Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/442112
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 What happens when the dog catches the car? Now that the Republicans control the Senate, will they continue to be the party of unsubstantiated conspiracy theories? It'snomysteryhowtheygot here. As Robert Draper docu- mented in his criminally un- derappreciated book "Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the U.S. House of Representa- tives," the Republican strategy was to wrest power from Dem- ocrats by obstructing them ev- ery step of the way. If Republi- cans stalled Obama's agenda, it would make the President look weak. Economic growth would crawl. Jobs would trickle. And his poll numbers would tank." Boy, did it work. They won the House of Representatives in 2010, but it took them six years to learn how not to say stupid stuff about immigrants, women, and immigrant women long enough to win back the Senate. As Hannibal from TV's A-Team liked to say, "I love it when a plan comes together." But there's a plan, right? First they tried the birther nonsense, but that was so pa- tently idiotic that they couldn't fan those flames without get- ting burned. Still, they took that model — creating some- thing out of nothing — and kept at it. After all, what were they supposed to do, govern? Remember Benghazi? Con- gress is holding its 10th hear- ing despite a recent report re- leased by the Republican-con- trolled House Intelligence Committee after an 18-month investigation. They found no evidence of a cover up or "stand down" order. The Benghazi scandal was not just politically motivated but wholly constructed out of the toxic political byproducts of a morally bankrupt party. Their morally bankrupt nom- inee — go ahead, name one thing Mitt Romney really be- lieves — held a press con- ference to blame Obama for Benghazi before the bodies were counted, much less bur- ied. That the scandal turned out to be all smoke and no fire isn't the point. The scan- dal hurt Obama politically, and the Republicans profited from the murder of four Amer- icans by terrorists. That was the point. The same thing happened with the IRS scandal, except not only was no one murdered but — read this one slowly, folks — not one single Repub- lican non-profit was denied non-profit status. That's right. All the IRS did was make sure that these obviously political non-profits were conforming to a new part of the tax code. Liberal groups were investi- gated too, but there were fewer of them. Yet Republicans in Wash- ington screamed persecution. No one believed that the IRS acted independently. People assumed that Obama's hench- men were orchestrating politi- cal dirty tricks from the White House, so when the Republi- can-controlled House Commit- tee on Oversight and Govern- ment Reform turned up no ev- idence that the White House did anything wrong, they re- leased the report shortly be- fore Christmas. Didn't hear about it? That was the point. Republicans did the same thing with the Benghazi re- port around Thanksgiving. It doesn't matter if there was no stand down order or that the IRS was acting not only independently but prop- erly. It doesn't matter that the infamous $3 million shrimp treadmill really only cost $47, and the scientist paid for it himself. It doesn't matter that the "hey, hey, look over here!" diversionary tactics largely absolved Republicans while they obstructed Obama's every turn. They hurt Obama and fi- nally won the House and Sen- ate. But you can't keep a good country down. The economy is growing faster than it has for a decade. The Dow is up, and unemployment is down, and no one is complaining about cheap gas except Texas. Obam- acare is even working. And af- ter acting alone on immigra- tion and Cuba, Obama looks strong, and his poll numbers are approaching sea level. Republicans have caught the car just as Obama has fig- ured out how to drive a stick, so what do they have planned? Oh, you're going to like this one: dynamic scoring, a method of estimating the bud- getary effect of tax cuts that includes uncertain and specu- lative assumptions about eco- nomic growth. They're going to start making rosy assump- tions that cutting taxes for the rich make the middle class richer, thinner, and better looking to the opposite sex. Confused? Think of it like an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory about economics. Is it a scientifically valid theory? No. But hey, at least it's a plan. JasonStanfordisaregular contributor to the Austin American-Statesman, a Democratic consultant and a Truman National Security Project partner. You can email him at stanford@oppresearch. com and follow him on Twitter @JasStanford. James Stanford Republicans won, now what? Cartoonist's take Here are, in no partic- ular order, a few items of random observations or spindle clearing: A back issue of the Daily News, October 11, had an article, "Tim- ber company criticizes probe," in which Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI) claimed gross malfeasance and decep- tion by "state and federal pros- ecutors and investigators" over a settlement stemming from a 2007 fire on 65,000 acres of na- tional (and other) forests. SPI agreed to the "$47 million legal settlement" of fines and land transfers based on what was presented as proof of SPI's cul- pability. "A state court judge in Feb- ruary found that California offi- cials lied and hid evidence, and the judge ordered the state to pay the company $30 million. The company is citing the same evidence to re-open the fed- eral case." Judge Leslie C. Nich- ols concluded, "Cal Fire's ac- tion initiating, maintaining and prosecuting this action…is cor- rupt and tainted. Cal Fire with- held documents for months, de- stroyed evidence and engaged in a campaign of misdirection with the purpose of recovering money from Sierra Pacific." The feds and state ganged up on SPI based on the contention that "a bulldozer hired by Sierra Pacific was to blame when its front blade nicked a rock and sparked" the fire. Judge Nichols found, however, "that the lead CalFire investigator's testimony about where and how the fire was started was not credible" and cited "other deficiencies" in the prosecution. Government under the tute- lage of Democrats—indeed, the staffing of many government agencies no matter the party in charge—has morphed into mas- sive, interconnected, corrupt, criminal enterprises. They're using the power given by citi- zens and their representatives to exercise undue control, ma- nipulation, legal extortion and shakedown operations. The case above is but one example. A report I've since lost stated that every single federal Inspec- tor General has, en masse, told Congress that the agencies they are charged under law to have unlimited access to— and oversight of—are ob- structing, avoiding and evading investigations. Sunday news shows obsessed for a second week of overblown cover- age of a 12-year old meet- ing ostensibly addressed by a then-Louisiana state law- maker, Steve Scalise, now a Re- publican Congressional leader. There's been zero interest in a statement by one Kenny Knight, ("About that Steve Scal- ise Story…" Powerlineblog.com, Jan. 1) who booked the meet- ing space for the (white su- premacist) European-Ameri- can Unity and Rights Organiza- tion (EURO), founded by David Duke. He stated that, as the EURO meeting was in the after- noon, he invited his local Jeffer- son Heights Civic Association, a completely non-controversial group, to gather in the morn- ing—a meeting that was at- tended and addressed by Scal- ise who was seeking support for a state tax measure he was pro- moting. That supports Scalise's non-recollection of the EURO group meeting. He shouldn't knuckle under and step down over what's nothing more than a scalp-seeking tempest in the Democrat/media teapot. Of course, if they didn't have double standards, the liberal news media wouldn't have any standards at all ("A footnote to the Scalise story…" Powerline- blog.com, Jan. 1). About Barack Obama attending and listening to a racist Rev. Wright for de- cades? Well, he didn't agree so, no problem. That he launched his political campaign in the home of his eventual co-dis- penser of foundation (radical leftist) education grants, un- repentant terrorist Bill Ayers? Anyone would have done the same, move along. The South- ern Democrats as the enforcers of Jim Crow and segregation? No, it's those supposedly (no- proof-needed) racist Tea Party Republicans. Robert "KKK" Byrd, anyone? "The all-time low for unac- countable Democrats has to be the parade of Democratic pol- iticians who made nice with People's Temple suicide cult- ist Jim Jones (though maybe it isn't such a stretch since liber- alism is the ideology of West- ern suicide)" (Steve Hayward and Newsbusters.org). A par- tial list of Democrats praising and lauding the self-deluded and —destructive Jones and his People's Temple includes: (then first-term) Governor Jerry Brown "We are the two best friends that anyone could ever have…"); Assembly Speaker Wil- lie Brown (Jones is like "Mar- tin Luther King, Angela Davis, Albert Einstein and Chairman Mao"); Senator Walter Mon- dale and Rosalynn Carter (each of whom had meetings with or glowing accolades for Jones); Senator Mike Gravel (People's Temple "was almost too good to be true"), ditto for Congress- man Don Edwards (D-CA); Jo- seph Califano of the Kennedy, Johnson and Carter adminis- trations ("outstanding contri- butions to the cause of human dignity"); and Hubert Hum- phrey (yet more gushing acco- lades about their "Christian ap- proach" to "myriad problems" of society.) Virtually the entire human- caused global warming para- digm is upended by the Antarc- tic Vostok Ice Cores, analyzed by Euan Mearns and Petit et al (1999), posted at DonPolson. blogspot.com and Powerline- blog.com ("Vostok Ice Cores and the 8,000-year lag"). Briefly, every 100,000 or so years, for the last 500,000 years, there's been 12,000 to 20,000 years of warmth, warmer than the cur- rent 12,000 years-long warm period—with higher CO2. In between those warm pe- riods, which provided the only conditions suitable for human life, have been glacial peri- ods lasting many tens of thou- sands of years. CO2 levels al- ways lagged the warm periods. Currently, earth is experienc- ing a 2,000 years long cooling trend of —0.30 degrees C per 1,000 years (Journal of Quater- nary Science). Finally, we are now over 18 years without any discernible global warming. I'll take warming over glacial eras anytime I have a choice, folks. 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 The traveling circus of irony pulls into town this time around (W)hen the Republican- controlled House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform turned up no evidence that the White House did anything wrong, they released the report shortly before Christmas. Didn't hear about it? That was the point. Sounding off A look at what readers are saying in comments on our website and on social media. This is what happens when you have nothing but minimum wage jobs. This is what happens when you have a segment of ex felon population that cannot find jobs because they are considered unhirable.... With no way to improve one's self, they resort back to drugs and crime. Michael Peterson: On a report Red Bluff's violent crime rate is among the state's highest. Why do you need a permit to start a poultry farm? Shouldn't people have the right to do as they please on their property? They paid or are paying for it. They are probably trying to pay the taxes on it. What constitutional basis leads us to permits to raise chickens for whatever purpose we want? Ed Drewsen: On proposed regulation of large- scale poultry operations of 500birds or more. Assemblyman Dan Logue 150Amber Grove Drive, Ste. 154, Chico 95928, 530895- 4217 Senator Jim Nielsen 2634Forest Ave., Ste. 110, Chico 95928, 530879-7424, senator.nielsen@senate.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 Build- ing, Washington D.C. 20515, 202225-3076 U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein One Post St., Ste. 2450, San Francisco 94104, 415393- 0707, fax 415393-0710 Contact your officials Don Polson OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Tuesday, January 6, 2015 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6