Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/348032
WASHINGTON DarrellIssais about to reach a regrettable milestone. The California Republican is one summons away from is- suing his 100th subpoena since becoming chairman of the House Oversight and Govern- ment Reform committee in 2011 — all of them without a com- mittee vote and the vast major- ity without the concurrence of the committee's ranking Dem- ocrat. The "unilateral subpoenas," as they are known, are a depar- ture from the way the commit- tee has conducted its investiga- tions for decades and an echo of the late Clinton years, when conspiracy-minded Chairman Dan Burton fired off more than 1,000 subpoenas (including one to the wrong man because of mistaken identity). The careless use of the sub- poena — the power to compel a witness' appearance or the pro- duction of documents — has discredited Issa's chairmanship by politicizing his probes from the start. His unilateral style has also been a leading con- tributor to the overall toxicity in politics by turning his com- mittee into a forum for partisan clashes over Benghazi, Libya, the Internal Revenue Service and Eric Holder's Justice De- partment. Recently, senior White House official David Simas has been ordered by Issa, under a unilat- eral subpoena, to testify about political activities Issa alleged are illegal. Issa has issued two unilateral subpoenas to compel the testimony of Secretary of State John F. Kerry over Beng- hazi, and another subpoena to force the testimony of the IRS commissioner (even though the official had offered to testify vol- untarily). This is not what the oversight committee was supposed to be. Though it has long bestowed unilateral subpoena power on the chairman, the committee didn't issue a single unilateral subpoena from the 1950s until the mid-1990s, according to Phil Schiliro, who served as the com- mittee's Democratic staff direc- tor for a decade beginning in 1997. In the eight years after Bur- ton's chairmanship, virtually all of the 78 subpoenas issued (un- der Republican Chairman Tom Davis and Democratic Chair- men Henry Waxman and Edol- phus Towns) were done either with the minority's consent or with a committee vote. Davis and Waxman managed to co- operate even on highly charged matters such as the Jack Abramoff and Pat Tillman in- vestigations. "Henry and I had an excep- tional relationship," Davis told me. "It's the way it ought to work." Schiliro said 43 of Waxman's 46 subpoenas were issued with Davis' consent, and the other three were put to a vote. The act of justifying a subpoena to the committee "forces collab- oration," he said, and "goes to whether there is a legitimate in- vestigation or not." Issa's deputy staff director, Frederick Hill, said Democrats as well as Republicans have used unilateral subpoenas. Hill also said that Issa, unlike his immediate predecessor Towns, consults with the minority be- fore each subpoena. Without the minority's si- gnoff and without even a public debate on the merits of a sub- poena, the unilateral subpoena is a way to float allegations in lieu of investigative work. This generates complaints about "fishing expeditions" from those who receive the subpoenas — and counter accusations of "cover-ups" when an adminis- tration resists. Issa's Benghazi probe has been typical of this approach. He used his subpoena with a heavy hand: He ordered Ambas- sador Thomas Pickering, who led an administration probe into the Benghazi attacks, to submit to a private interview, even though Pickering had vol- unteered to testify publicly. Issa coupled that with un- founded allegations, declar- ing his "suspicions" that then- Secretary of State Hillary Clin- ton told the Pentagon to "stand down" rather than help Amer- icans in Benghazi. Likewise, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, (R-Utah), vying to succeed Issa as chair- man next year, said he found it "disgusting" that a special oper- ations team was "told to stand down" rather than assist in Benghazi. But declassified testimony re- leased last week by the House Armed Services Committee dis- proved such allegations. Mili- tary officials up and down the chain of command testified — voluntarily — that they received rapid approval to mobilize as- sets during the attack and that two quick-reaction teams had been alerted for deployment. The head of a four-man team in Tripoli that was allegedly told to stand down testified that he received no such order and that his orders to remain in Tripoli rather than fly to Benghazi were "instrumental" in saving the life of a wounded American evacu- ated from Benghazi. Armed Services Chairman Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Ca- lif., whose committee conducted a more responsible Benghazi in- vestigation than Issa's, says he's "pretty well been satisfied that ... we probably couldn't have done more than we did." The testimony should sat- isfy Issa too — if his real pur- pose is to answer questions and not to issue subpoenas. FollowDanaMilbankonTwit- ter, @Milbank. Dana Milbank Subpoena Darrell Issa Thankstothesupervisors Editor: I want to thank our Board of Supervisors for keeping their word and voting in favor of pur- suing the possibilities of form- ing a new and better state. Sue Gallagher spoke at the supervisors' meeting and made many misstatements — lib- eral term for uninformed state- ments. She said we didn't have a majority, which we clearly did, and that we did it sneaky and underhanded. I don't know how we could have done anything more to in- form people. There were numer- ous rallies on street corners, well attended by people in their green shirts, carrying flags and signs, floats in several parades, meet- ings almost every Friday night that the public was invited to at- tend. There were yard signs and flags all over the county, a very in- formative website and local town halls. We handed out piles of fliers and left them in stores that were happy to hand them out for us. Maybe our opposition didn't share our passion. We in favor are very fed up with over regulation, over taxation, water grabs and no representation in the senate. We are very tired of being sad- dled with Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer and Diane Fienstein for far too long. Thank you also to all our sup- porters. I truly think we can make Northern California a great state. There are worries that we won't have enough money to support ser- vices. We will be able to keep our tax dollars here rather than send- ing them to Sacramento and only getting a fraction back to spend the way they tell us to. The opposition is free to move to Southern California if all their worries come true. We need to al- low the majority to build a climate favorable to agriculture, rural life, jobs, business and freedom in gen- eral. — Dena Hendricks, Red Bluff. JeffersonisaTrojanHorse Editor: The Tehama County Board of Supervisors is in the process of taking a radical action which could well jeopardize the future of our county and perhaps the coun- try. After a fake referendum with- out holding any opposing hear- ings, which they promised before placing Measure A on the ballot, it went on in the guise of a seem- ingly innocuous feel-good mea- sure — of course everyone wants more representation — which it promised, but they did not tell us the price. That innocuous little measure, which was supported by only around 7,000 people, can be used to give the vote to corporations. It can be used to make it so your and my vote are not equal to the wealthy and powerful people. The Jefferson fantasy was to juice up the discontented, of- fering them a blank state to pin their wishes on. Wishes that are an impossible delusion, in order to set the stage for an appeal to our capricious Supreme Court in a plan to end our right to equal representation, which is the ulti- mate gerrymander. It is a Trojan horse, pretending to be a gift. But there is a solution that our supervisors did not think of — namely, California dump us, rather than face that dan- ger. There is an old adage — don't ask for what you don't want, you may get it.) California could say good bye and good luck. The re- sult would not be a State of Jefferson, but a U.S. Govern- ment protectorate or territory, something between Samoa and Puerto Rico because Congress will never accept us as a state. In effect, we will lose all repre- sentation and be governed by Congress like Alaska and Ha- waii were before statehood, which took decades. Both the Philippines and Puerto Rico have been waiting almost a century to become states, and as we all know, Congress takes forever, if it even does any- thing. It would be in California's interest to dump us. We cost them a fortune, as a welfare county, and they can spend the money elsewhere, where it is appreciated. But even if the argument that Tehama County is under-represented got to the Supreme Court and they decided to let counties have equal votes regardless of their population, the state can change the State Constitution to consolidate low population counties. There is no way we will end up with the same power as Los Angeles County, the odds are that we will have less represen- tation and power than we do right now, as well as the ani- mosity of the rest of California for being ungrateful. — Diana Thompson, Red Bluff Tax all Californians equally Editor: It would be fair for ev- ery Californian to be taxed equally 5% for earned income, 7% maximum state plus city or county sales tax, and property should be taxed one time at 5% of the sales price, less the inflation adjusted purchase price and home sale costs. From experience, assessed val- ues exceed the sales price as homes are sold below the pur- chase price during the many recessions these past 50 years. Triple the income tax on those who receive a pension exceed- ing $50,000 yearly, including Social Security. It would be fair to cut Fed- eral income tax to 15% for ev- eryone, with no allowable de- ductions, and cut Corporate in- come tax rates from 35% to 15%. Job growth would explode as companies return to the US. Our nation needs right to work laws to end government owner- ship by unions. Most who are now in the top 20% of income started at the bottom 20%. They should not be punished because they were motivated to self fund their education, and saved and in- vested. Tax everyone equally and fewer would demand welfare for choosing to not develop their earning skills and life- time saving motivation. — Joseph Neff, Corning Your opinions Cartoonist's take Plenty of people had good reason to be in a foul mood back in 2012. The Detroit Ti- gers. Members of the Rom- ney family. And, after making the acquaintance of a windy lass named Sandy, most of New England. Now, we can add to that list the thousands of suck- ers who were manipulated by our good friend at Facebook. Although the word they coined- "unfriend," might fit better here. Recently it was revealed the social media behemoth filtered the messages of 700,000 users by flooding them with uplift- ing and depressing posts, then monitoring who got happy and who got sad. "Oh no. Grand- ma's bicycle got run over by a garbage truck. Awww. But hey! Watch what happens when this pit bull chews on a kiddie pool." They say we agreed to this kind of BS when we signed on, but come on. It's doubtful even the employees who write them read those user agreements. Typically, they're longer than the migratory path of the mon- arch butterfly, more confusing than Cantonese crosswords and displayed in flea font. Corporate lawyers didn't evolve from mud-sucking, bot- tom-feeders for nothing. They know how to hide all sorts of stuff in that fine print. Wouldn't be surprised to dis- cover there's a clause stating that in time of war, they own one of my kidneys. And an- other that gives them the right to call at any time of night de- manding help in moving a body. Google also admits to run- ning 20,000 experiments on its search results every year and you can bet Twitter, Amazon, Pinterest and Crabgrass.com are doing the same. Probably even Yahoo has scientists us- ing tools calibrated back in the '90s. The 1890s. Some bloggers claim to be outraged, but anybody not ex- pecting to be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, de- briefed and numbered is prob- ably a big fan of the tooth fairy and still drinking juice out of a sippy cup, wearing footy paja- mas. Online privacy is like Tal- iban science. A fictional con- cept. Think of it as Newton's Law 3.1. The price we must pay for having the world at our finger- tips, is maintaining an equal and opposite availability to ev- eryone else's fingertips. Some of which are cold and clammy. Es- pecially the Faceless ones with the chromium digits. But we've adapted. You don't hear a lot of noise about folks going back to MySpace. Or Compuserve. Facebook claims they're sim- ply trying to create the best en- vironment possible for their pe- tri dish of social contact. And we microbes can expect the re- search to not only continue, but get more sophisticated. Won't be long before they are able to predict which of our family members will pass out before Thanksgiving Dinner. Which could come in handy with menu planning. Our best bet is to nudge them in consumer friendly directions. Don't they want to know how many people would delete their accounts after all cute cat vid- eos were outlawed? How about a "Bummer" button for deaths, divorces, debacles, disasters and defeats? The thing is, if Mark Zuck- erberg and his ilk are going to use us as lab rats, the least they could do is throw us some mi- nor rewards. When rats finish a maze, aren't they supposed to get cheese? Hey Zuck, where's our digital cheese? Make mine Cheddar. Swiss puts me in a bad mood. Ooops. Shouldn't have said that. Email Will at durst@caglecar- toons.com. Visit to willdurst. com to find about more about his new CD, "Elect to Laugh" and calendar of personal ap- pearances. Will Durst Social media is digital cheese, and we're the rats GregStevens,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. 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