Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/535098
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 By Jason Stanford Perhapsthemostdangerous problem posed by Republican control of Congress is more Texans are put in charge of things that we'd be better off having responsible adults do. The latest example is Rep. Mac Thornberry, the chair- man of the House Armed Ser- vices Committee, who has hit upon a particularly dangerous idea: He thinks we need a new kind of nuclear weapon that we are more likely to use. This is an idea only a raving mad- man or a Texas congressman could love. First, a little perspec- tive: We're already budget- ing around $1 trillion to up- date our nuclear arsenal. Apparently nukes have expira- tion dates, so keeping the old weapons around risks nuking ourselves. And even though the Cold War is over and only a few nuclear weapons would provide an adequate deter- rence, we've apparently de- cided that we need to replace all the 4,800 or so weapons. If this makes no sense to you, welcome to Washington. To Thornberry, though, this is not enough. He notes that Russia is building 40 new nu- clear missiles—keep in mind, we have 4,800 nuclear weap- ons—and thinks that Russia's action demands an equal and opposite American satisfac- tion. This is the kind of reflex- ive overreaction that makes one want to play poker with Congressman Thornberry. Worse yet, Thornberry fan- cies himself a thinker, but he's the kind of half-smart guy who makes everything more dangerous. He's worried that our bombs are too big—imag- ine 100 Hiroshimas—and that if Putin launched one of his sleek new missiles that we would "self-deter," not want- ing to annihilate Russians. If you are prone to migraines, I would not recommend reading further. What Thornberry thinks we need are smaller nuclear weapons—imagine one the size that we dropped on Hi- roshima—that we would be more likely to use. By mak- ing nuclear war more likely to happen, he reasons, we would intimidate Vladimir Putin from invading any more coun- tries, thus making nuclear war less likely to happen. This probably sounded smarter in his head. Forget for a second that our nuclear deterrence did noth- ing to deter Russia from in- vading Ukraine and launch- ing a cyber attack on Georgia. We're talking about a regime that very likely blew up Mos- cow apartment buildings in September 1999 and blamed it on Muslim terrorists to justify the war in Chechnya. Rus- sians don't think like we do, but then neither does Thorn- berry. It would probably be rude to point out that the Pantex plant, our country's only nu- clear weapons factory, is lo- cated in Thornberry's con- gressional district in the Texas panhandle. Maybe he's cynically putting the paro- chial interests of his district ahead of our national secu- rity, risking nuclear Arma- geddon to win a few more jobs for his constituents. More likely, Pantex is his hammer, and as a pro-hammer kinda guy, Thornberry sees Russia as a nail. If Thornberry didn't have nuclear tunnel vision, he might be able to see that our strategy in Russia seems to be working. Thanks to both fall- ing oil prices and economic sanctions imposed by the United States and our Euro- pean allies, the Russian econ- omy has been shrinking for five straight months. And lest Vladimir Putin not get the message that he is cor- nered, Defense Secretary Ash Carter is sending military equipment to Estonia, Lithua- nia, Latvia, Romania, Poland and Germany. We're even sending Bulgaria 155 Marines plus four Abrams main battle tanks, six light armored vehi- cles and three howitzers. Our Navy is a regular presence in the Baltic Sea now. We have military installations in most former Soviet countries. In other words, we've got him surrounded. The pros- pect of a land war in Eastern Europe during a prolonged recession is a heck of a de- terrent for Putin. And lest we forget, we also have al- most 5,000 nuclear weapons pointed at Russia. Thornberry has said, "We face more complex national security challenges today," but our challenge with Rus- sia isn't that complicated. The U.S. and our allies have Russia surrounded, econom- ically and militarily. Ignore the growling. The bear is in a cage. We shouldn't borrow money we don't have to build weapons we don't need for a Cold War that ended a gener- ation ago. This is a weapons-grade bad idea, even for a Texas Re- publican. 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. Commentary Aweapons- grade bad idea Cartoonist's take By making nuclear war more likely to happen, he reasons, we would intimidate Vladimir Putin from invading any more countries, thus making nuclear war less likely to happen. This probably sounded smarter in his head. Sounding off A look at what readers are saying in comments on our website and on social media. So awesome for Wilcox Oaks to honor this great man. An Honorary Lifetime Member will continue to grace our golf club forever. Tim Kuhn: On Friday's tribute to and roast of former athlete and coach Doug Sale As I said before, it could not have happened to a more kind human being or more deserving person. You are one of the huge reasons why I am proud to say I work for the city of Red Bluff. Congratulations Scott. Dawn Arnett: Scott Spangler receiving the Amercian Legion Firefighter of the Year award Many of you have received the so-called "Fire Tax" assess- ment in the mail. This resulted from an argu- ably illegal impo- sition of a "fee" on rural property owners for Cal Fire services. To- night, State Board of Equalization member Jim Dahl will be the guest speaker at the Tehama County Tea Party Patriots to provide an update on that situation. As the Supreme Court ren- dered its decisions, many as- pects and perspectives can be easily lost on we, the "citizens," lacking legal, constitutional so- phistication. The decisions on the Patient Protection and Af- fordable Care Act (ACA or Obamacare, for short) and same sex marriage (also SSM or gay marriage) are far from the sim- plified themes found in news media coverage. Soon after the decisions posted online, a multitude of opinion sources and links soon followed. The networks pro- vided the least useful coverage of all, primarily cheerleading the circus-like parade of cele- brating winners and advocates, with little analysis. I'm sure ca- ble coverage followed form— Fox News being right-of-center, CNN being left-of-center and MSNBC (appropriate new home for former NBC anchor and se- rial fabulist, Brian Williams) occupying the left wing fringe. Conservative talk radio pro- vided a surprising array of opinions, as the essence of con- servatism is the value accorded individual thought. The most informed and illuminating per- spectives are found at National Review Online (nationalreview. com), Powerlineblog.com, The Weekly Standard (weeklystan- dard.com) and Realclearpoli- tics.com. I found both decisions to bor- der on preposterous. Widely circulated recordings of Jona- thon Gruber, the ACA architect (a role first denied, now con- firmed), revealed that Obam- acare was formulated with in- centives to place the maximum pressure on states to cre- ate their own Obamacare ex- changes. The law repeatedly differentiates "the state" from the federal government, its bu- reaucracy, IRS or HHS; the lat- ter have no exchange-creat- ing permission. Gay marriage is a concept so utterly devoid of constitutional, historical or cul- tural rationalization that only intellectuals (or black-robed lawyers) could create a "right" out of legal thin air. Here are some cogent, in- sightful bits of commentary (see donpolson.blogspot.com, "gay marriage" or "health care system," links for many recent pieces): "In the matter of the so- called Affordable Care Act, the Supreme Court ruled that the law must not say what it in fact does say because it would be better if it were not to say what it says and were to say some- thing else instead. In the mat- ter of same-sex marriage, the Supreme Court rules that the law must say what it does not say because it would be bet- ter if it were to say what it does not say instead of what it says (Italics in original)…It does not matter what the law says or does not say—what matters is what they (the majority of jus- tices)) want… "The legendary constitu- tional scholar Barack Obama failed to notice, until the day before yesterday, that the Con- stitution mandates the legaliza- tion of homosexual marriage from sea to shining sea…(how- ever) the Constitution does not say one word about marriage, much less about the state-level codification of homosexual cou- plings being a fundamental fed- eral right…It is not there. It is a fiction…" (Kevin D. Williamson, nationalreview.com) "From Justice Scalia's dis- sent" (searchable by title at Powerlineblog.com), in the gay marriage case, we find pro- found insights. Stating, "today's decree is not of immense per- sonal importance to me. The law can recognize as marriage whatever sexual attachments and living arrangements it wishes" together with civil, tax and inheritance consequences… such consequences have possi- ble adverse social effects, "but no more adverse than the ef- fects of many other controver- sial laws. "So it is not of special impor- tance to me what the law says about marriage. It is of over- whelming importance, however, who it is that rules me. Today's decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Ameri- cans coast-to-coast, is a major- ity of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court. The opinion in these cases is the furthest ex- tension in fact—and the fur- thest extension one can even imagine—of the Court's claimed power to create 'liberties' that the Constitution and its Amendments neglect to men- tion. This practice of constitu- tional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always ac- companied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most im- portant liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Indepen- dence and won in the Revolu- tion of 1776: the freedom to gov- ern themselves." In "Judicial Activism from the Court on Marriage: Here's How to Respond," (searchable at nationalreview.com), Ryan T. Anderson adamantly urges re- storing the constitutional au- thority to make marriage pol- icy by citizens and elected offi- cials, reflecting the truth about marriage. "We the People must explain what marriage is, why mar- riage matters, and why rede- fining marriage is bad for soci- ety. For marriage policy to serve the common good, it must re- flect the truth that marriage unites a man and a woman as husband and wife so that chil- dren will have both a mother and a father. Marriage is based on 1) the anthropological truth that men and woman are dis- tinct and complementary, 2) the biological fact that reproduc- tion depends on a man and a woman, and 3) the social reality that children deserve a mother and a father…Marriage isn't just a private affair; marriage is a matter of public policy, be- cause marriage is society's best way to ensure the well-being of children." That says it all for me, 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 Our one-judge marriage tyranny 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 Red Bluff City Manager, Rich- ard Crabtree, 527-2605, Ext. 3061 YOUR OFFICIALS OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Tuesday, June 30, 2015 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6