Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/429074
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 OntheTuesdayIwasfly- ing from Philadelphia to Sac- ramento via Minneapolis, the City Council heard a letter of complaint from the Police Of- ficers' Association (POA). The meeting was well attended, and I believe another embar- rassment for the City of Red Bluff. Pointing fingers is an Amer- ican pastime; it started even before the Xbox, Google and iPads. One of the most famous political cartoons of all time is that by Thomas Nast show- ing a ring of people from Tam- many Hall, each pointing to the other, with Boss Tweed, a political wheeler dealer in front. The question they were answering was, "Who stole the people's money." Most likely all of those in the circle were guilty to some degree, and government corruption still plagues us from time to time. We all have fallen for the temptation to blame some- one else for things, true or not. In our family we had a fourth child, "Not me." Blaming oth- ers is often easier than taking the responsibility for a situa- tion. We see political parties absolving themselves from any potential blame every day as they point their fingers to the "other party." We seem to put up with these shenanigans as if they were free entertainment, not a diversion from the major is- sues we need to face. Democ- racy requires eternal vigi- lance, as the saying goes. A friend of mine said, "We get the government we deserve." Another common Ameri- can pastime is airing our dirty laundry in public. With social media and the Internet, word spreads rapidly, and everyone from the Kardashians to Bill Cosby has had their private lives exposed. For the Kar- dashians it probably reflects a need for publicity, for Cosby it may be different. But we seem to enjoy finding out the worst in people. The Red Bluff Police Of- ficers Association was air- ing some dirty laundry before that audience of at least 100 people at that City Council meeting on December 2. The POA is unhappy with the cur- rent Police Chief. The meet- ing was timed while the Police Chief was out of town, appar- ently undergoing some train- ing by the FBI. Behind the scenes, so to speak, the POA told many peo- ple what was going to hap- pen, and a large crowd at- tended. No POA members were there because they feared retaliation, according to their spokesperson. This kind of action reflects on a dysfunctional organiza- tion. In a healthy organiza- tion top management, that is, above the level of the Chief, would have been aware of dis- content and begun to deal with it well before it spilled over into a public airing of dirty laundry. In a healthy organization the members of the POA would have used existing procedures and channels to explain their concerns, knowing they were individually protected as long as they followed procedures. In a healthy organization the governing body, that is the City Council, should have been made aware of the issues and problems, not sandbagged in public. It is certainly true there are some concerns about the Chief. I have written about some of them in the past. I have recommended he be asked to tone down his con- stant requests for funds and his apparently egocentric re- ferrals to "his" people and "his" department. The problem is that the union representing the POA has entered into the proverbial public fray with previously al- legedly unspoken or appar- ently unacknowledged con- cerns. Now we have a no win situation. The seating of a new council may allow some fresh eyes on this current problem; maybe they will appoint a "blue rib- bon" panel to investigate and report back to them. Maybe they will avoid public negoti- ations with the union which is apparently asserting itself. Maybe they will be able to find out why this matter was al- lowed to fester until it erupted on December 2. A new Council will not have to save face. It can address all the issues carefully: in- cluding such issues as the ne- glect of top management to ac- knowledge the discontent and to keep the Council informed; the need for closer monitor- ing of the administration; and even developing new policies and procedures to avoid this kind of happening again. This is an opportunity to make things better in the long run; I hope the Council will take advantage of it. JoeHarropisaretirededuca- tor with more than 30 years of service to the North State. He can be reached at DrJoeHar- rop@sbcglobal.net. Joe Harrop Pointingfingers and airing dirty laundry Cartoonist's take Now playing on the national stage — Jeb Bush as Hamlet: To be, or not to be — that is the question... Jeb can't seem to decide whether he wants to expose him- self to those slings and arrows. And you can't blame him for hes- itating. Why would a sane Re- publican, whose views are anath- ema to the base, want to sign up for a season of suffering? He ruminated anew on Mon- day night, while speaking to a Wall Street Journal-sponsored dinner of CEOs. He said that he's still wrestling with idea of run- ning for president, but he's wary of getting "sucked into the vor- tex" — meaning, the ugly ideo- logical freak show that American politics has become. This was not his first soliloquy on the topic. At a forum last April, he said he was averse to participating in what he called "the vortex of a mud fight." Monday, he told the CEOs: "It's a pretty ugly business right now. I'm not saying, 'Oh woe is me,' don't get me wrong." How- ever, "there's a level under which I would never subjugate my fam- ily. Because that's my organizing principle, that's my life." Ah, yes — just as Hamlet mused about how nice it would be to choose inaction, to sleep in peace and thus end the heart- ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to / 'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. Jeb is torn. The peaceful life beckons, devoutly so, but the Republican establishment (in- cluding most of those CEOs) are beckoning him to run. The Bush clan, which apparently views the Oval Office as a family heirloom, is reportedly on board for a run. But here's the problem: If Jeb re- ally thinks he can run without being drawn into "the vortex," he's in dire need of a 21st-cen- tury attitude adjustment. As evidenced by his remarks the other night, he thinks it's possible to win the GOP nom- ination and the White House by dissing the conservatives who vote heavily in the prima- ries: "I kinda know how a Re- publican can win, whether it's me or someone else — and it has to be much more uplifting, much more positive, much more willing to be 'Lose the primary to win the general.'" He soon added, "It's not an easy task, to be honest with you." True that. How do you even get to the general election if you've lost the primaries? One of Jeb's big issues is Com- mon Core, the educational stan- dards created by the National Governors Association (he touted the program again on Monday night) — but conserva- tives hate Common Core. His other big issue is immigration reform (he touted that as well) — but conservatives hate that, too. As the American Conservative magazine wrote, "If Jeb Bush thinks there are a lot of Repub- lican voters hungering for bland 'centrism' with a dynastic name attached to it, he is in for an un- pleasant surprise." So what the heck, Jeb might as well be free to be himself. That probably explains his var- ious "Bulworth" moments on Monday night. He said that a Republican presidential cam- paign should stress the need "to be practical now in Wash- ington." and that the new Re- publican Congress should stress an "adult-centered kind of leadership" and not simply try to "make a point." Heck, he even refused to join the right- wing outcry against President Obama's anti-deportation exec- utive order — because he's "not a lawyer." How can you win a GOP nom- ination in this day and age, say- ing stuff like that? You might as well try to hike the Himalayas in your bare feet. Jeb is starting to conjure memories of Mario Cuomo, the Democratic governor who was famously dubbed "Hamlet on the Hudson" because he tar- ried so long at the starting gate — to the point where he finally whiffed at the New Hampshire primary filing deadline, in De- cember 1991, while a plane lit- erally waited on the tarmac to whisk him to the Granite State. It would not be a shock if Jeb ultimately skips his own ride. Meanwhile, he continues to pon- der. Tell us, Hamlet! The native hue of resolution is sickled o'er with the pale cast of thought. Dick Polman is the national political columnist at News- Works/WHYY in Philadelphia and a "Writer in Residence" at the University of Philadelphia. Email him at dickpolman7@ gmail.com. Dick Polman Jeb Bush's Shakespearean rumination about running Another view By Rick Jensen Democrats cheered when Senator Barack Obama prom- ised them that if he were elected President, no lobby- ists would "work on regula- tions or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years." On his first day in of- fice, President Obama prop- agandized this campaign de- ceit with a press conference broadcasting him signing an executive order to that effect. Back in the Oval Office, President Obama's team de- vised a scheme to circumvent this "promise." That scheme became "The Waiver." Americans were promised that presumably unscrupu- lous, untrustworthy and des- picable lobbyists would be banned from influencing pol- icy under Obama. What most Americans don't know is that Obama shrewdly broke his promise to them on just his third day in office by appointing Wil- liam Lynn, a former lobbyist for Defense contractor Ray- theon, to Deputy Secretary of Defense. This is not just some little government job. This is a ma- jor position. Obama justified this with a "waiver" that says, well, this guy is an exception. He's really smart, so just this once, okay? Within one year in office, he appointed not only three Cabinet Secretaries and the Director of Intelligence who were all lobbyists, but over 30 lobbyists as political ap- pointees. By the end of 2013, over 50 Obama appointees were for- mer lobbyists. That's quite a few waivers. Some didn't even have waiv- ers to get the job. Being a Democrat seems to help quite a bit. Have you noticed the si- lence from liberals on this ex- traordinary violation of trust they extended him? His reported preference for John Ashton as Secretary of Defense should be no sur- prise, as his employment re- cord fits Obama's mold for appointing high-dollar lobby- ists to important cabinet po- sitions. Remember, the disgraced Eric Holder was a lobbyist at Covington and Burling, whose client list includes le- gal, defense and civil servant organizations. Mr. Ashton has an impres- sive resume: bachelor's de- grees in physics from Yale, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa, a Rhodes Scholar doc- torate in theoretical phys- ics at Oxford where he also taught physics. He's worked on defense matters with Democrats and Republicans from Clinton to Bush. Mr. Ashton is certainly a qualified and bipartisan choice for Secretary of De- fense, but his selection is an- other blatant Obama corrup- tion of his promise to voters. If a Republican who made the same promise as Obama were in the White House, every mainstream news pro- gram, online news site and Sunday news show would be splattered with partisan out- rage that this President just cannot keep such an impor- tant promise as keeping lobby- ists out of the administration. Why? The Washington Times writes: "Mr. Carter received al- most as much money from defense consulting work as he did from Harvard Uni- versity before he joined the Obama Administration in 2009..." According to the waiver, he 'provided specific business advice' on a weapons sys- tem called the Sensor Fused Weapon. The last year of De- fense funding for the weapon system was in fiscal 2007. In 2011, a White House spokeswoman said Mr. Carter would be recused from two years from participating in matters involving Harvard because he resigned his ten- ured position there in 2011." There is a photo from 2008 in which Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi promised "the most ethical" administration and Congress in history while standing at a podium in front of a gigan- tic poster that reads, "Hon- est Leadership. Open Govern- ment" that is now priceless as a laugh-out-loud, self-mock- ing satirical commentary on what has become one of the most corrupt and unethical presidencies in history. This Ashton incident is re- ally just a small example of President Obama's audacity of smoke and insincerity. Rick Jensen is Delaware's award-winning conserva- tive talk show host on 1150AM WDEL and 93.7FM HD3, Streaming live on WDEL. com from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. lo- cal time. Contact Rick at rick@ wdel.com or follow him on Twitter @Jensen1150WDEL. Obama's lobbyist problem OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Saturday, December 6, 2014 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A4