Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/397780
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@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 As America waits, ever patiently, for the eco- nomic recovery to trickle down to the rest of us, at least we won't have to worry about Kevin Cramer. Thisformerradiohost has figured out a way to get a piece of the pie not just for himself but for many of his relatives as well. Unfor- tunately, he's cashing in be- cause he's a congressman, so his method probably won't work for us poor slobs who have to work for a living. First, let's be clear that Cramer, a North Dakota Re- publican, is a hard-work- ing politician who earns ev- ery penny of his $174,000 an- nual salary. Sure, he works an average of three days a week in what is on track to be the least productive congress in modern history, but that doesn't mean Cramer isn't working hard, guys. For example, he was even working hard during the gov- ernment shutdown. More than 100 members of con- gress refused to take their paychecks, but Kevin de- served his. "My office is open, we're taking phone calls, I'm vot- ing every day, I'm debat- ing every day, I'm going to countless meetings. I'm working to earn the salary that the people pay me to do the job," he said. He was too busy to count all those meet- ings. So heck no, he wasn't giving up his paycheck. "I will continue to earn it, and I will continue to collect what I earn, yes." Here's some of the things he works so hard on: He's stopping a clandestine plot by the Environmental Pro- tection Agency to use top se- cret maps to regulate all of North Dakota. The maps are so secret, in fact, that they don't actually exist, but he's on it. When it comes to farm- ers, he's pulling double duty as both a hard-liner who op- poses federal farm subsidies and as a politician who takes credit for leading the fight for the farm bill. When lo- cal farmers objected, Cramer said, well, I'm not sure ex- actly. "Why would I run an ad that depicted I took credit for something I didn't want I mean your head had to be on backwards if to even, that doesn't make any sense if it's such a great idea to not have one why would I be worrying about passing one," said Cra- mer. And he's right. It doesn't make sense. He works so hard he even won an award as a member of the House Science Com- mittee. Of course, the award was The Congressional Cli- mate Denier Award for call- ing global warming "fraudu- lent science" and a conspiracy to help wind farms. But hey, an award's an award. With all this going on in Washington—working three days a week, y'all—it's a won- der Cramer ever found time to cook up this scheme. Odds are, if you're in Cramer's fam- ily, you're also on his cam- paign payroll. His wife draws a sal- ary and gets reimbursed for stuff, all of which totaled up to $40,542 since 2013. One daughter did some consult- ing for the campaign and then got a little job on the payroll, making her $2,468. Another daughter co-owns a video production company that got some work from her dad's campaign, making an- other $3,100. Every little bit helps. All of this is probably le- gal because we're just talk- ing about his campaign ac- count. If he did this on the government payroll, it would be called nepotism. Since he's just using special interest money to boost his family's bottom line, it's called being a good provider. And don't worry about ol' Kevin. He's not just throw- ing money at his wife and kids. There's some left over for himself, too. In the first half of 2014, he paid himself per diems and mileage re- imbursements that totaled $14,040. It gets expensive driving around to tell farm- ers that he wasn't actually op- posing the farm bill when he was trying to kill their agri- culture subsidies. According to the experts, Cramer is a likely bet for re- election, and nothing he's do- ing is illegal. Most politicians don't feather their beds like Cramer because people don't like it when congressmen get paid to be clueless and lazy while using special interest money to supplement their income. It looks bad. You never know. You might lose the election. JasonStanfordisaregu- lar contributor to the Austin American-Statesman, a Dem- ocratic consultant and a Tru- man National Security Proj- ect partner. You can email him at stanford@oppre- search.com and follow him on Twitter @JasStanford. Jason Stanford Hardest-working congressman in North Dakota Cartoonist's take MONTE WOLVERTON Tonight's Tea Party Patri- ots meeting will include dis- cussion and information- sharing on the November bal- lot proposi- tions, Westside Grange, 6 p.m. Events, whether widely reported or not, have cast some doubt on whether the assurances by health officials, such as the CDC's Dr. Frieden, can be taken at face value, or whether the entire narrative put forth by the media and politicians can withstand close scrutiny. I strongly suggest visiting the Drudge Report, drudg- ereport.com, several times a day. It's certainly going to provide more straight news reporting than you will find on the national broadcast networks or even in the pre- packaged segments aired lo- cally. Liberals and partisan Democrats have a cynical at- titude, lambasting Drudge for manipulative misrepre- sentation but that criticism falls apart upon finding that Matt Drudge performs little original reporting. Rather, he provides links to reported news as soon as it is avail- able, often before politically motivated editorial decisions are made to scrub non-PC facts. At the very least you will be informed by all avail- able information, not just the approved, sanitized, and limited-by-time network pre- sentations. Even cable or sat- ellite channels may be regur- gitating acceptable, repeti- tive storylines. See if you're familiar with the Drudge Report headlines from last Friday: Obama Contradicts CDC on Avoid- ing Virus, US Personnel Will Have Direct Contact With Patients, Outbreak Reveals Flaws in Protective Gear, Ominous math of epidemic worries experts…Cases dou- bling every 3-4 weeks, False alarms mount as panic grows, CDC Ignoring Half of Potential Cases, and Con- spiracy Theorists sent into Overdrive. I bet you'll be surprised to read that "Obama Nixed Bush-Era Quarantine Pro- posal," as a recent piece at Powerlineblog.com by Paul Mirengoff, explained. That headline reflects the fact that "In 2010, the Obama Ad- ministration withdrew up- dated quarantine regulations drafted by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and proposed by the Bush ad- ministration. The new rules would have required air pas- sengers to submit more in- formation to airlines and strengthened the govern- ment's authority to detain travelers suspected of carry- ing disease." That sounds like it was the nonpartisan CDC using the best medical disease science to serve its core function of protecting Americans. Hence, President Bush took the side of science while, by withdrawing those science- based regulations, President Obama took another side. Did Obama actually elevate ideology and special interest pleading over science? Op- ponents included the "civil liberties" lobby (a blatantly ideological group) and the travel industry (by defini- tion, a special interest, "big business" lobby). Are our news reporters and sources fearless bull- dogs, relentlessly pursu- ing truth no matter the re- sulting exposures? Or lap- dogs, fearful of crossing the Obama-crat powers-that-be? Investigative journalist Sha- ryl Attkisson (sharylattkis- son.com), formerly of CBS News until they tired of be- ing the source of unflatter- ing exposes of Obama Jus- tice Department scandals, is still on the job and filed re- ports on October 4th and 11th on the polio-like illness that has claimed at least 6 child victims. Accord- ing to the CDC, Enterovi- rus D-68 (EV-D68) has sick- ened at least 691 people as of October 10 in 46 states. "The outbreak is likely more widespread than reported since some states are not lab testing all respiratory ill- nesses to confirm." Attkisson has raised a question that occurred to me when it was first re- ported in August: "Is there a link to illegal immigrant children?" Absent facts sup- porting such speculation, it might be irresponsible to raise such a question. How- ever, the CDC hasn't iden- tified any reasons for the current uptick in a disease present in small amounts for 50 years in America. Moreover, literally tens of thousands of Central Amer- ican children have been placed throughout the U.S., in locations kept secret for the most part, but report- edly in significant num- bers in the two cities where EV-D68 was first reported: Kansas City, MO, and Chi- cago. According to "Virol- ogy Journal," a study "found EV-D68 among some of the 3,375 young, ill people tested in eight Latin Amer- ican countries…in 2013." Is politically correct disease reporting denying parents vital info? Coincidentally, the biolog- ical warfare plot from Tom Clancy's "Executive Orders" I mentioned last week did in- volve a nurse in Africa that contracted Ebola from a pa- tient. The Iranian doctor working with her notified his superiors in Iran and they surreptitiously arranged for her to: 1) be diverted from transport to a Euro- pean medical center, 2) in a jet they made to "disappear" from radar to land in Iran, 3) so that they could cru- elly keep her alive to gather the maximum amount of Eb- ola and 4) cultivate the virus with monkey kidneys 5) from which they manufactured an airborne particulate Ebola in pressurized gas. The Iranian Ebola WMD attack, intended to decimate America's population with millions of deaths, failed to produce that spectacular re- sult because: 1) the nurse did not become infected from an airborne virus but from a break in her rubber glove, and 2) American medical sci- entists eventually created a cure from the DNA of people who displayed a natural re- sistance to Ebola. Finally, look up, at For- eignpolicy.com, "Found: The Islamic State's Terror Laptop of Doom" (August 28). The subhead reads: "Buried in a Dell computer captured in Syria are lessons for making bubonic plague bombs and missives on using weapons of mass destruction." 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 PC approach to disease still deadly In the first half of 2014, he paid himself per diems and mileage reimbursements that totaled $14,040. It gets expensive driving around to tell farmers that he wasn't actually opposing the farm bill when he was trying to kill their agriculture subsidies. Assemblyman Dan Logue 150Amber Grove Drive, Ste. 154, Chico 95928, 530895- 4217 Senator Jim Nielsen 2634 Forest Ave., Ste. 110, Chico 95928, 530 879- 7424, senator.nielsen@sen- ate.ca.gov Governor Jerry Brown State Capital Building, Sacra- mento 95814, 916445-2841, fax 916558-3160, governor@ governor.ca.gov U.S. Representative Doug LaMalfa 507Cannon House Office Building, Washington D.C. 20515, 202225-3076 U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein One Post St., Ste. 2450, San Francisco 94104, 415393- 0707, fax 415393-0710 U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer 1700Montgomery St., San Francisco 94111, 510286- 8537, fax 202224-0454 Contact your officials Liberals and partisan Democrats have a cynical attitude, lambasting Drudge for manipulative misrepresentation but that criticism falls apart upon finding that Matt Drudge performs little original reporting. Rather, he provides links to reported news as soon as it is available, often before politically motivated editorial decisions are made to scrub non-PC facts. At the very least you will be informed by all available information, not just the approved, sanitized, and limited-by-time network presentations. Even cable or satellite channels may be regurgitating acceptable, repetitive storylines. Don Polson OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Tuesday, October 14, 2014 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6