Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/521169
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@ redbluffdailynews.com Fax: 530-527-9251 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 Today I am announcing my candidacy for the Republican Party's nomination for President of the United States of America. You might justifiably point out that I—a Democrat—would be an odd choice to lead the Republican ticket. Tothese naysayers,I coun- ter that by adding me to the field, Republicans would have enough candidates to field two complete football teams. This way, Bobby Jindal gets to play, too. If elected, I promise to take the oath of office, put the New York Yankees on the list of Foreign Terrorist Orga- nizations, and then promptly resign. My short list for Vice President so far includes Ori- oles manager Buck Showal- ter, Costco CEO W. Craig Je- nilek, and Joe Biden, any of whom would lead this coun- try with far more experience, wisdom and humor than I or, for that matter, any of the other current Republican candidates. My shortcomings are le- gion. I have little experience relevant to this job that I do not intend to do, and I'm willing to put forth no effort at any point during this cam- paign. But with George Pataki en- tering the race, I realized that I, too, am a largely un- known heterosexual white man in America. Even Bob Ehrlich is thinking about get- ting in. If they can, why not I? I know what you're think- ing. "Who the heck are those guys?" That's my strategy. I'm going to put on a gray suit and a red tie and slip in behind these guys. I'm a middle-aged white guy with short hair. I'll blend into the crowd of candidates long enough for voters to get sick of everyone else. I figure it'll take two months until I'm the frontrunner. Sure, the primary pro- cess will be hard for a liberal Democrat. A sober-minded politician would shudder at the staggering impossibil- ity of winning over the torch- and-pitchfork crowd that controls the primary process, but not being sober is some- thing that will separate me from the field. My opponents will inevi- tably bring up my history of causing Republicans to lose elections. Ask yourself, my fellow Americans, whether this is any different than my friends Rick Santorum and Ehrlich, both of whom got booted out of office all on their own. In my more lucid moments I plan to make the case that there's nothing wrong with the Republican Party that not being Republican can't fix. In fact, it's my Democratic bona fides that could win back the White House for Republi- cans. Shifting demographics, ideologies, and generations are slowly putting the GOP out to pasture. But instead of broadening its appeal, the Republicans have made their party so small and pure that it can't win back the White House. That's where I can help. I already don't agree with most of the stuff they stand for. I represent the voters they need to win over. But that's just a process ar- gument that the pundits can recite on the Sunday morn- ing gab fests to sound smart. What's really going to get me elected is an anti-government stance that will unite this country: Everyone should get to punch their member of Congress in the nose. See? Now you want to vote for me, don't you? Obviously, there would be restrictions: The privilege to sock one's elected repre- sentative in the kisser would be limited to people who ac- tually voted in every single election from president down to Inspector of Hides. And you only get to do it once ev- ery two years. This would in- evitably increase voting par- ticipation and encourage Americans to read the news- papers. And while punching politi- cians might be cruel, it could serve as a deterrent to do- ing the wrongheaded things that have made Congress less popular in opinion polls than North Korea, cockroaches, and lice. True, you'd never get another smart person to run for Congress ever again, but in most cases no one would notice a difference. In conclusion, I promise never to disgrace the Repub- lican Party by acting like a real Republican. All the GOP needs to do to win the White House is to nominate a lib- eral Democrat. Vote for me, and you get to punch Con- gress in the nose. I'd better start working on my victory speech. 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. Jason Stanford My presidential campaign Cartoonist's take There is so much in the global warming/climate change/disruption (or what- ever current iter- ation of "the sky is falling") issue that relies on bo- gus information and data. Scare- mongers and alarmists, absent climatic condi- tions and temper- ature trends that conform to their computer model predic- tions, have reverted to nearly- religious fanaticism: Humans are changing the Earth's cli- mate for the worse; doubt it and you're an idiotic miscre- ant. Their "tell" (poker term for bluffing) is their use of rid- icule, demonization and "just shut the heck up" when asked questions. One illustration of manipu- lation, even fabrication, of sci- entific opinion is the "97 per- cent of scientists agree" theme. Read, "Mr. Obama, 97 percent of experts is a bogus number," by Richard Tol. Basically, the authors cherry-picked between 40 and 60 papers out of almost 13,000; that's 0.5 percent, not 97 percent. We are harangued that consensus on the poten- tial (in their Armageddon-like predictions) to make the planet unsuitable for human exis- tence, supercedes any non-sci- entific minds from entertain- ing doubts. Of course, the list of sup- posedly scientific predictions of similar catastrophes in the age of modern science and ac- ademic institutions extends back about 100 years. In the 1930s, explorers and scientists pronounced the alarming de- cline in Arctic ice as a cause for great concern, not unlike recent alarmism over the de- clining (now resurging) Arc- tic ice sheet. The Arctic ice re- sumed its normal size after the 1930s; it also now appears to be expanding in spite of the dire words of prominent cli- mate warriors like Al Gore, who assured us it would dis- appear (actual statement by Gore: ice-free Arctic by 2013). Who can forget, if you are of a mature age, Paul Erlich's "Population Bomb," a book warning of endlessly over- breeding humans exceeding the capacity of crops, precip- itating vast starvation and death among Earth's popula- tion. Never happened. Erlich actually took up a wager with an economist over the future prices for essential but of- ten rare elements, selected by Erlich. He lost the wager over those elements, due to discov- eries that, in turn, drove down the market prices in every case. Leftist greens don't com- prehend the potential for dis- covery and innovation. Doom and gloom sells, espe- cially when it can be retailed as coming from unquestioned authority, with a message that we must all do (the collectiv- ist streak runs in such folks), or refrain from doing, some activity; or that mandates the elimination of some prod- uct. People have some psycho- logical or emotional need to feel that they possess superior knowledge, knowledge that comes from the highest au- thority. Such authority leads to self-righteous attitudes by the adherents of whatever the current theory of catastrophe portends. That such alarming, threatening events are pre- dicted, rather than occurring in the here and now, obviously requires a willing suspen- sion of disbelief—a faith, if you will, in things not yet seen or observed but rather assured of approaching just beyond the horizon of decades hence. Over 95 percent of all com- puter models have proven to be massively wrong in not predicting the current 19- year stretch without statisti- cally significant global warm- ing. Rather than question the underlying assumption that human-created CO2 (as op- posed to natural variability) is an irreversible driver of ever higher temperatures, the cli- mate alarmists double down on the human greenhouse gas theory—insisting the heat is somehow hiding in the oceans, or wherever. Natural climate variability is universally ac- cepted among (even climate) scientists; those doubting that humans alone are warming the planet accept the fact that Earth's climate does, indeed, change. It's just that, as CO2 rises, there are no actual oc- currences of higher tempera- tures, or an increase in hurri- canes, tornadoes or droughts in an historical sense. I would remind readers that I provided, years ago, the name of a petition signed by tens of thousands of scientists and PhDs disagreeing with the theory that human activ- ity is the primary driver of a warming climate. I looked it up again: www.petitionpro- ject.org. "The purpose of the Petition Project is to demon- strate that the claim of 'settled science' and an overwhelm- ing 'consensus' in favor of the hypothesis of human-caused global warming and conse- quent climatological damage is wrong. "No such consensus or set- tled science exists…It is ev- ident that 31,487 Americans with university degrees in sci- ence—including 9,029 PhDs, are not 'a few'…These scien- tists are instead convinced that the human-caused global warming hypothesis is with- out scientific validity and that government action on the ba- sis of this hypothesis would unnecessarily and counterpro- ductively damage both human prosperity and the natural en- vironment of the Earth." Under the "Summary of Peer-Reviewed Research," a re- view article about the human- caused global warming hy- pothesis is downloadable. In- cluded charts, supported by 132 cited sources, reveal: Fig- ures 1) Medieval Climate Op- timum, as well as the Roman and Minoan Warm periods, were warmer than today, 2) Glacier shortening occurred before, and is unaffected by, hydrocarbon use, 3) and 5) Temperatures have correlated with the sun, not hydrocar- bon use, 4) Since the Little Ice Age, the temperature trend has been 0.5 degree C. per century (DP: hardly alarm- ing), 7) Over the same pe- riod, American rainfall has in- creased 1.8 inches per century, 8) and 9) Tornadoes and hur- ricanes have decreased or re- mained constant, 11) and 12) The rate of sea level increase, about 7 inches per century, has not changed with hydro- carbon use. You are paying more for gas and electricity due to falla- cious data and theories. 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 Data, statistics—bogus and real What's really going to get me elected is an anti- government stance that will unite this country: Everyone should get to punch their member of Congress in the nose. See? Now you want to vote for me, don't you? Sounding off A look at what readers are saying in comments on our website and on social media. They need to decide already. I think this speedy trial is just to make things last longer or to avoid what he can't. Lisa Borysko: On setting of a trial date in the Quentin Ray Bealer murder case. They need to decide what they want. This back and forth about speed of trial is making him look stupid. Sheri R. Borg: On setting of a trial date in the Quentin Ray Bealer murder case. Don Polson StateandNational 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 Local Tehama County Supervisors, 527-4655 District 1, Steve Chamblin, Ext. 3015 District 2, Candy Carlson, Ext. 3014 District 3, Dennis Garton, Ext. 3017 District 4, Bob Williams, Ext. 3018 District 5, Burt Bundy, Ext. 3016 YOUR OFFICIALS OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Tuesday, June 2, 2015 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6