Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/544136
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 Despitehispenchantfor counter-factual pronounce- ments, Ted Cruz is clever, ed- ucated, and aggressively in- tellectual. But he's not stupid, so when he defends Donald Trump for calling Mexican im- migrants rapists, you know he's up to something. Right now, Trump is the frontrunner thanks to dominating the All Caps Vote, a constituency that Cruz wants for his own. With almost as many Re- publican presidential candi- dates as the Duggars have children, Cruz might never find his seat at the big boys' table. That's where Trump comes in, at least for Cruz. While everyone else is trying to get the mouthy billionaire to tone it down, shut up, or get out, Cruz sees Trump develop- ing a market that he can later exploit. No one thinks Trump will last through the fall, when they start caucusing in Iowa and voting in New Hampshire. He'll be long gone by then, leaving Cruz as the natural heir to voters who like to type comments on the Internet in all caps. Cruz has courted the All Caps Vote for a while now un- der the guise of telling the po- litically incorrect truth no matter what those effete elites think. When "Duck Dynasty" star Phil Robertston said rep- rehensible things about homo- sexuality, Cruz leapt to his de- fense, claiming that Robertson had a First Amendment right to say offensive things in a na- tional magazine without pro- fessional repercussions. Keep in mind that Texas used to pay this guy to argue cases before the United States Supreme Court. A refund might be in order. Since Cruz became Texas' very junior senator, he has said so many factually inde- fensible things that it's puz- zling that Trump, and not Cruz, is considered the pariah in polite society. There was the time he tried to "mansplain" the Second Amendment to Diane Fein- stein and ended up misinter- preting the Heller decision. There was also the time he tweeted that net neutrality was "Obamacare for the inter- net," said, "I'll work with Mar- tians" by way of denying his inability to play nice with oth- ers, and claimed his father "in- vented ... green eggs and ham." Oh yeah, he also shut down the government, something he continues to insist he didn't do. The most remarkable thing about this claim is the straight face he maintains while trying to sell it. Cruz has been so willing to debase himself in service of his political career that he ceded the moral high ground to John McCain. When he helped filibuster a nomination, McCain called him a "wacko bird," a slur that Cruz em- braced. "If standing for liberty and standing for the Constitution makes you a wacko bird then I am a very, very proud wacko bird," he said. He's Barry Gold- water for the Twitter age. But despite Cruz's best ef- forts, he isn't getting much traction, polling around 4 per- cent. That puts him at the bot- tom of the top tier that will get into next month's debate in Cleveland. But he's a round- ing error ahead the second tier, putting him just ahead of Carly Fiorina, Rick Perry, and Chris Christie. He's in political no-man's land. Along came Trump, who combined Cruz's talent for hy- perbolic balderdash with re- ality show celebrity and rock- eted to the top of the polls. Cruz must look at Trump and see a guy who is hijacking the All Caps constituency and also headed for a fall. So when Trump took flak for calling Mexican immi- grants rapists, Cruz was the only one to jump to his de- fense in terms that seem suspi- ciously self-congratulatory. "I like Donald Trump. He's bold, he's brash," he said, be- fore congratulating him for "focusing on the need to ad- dress illegal immigration. The Washington cartel doesn't want to address that." Forget for a second that Cruz helped filibuster every attempt to deal with immi- gration reform in Congress. Like always, he's got another agenda. He wants to be Presi- dent, as crazy as that sounds. But first Cruz has to worm his way into the semi-finals of the Republican primary, and the quickest way for him to do this is to be the guy still stand- ing when Trump inevitably blows up. If you're the kind of Republican who likes Trump, you're going to love Cruz. Just you wait. JasonStanfordisaregular contributor to the Austin American-Statesman, a Democratic consultant and a Truman National Security Project partner. You can email him at jason31170@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @ JasStanford. Commentary Trump, Cruz and the All Caps Vote Cartoonist's take But despite Cruz's best efforts, he isn't getting much traction, polling around 4 percent. That puts him at the bottom of the top tier that will get into next month's debate in Cleveland. But he's a rounding error ahead the second tier, putting him just ahead of Carly Fiorina, Rick Perry, and Chris Christie. He's in political no- man's land. Sounding off A look at what readers are saying in comments on our website and on social media. My prayers go out to all involved, families and emergency response personnel. I happened to be driving down just 45 minutes a er it looked horrible never seen so much emergency response to an accident. Sherry Stango: On fatal collision Friday night on State Route 99E near Dairyville. My heart goes out to all involved and their families. As well as to the first responders and medical crew. Nora Nall : On fatal collision Friday night on State Route 99E near Dairyville. Guy Benson and Mary Kath- erine Ham, conservative blog- gers and writers, co-wrote a seminal book on the efforts by lib- erals and progres- sives to shut peo- ple up—to effec- tively stifle free expression. The title goes a long way to summa- rize the content: "End of Discussion: How the Left's Outrage Industry Shuts Down Debate, Manipulates Vot- ers, and Makes America Less Free (and Fun)." I will get the paperback when it's out; on- line, I don't see a chapter head- ing that deals with immigration (the "Voter ID Edition" might) but the leftists' modus operandi would, I assume, be the same. Included on a page of quotes is one from William F. Buckley, Jr.: "Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and of- fended to discover that there are other views." I wrote the above because the Democrat left is waging an endless pro-illegal immigra- tion campaign, which will be, along with the economy and na- tional security, major presiden- tial election issues. They are in lockstep with Emperor Obama's "open borders/minimal depor- tation" policies, which I believe are designed to fill the rolls with reliable Democrat voters. I've already read about a quiet push to get green card hold- ers to become citizens in time for the 2016 elections, to help take back the U.S. Senate and keep the presidency with new, mostly Mexican immigrant, voters. They don't want us talk- ing about any of that. I, for the record, support le- gal immigration that is guided by the needs of American em- ployers who cannot find qual- ified Americans; like a major- ity of Americans, I want em- ployers to raise wages before seeking foreign workers. Like- wise, I want all nations to be considered for potential immi- grants if the education, indus- triousness and employment his- tory among their citizens (vs. reliance on government bene- fits) would improve America's economy and traditional polit- ical values. Our legal immigra- tion includes 30 percent Mexi- cans; that does not meet either of those criteria. That might ex- plode Obama-crat, leftist, polit- ical correctness-addled brains but who says we can't discuss what's best for our country's fu- ture? Following on last week's theme: The vicious and clearly inexcusable murder of Kate Steinle in "sanctuary city" San Francisco, at the hands of a multiple-deportee Mexican il- legal felon has proven inconve- nient for the left in many ways. They insist even now that their intentions are worthy, but liber- als worship at the altar of good intentions. Results, intentional or otherwise, carry far more weight when objectively analyz- ing immigration policies. Enter "san francisco mur- ders of bologna family" in a search box. The top 4 links—2 for sfgate.com, 1 for sanfran- ciscocbslocal.com, and 1 for en.wikipedia.org—provide sim- ilarly shocking, outrageous ac- counts of the 2008 murders of Mr. Bologna and his 2 sons by illegal alien Edwin Ramos, a known murderer and MS-13 gangster. A third son witnessed the cold-blooded mugging and murders; he and many others held the SF sanctuary policy re- sponsible. Then-Mayor Newsom didn't change anything; trag- ically, Kate Heinle died due to the same willfully failed poli- cies. "One of the most horrify- ing crimes within memory oc- curred in Washington, D.C. on May 13 and 14. A man named Darron Wint broke into a home…owned by a business- man named Savvas Savopou- loos. Wint held Savopoulos, his wife Amy, their 10-year-old son Philip, and their housekeeper, Veralicia Figueroa, captive for around 20 hours while he tor- mented and tortured them and arranged for a futile ransom to be paid, apparently with the aid of one or more accomplices." Look up "What happens when you don't enforce the immi- gration laws," by John Hinder- aker, Powerlineblog.com, June 6 (searchable at Powerlineblog. com, and posted June 21 at don- polson.blogspot.com). You must read (if you can handle the stomach-churn- ing details) first, the torture in- flicted on that family and their housekeeper, after which Wint set fire to their mansion. Sec- ond, equally as angering, was the failure of every aspect of our "system" to remove this un- desirable alien (aka, vile hu- man refuse) from among Amer- ica's citizens and, in the case of Mr. Savopoulos and their house- keeper, our legal immigrants. Wint had dozens of serious and minor charges, restrain- ing orders, threats of violence, and arrests for assaulting his girlfriend, stabbing a man, bur- glary, theft, vandalism and bringing a machete to work. He should have been deported to his native Guyana years before capping his life of crime with mass murder. However, Mint held a "green card" (aka "legal permanent resident" or LPR) that, you should know, is not a free ride to stay here no matter what. The LPR, rightly, can be sent home at any time; however, ex- ecutive laxity (meaning immi- gration bureaucrats), with im- migration-lawyer complicity, thwarts the law. That prompted Congress, in 1996, to require deportation of LPRs for a wider variety of crimes. "The Obama administra- tion has refused to consider even illegal aliens for deporta- tion until blood has been shed, let alone legal ones…only about 3 percent of ICE detainer re- quests in recent years have been for LPRs" (Mark Kriko- rian). Essentially, if you came here legally, under our irratio- nal chain immigration regime, there is zero chance that you will ever be kicked out. Look up: "ICE failed to de- port 121 convicts now facing murder charges"; "Most ille- gal immigrants from border surge skipped court date af- ter release, records show"; "Il- legal immigrants accounted for nearly 37 percent of federal sen- tences in FY 2014"; "Border re- ports back up Trump's 'rapists' claims" (search all by title). 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 Can we even talk about it? Don Polson StateandNational Assemblyman James Galla- gher, 2060 Talbert Drive, Ste. 110, Chico 95928, 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 Tuesday, July 21, 2015 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6