Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/478363
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 Therewegoagain,Republicans.Wekeep shooting ourselves in the feet — and at the worst possible times. Things were going pretty well for the GOP until Monday. President Obama was get- ting major grief from Repub- licans, and even some Dem- ocrats, for preparing to sign America on to a horrible nu- clear arms deal with the Ira- nians. Hillary Clinton was en- snared in an email-deleting scandal of her own making that was so obviously unlaw- ful and politically devious that even the liberal media were at- tacking her. So what did 47 Republican senators do? They attracted the full at- tention of the mainstream me- dia by sending a letter to the Iranian ayatollahs reminding them that any agreement the president signs without ap- proval of the Senate can be undone by the next president faster than you can spell Bibi Netanyahu. Nice job, Republicans. Yes, what you told the Ira- nians in the letter was right. Any B-plus middle-school civ- ics student knows that the Senate gets to ratify or reject treaties made by the president. But sending an open letter to Iran was dead wrong — and politically stupid. It merely gave Democrats — and their media buddies — a chance to change the subject and accuse Republicans of ir- responsibly trying to sabotage the president's foreign policy. What rookie Sen. Tom Cot- ton of Arkansas and his co- signers did with their letter was nothing new. Members of Congress have been trying to score politi- cal points by undercutting the president's treaty-making power for decades. Ted Kennedy did it in the late 1970s when he tried to get the Soviets to do something to embarrass Jimmy Carter so he could take the nomination from Carter in 1980. Kennedy pulled the same slimy trick against Ronald Reagan in 1983, when he sent emissaries to Moscow and offered to obstruct my fa- ther's anti-Soviet foreign pol- icy in Congress if the Krem- lin helped Teddy run for pres- ident in 1984. In 1987 Democrat House Speaker Jim Wright stuck his congressional nose into the ne- gotiations between the Reagan administration and the Sand- inistas in Nicaragua. More recently, who can for- get Nancy Pelosi's jaunt to Syria in 2007, when she and a gang of House Democrats made nice with Bashar al- Assad at the same time the Bush administration was try- ing to put pressure on Syria to work with it on Mideast peace talks? Those 47 Republican sena- tors didn't need to send a pub- lic letter to Teheran to remind the Iranians how America's separation of powers works. What was wrong with Sen. Cotton and a few others writ- ing an op-ed piece about the Senate's treaty-ratifying pow- ers for the Wall Street Journal? I bet the Iranians would have gotten the message just as well. Instead Republicans only brought attention — bad atten- tion — on themselves for do- ing exactly what many of them had rightly criticized Pelosi for doing. Republicans in the Senate should have shut up and let Obama negotiate and sign the treaty with Iran, bad as it is bound to be. Then they could have pointed out to the Iranians and everyone else that the deal needed to be ratified by two-thirds of the U.S. Senate — and that 47 Republicans were strongly against it. The letter was a blunder. Un- til the senators sent it, Iran was exclusively Obama's problem. All the media attention was on the president's defense of his treaty and Netanyahu's concerns about how danger- ous and naive it was. Republicans should be sit- ting pretty right now and the media should be focusing on Obama's and Hillary's prob- lems. But now the Iran nuke deal is not just Obama's issue. It's the Republicans' too. And if anything goes wrong, which it probably will, you can bet that Republicans will — as usual — get most of the blame. MichaelReaganistheson of President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of "The New Rea- gan Revolution" (St. Martin's Press). He is the founder of the email service reagan.com and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Visit his websites at www.reagan.com and www.michaelereagan. com. Send comments to Rea- gan@caglecartoons.com. Fol- low @reaganworld on Twit- ter. Michael Reagan The GOP's stupid letter to Iran Cartoonist's take Reluctantly I agree that the Daily News property on Diamond offers a creditable landing place for the Tehama County Library move. It contains about the same in- terior space as the present facil- ity on Madison, all on one level, and it is near the Shasta College campus. This site is about the same distance, as the crow flies, from what we call the center of Red Bluff at Main and Walnut as compared to the proposed site out near the Community Cen- ter on Kimball. And although the former Kraft Library site is but dog walking distance from town center, when one considers the cost of expanding the Kraft ver- sus the present Daily News build- ing, it seems no question it would be cheaper to acquire the DN property if economy is to reign over the intangible nostalgic value of the Kraft. When it comes to spending tax payers' money, money talks. As to the DN property, the parking in front is inadequate but there is additional parking space in the rear. However, the county would be wise to also pur- chase the contiguous vacant lot to the north for expanded park- ing or other future county activ- ity. Always smart in the real es- tate game to acquire contiguous property. This acquisition would be self-serving on my part, for, in this case, I would gain a commis- sion whereas if I participated in a sale of the Kraft to the county, I would have waived such. OK, Supes, let get this show on the road. Whereas a cursory exam of the Kraft property indi- cates a two story addition to the south and the north would gar- ner sufficient space to equal the present Madison Street site, the DN building is in place and ready for interior renovation. Sigh. ••• Of all the cockamamie ideas — thought to be a Yiddish ex- pression but it's actually from the French — meaning "crazy" or "far out," of course, comes a cheap cure for involuntary leg movement or leg cramps while in bed at night. Just place a fra- grant bar of soap between the sheets in your bed. That's it. I tried it and it works. I kid you not. It is not known just why this gives effective relief, but what I wonder is who thought of it in the first place? And why it must be "highly fragrant" to work? I notice involuntary leg movement in Jazz, our young Bull mastiff, in the evening while we are watch- ing television, but figured he was just chasing cats in his sleep. If we put a bar of soap in his dog bed at night, he might eat it. Bet- ter leave well enough alone. ••• When FHK Developers out of Sacramento purchased the site now known as the Red Bluff Shopping Center, pads were sold to Raley's and Walmart along with a covenant not to compete — that the latter could not sell produce which would be the ex- clusive right of the former's. However, Walmart purchased land to the west, outside of the shopping center domain, and now it is free to get seriously into the grocery business. But Raley's, sensing their monopoly would not last forever, has been pro- moting its brand-name products most assiduously and Walmart may have to rely on more than competitive pricing to get a share of grocery cart. And speaking of carts, let us hope that the new Walmart will service their carts to be easy pushers like Raley's. ••• Sports item in the DN states Patrick Willis, "...arguably the San Francisco 49ers' most dom- inant linebacker is retiring." No, that is not so. Ronnie Lott has earned that sobriquet. The mis- sus has a photo of Mr. Lott on her desk which attests to that fact. How quickly today's writers forget Ronnie's ball fumbling hits of yesteryear. ••• Newly minted Wednesday col- umnist B. Cornelius, aka "Wil- liam Tells," in this very paper, seems to have easily slipped into reader's lives with his views on life within and without The State Theatre. After paying homage to a vintage columnist and his rec- ollections of serials past, he re- counts the transition of the State from a moribund to a lively per- formance venue as illustrated by the coming attraction of the re- constituted Count Basie Orches- tra on Tuesday, the 17th of March. This should be a swinging af- fair. Despite that Bill Basie is long gone, the legacy of the Basie charts lives on. ••• The 100 years ago section of the Daily News reported that a $10,000 suit was filed by Car- roll W. Davis against J.E. Shooke, charging the latter with alien- ation of the former's wife's af- fections. I wonder how one puts a value on alienation of affec- tion and, as Davis and his wife were still living together in Corn- ing, if awarded this sum did Da- vis share it with his wife? If so, it sounds like a cottage industry of infidelity might have been born a hundred years ago. ••• The evening news on the telly, especially ABC, is irritating. In their desperate attempt to gain viewers' attention, everything is described as "breaking news." However, as such, it is often re- hashed news from the previous day with merely text revision. If that were not enough, commer- cials and announcements are often accompanied by drum beats. What are we expected to do, get up and march about? Tsk, tsk. PBS news may be the only alternative. ••• Computer humor A man received the follow- ing text from his neighbor: "I am so sorry Harry. I've been riddled with guilt and I have to confess. I have been helping myself to your wife when you're not around. I do not get it at home, but that's no excuse. I can no longer live with the guilt and I hope you will accept my sincerest apology with my promise that it won't ever happen again." The man, anguished and be- trayed, went into his bedroom and shot himself. A few moments later, a second text came in, "I hate auto-cor- rect, I meant wifi not wife." Computer illiterates should ask the definition of "wifi." Robert Minch is a lifelong res- ident of Red Bluff, former col- umnist for the Corning Daily Observer and Meat Industry magazine and author of the "The Knocking Pen." He can be reached at rminchandmurray@ hotmail.com. I say Dispatch from the Department of Capitulation Any B-plus middle-school civics student knows that the Senate gets to ratify or reject treaties made by the president. But sending an open letter to Iran was dead wrong — and politically stupid. Sounding off A look at what readers are saying in comments on our website and on social media. Thank you to all those involved in bringing the theater back! Amber Gravitt: On Corning's restored Rodgers Theatre reopening March 24 Friday nights at the 'show' was the place to be....a er football season of course! Molly Russ Butson: On Corning's restored Rodgers Theatre reopening March 24. Robert Minch Assemblyman James Galla- gher, 150 Amber Grove Drive, Ste. 154, Chico 95973, 530 895- 4217, http://ad03.asmrc.org/ Senator Jim Nielsen, 2634 Forest Ave., Ste. 110, Chico 95928, 530 879-7424, senator. nielsen@senate.ca.gov Governor Jerry Brown, State Capital Building, Sacramento 95814, 916 445-2841, fax 916 558-3160, governor@governor. ca.gov U.S. Representative Doug La- Malfa, 507 Cannon House Of- fice Building, Washington D.C. 20515, 202 225-3076 U.S. Senator Dianne Fein- stein, One Post St., Ste. 2450, San Francisco 94104, 415 393- 0707, fax 415 393-0710 U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, 1700 Montgomery St., San Fran- cisco 94111, 510 286-8537, fax 202 224-0454 YOUR OFFICIALS OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Friday, March 13, 2015 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A4