribe to Harry Reid or a member of his family?" (John Hinderaker) Power, in the hands of politicians, bureaucrats or en- vironmental fanatics, corrupts. Don Polson has caled Red Bluff home since 1988. He can be reached by e-mail at donplsn@yahoo.com. The way I see it Decades-long agendas, fantastical mandates and cattle Sounding off Alookatwhatreadersaresayingincommentsonourwebsiteandonsocialmedia. Prayerstothevictimsandfamilies....alittle more information about the suspect for those of us who reside in the area would be appreciated. The Tehama Co S.O. needs to tell residents how concerned we should be about this happening again. This is not a normal thing for Tehama county. Donna Pate-Judson: Facebook comment about Friday's robbery turned homicide. Pat was known, loved, and respected by just about everybody. We're in shock. From reading some of the other stories on your site, I have the feeling that Red Bluff and West Tisbury have a lot in common, and that you're just as stunned by this as we are. We're hoping and praying for the full recovery of Pat's fellow hiker. Susanna J. Sturgis: Redbluffdailynews.com comment. Greg Stevens, Publisher Chip Thompson, Editor EDITORIAL BOARD 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@red bluffdailynews.com Phone: 530-527- 2151ext. 112 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 Cartoon Richard Mazzucchi Although in retrospect everyone now agrees that this tragedy was apparently a well organized and deliberate act of terror no one can say that the outrageous video did not increase the likelihood of such an attack. Furthermore it is very easy to arm chair quarterback our response to the attack in the light of facts only discovered well after the exigent events. Don Polson That's the heavy, hypocritical hand of out-of-control agencies acting with authoritarian malice toward the people they exist to serve. OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Tuesday, May 20, 2014 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6