Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/552518
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 Did you catch President Obama's sales speech for his Iranian nuclear deal at Amer- ican University? My head is still spinning and I think I did something to my back trying to follow the president's arguments on Wednesday a er- noon. Basically,thepresidentsaid if Congress doesn't approve the treaty that he, John Kerry and his State Department soft- ball team made with the aya- tollahs, three bad things are gonna happen. Iran will develop nuclear weapons in a hurry. There will be a new war in the Middle East. And the United States will lose its credibility as the global leader of diplomacy. You can argue that the same three bad things will hap- pen, or are already happening, whether or not we sign the Iranian nuclear deal, but let's not go there. Obama pulled out all the stops trying to persuade ev- eryone that his bad deal is not only a good deal, it's the best deal with Iran we can ever hope to get. He ended his sales pitch by asking Americans to contact their representatives in Wash- ington to urge them to ap- prove the Iranian deal. He said two years of negotia- tions "have achieved a detailed arrangement that permanently prohibits Iran from obtain- ing a nuclear weapon" and con- tains "the most comprehensive inspection and verification re- gime ever negotiated to moni- tor a nuclear program." Republicans in the Senate and a few Democrats beg to dif- fer with the president and his self-congratulatory BS. They'd prefer to study the details of the deal — and maybe improve them — before they sign it. They also want to make sure the smiling Iranian despots in Tehran realize that we have this thing called a Constitution and no treaty Obama and his team whips up can become law until the Senate ratifies it. The president appeared at American University in Wash- ington because that's where John Kennedy gave his "Strat- egy of Peace" speech in 1963. JFK called for the U.S. and the Soviets to seek peaceful so- lutions to the Cold War, which Obama noted was how it ulti- mately ended. Obama praised Kennedy and Ronald Reagan and quoted them about the importance of seeking peace and the avoid- ance of war through diplomacy. He forgot to mention that Kennedy and Reagan also backed up their hard diplomacy with big military sticks and a willingness to swing them. Sometimes diplomacy – which Obama acts likes he in- vented in 2008 – has to take a backseat to a military solution. In his speech Obama didn't quote Prime Minister Benja- min Netanyahu, though he did point out that Israel's leader strongly disagrees with the Iranian deal. That's an understatement. As Netanyahu has said, "The nuclear deal with Iran doesn't block Iran's path to the bomb. It actually paves Iran's path to the bomb." The deal won't bring peace or security for Israel or anyone else, Netanyahu said. It will "spark a nuclear arms race in the region. And it would feed Iran's terrorism and aggression that would make war, perhaps the most horrific war of all, far more likely." President Obama expressed his deep respect for Netan- yahu, then said he was wrong to be against the deal. Obama also expressed his love for Israel. Saying he'll al- ways see to it that America de- fends our loyal ally, he insisted the deal he has crafted is "in America's interests and Israel's interests." Deal or no deal, in the long run everyone knows Iran is as untrustworthy as any nation on the planet. Its leaders are responsible for destabilizing half the coun- tries in the Middle East and they've not even pretended to renounce their intentions to destroy the state of Israel. On Wednesday Obama boasted that his nuclear deal with Iran could become one of our country's greatest diplo- matic feats. Let's hope not. MichaelReaganisthesonof President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant and the author of "The New Reagan Revolution" (St. Martin's Press). He is the president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. He can be reached at Reagan@ caglecartoons.com. Follow @ reaganworld on Twitter. Michael Reagan No sale on Iran nuclear deal, Mr. Obama Cartoonist's take In Arthur Miller's play "Death of a Salesman," the pa- triarch of the family remarks to his wife that as soon as the fi- nal payment for the refrigerator was made, the machine broke down and they had to buy a new one. Some would categorize this as "planned obsolesce." In this case, not obsolete but neverthe- less needing replacement. We have a much used coiled telephone cord, and despite how I let the receiver hang and unwind, the coil eventually re- fuses to return to its assigned position and I have to trot down to Staples for a replace- ment. The cord is cheap com- pared to other things we buy at Staples. Laptops, printers, copy machines, you name it, but I overheard a salesperson tell- ing a customer that companies dealing in the above mentioned machines, design them to wear out or break down, often within two or three years. There is no proof of this, of course, but manufacturers are able to pro- vide components cheaply that customers can initially afford, but perhaps make their money on replacements. They do of- fer contracts of guarantee of the product for a period of time, but so far we have failed to pay the additional monies for same. However, this may be the only way to thwart the Willie Loman syndrome. Tsk, tsk. ••• J and M Mcallister inquired about the old concrete bridges in Antelope (dated 1915) and the causeways across the sand sloughs in the old days. I was fortunate to have recollections backed up by old aerial pho- tos of the Antelope approach to the Sacramento River bridge, which reminded me that early one morning, while as a kid liv- ing with my folks and sister at 635 Rio Street, I looked out our large front window and saw to my horror that a large portion of the river bridge had given way and toppled into the river. Eventually a newer bridge was constructed just south of the original, but how Antelope Bou- levard and the various slough bridges hooked up to the new bridge took some study. Perhaps there are those more versed in highway lore that could shed light on the section that goes west from the two 1915 bridges. Today's road con- tinues in the proper direction for linkage and then becomes obscure. ••• Humor in professional base- ball: The commentators for the S.F. Giants, Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow, often pro- vide droll humor. In Tuesday night's game against the At- lanta Braves, there was an in- cident when the Brave's fielder Eury Perez was in position to catch a towering fly ball by one of our boys. He appeared to have caught the ball and raised his glove high above his head to show the world, or at least his home team, what a splendid catch he had made. However, when he lowered his mitt he was obviously disappointed to note the ball was missing as the camera showed it slowly roll- ing away from his non-catch. It was then that Mike shouted in behalf of Eury Perez, " I got it! I got it! I'm the man! Check me out folks!" This became a mo- ment of grandstanding gone awry. Baseball filberts might maintain that Perez faked catching the ball to freeze the base runners, but the look on his face when he peered down into his empty glove, suggested otherwise. ••• Good news for diabetes suf- fers, but a little late for our daughter Madalyn who suc- cumbed to the disease after a 50-year battle. But whereas she had to endure the punc- turing of herself repeatedly over the years to determine her blood glucose levels, research- ers today are finding less in- vasive ways via light, lasers and fiber optics. They have dis- covered that compounds like glucose absorb wave lengths of infrared light, for instance, and are therefore using lasers to read them. A team at Prince- ton found a way to shine beams on people's palms to get a rela- tively accurate reading of their blood-glucose levels, which could eventually spare diabetic patients frequent finger prick- ing. This is good news for me personally. A doctor friend, learning of my daughter's diabetes, my fa- ther's as an adult diabetic later in his life, and his mother dy- ing of the disease in his arms on the way to San Francisco in search of insulin, suggested I get tested for it by having a blood panel drawn and then do- ing self-testing at home for a couple of weeks. So far, so good, but I can testify that typing fin- ger tips get sore and not hav- ing to do this type of testing again would be fine and dandy with me. ••• Jean Barton wrote recently of visiting Greeley, Colorado. This rang a bell with this one-time meat packer. In the 1960s we had competi- tion from Swift, Wilson and Cu- dahy meat packers in the mid- west and out here on the coast as well. However, an upstart in Greeley was starting to make the name Monfort, if not a household word, then certainly a kill floor topic of conversation. Anyhow, new in the saddle run- ning Minch's Wholesale Meats in our fair city, I journeyed to Greeley to a newly minted plant and met with owner Ken Mon- fort. In addition to touring the plant and observing his on-the- rail-processing, which we soon installed in our plant, I quizzed him about cattle prices, told him we had many cattle on feed for delivery that fall and I was uneasy about the market. He assured me that having a large inventory of fat cattle was pre- scient and advised me to con- tract for more. We went home and told our cattle buyers to add on. Alas, cattle prices soon plummeted causing me — and our banker Jim Froome, Jr. — great con- cern. However, we recovered and made a bundle the follow- ing year. ••• Doctor: "I have good news and bad news. Your test show you are in good health and free of cancer." Patient: "And the bad news?" Doctor: "Donald Trump is leading in the Republican polls." Robert Minch is a lifelong resident of Red Bluff, former columnist 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 Built to be replaced, not to last Sounding off A look at what readers are saying in comments on our website and on social media. Our air today is smoky. We are about 2hours from all fires and our air is this bad, I can't imagine how everyone right there feels. Ashley Matlock-Kester: On Thursday's smoky conditions due to regional wildfires. I wonder. If it's in an accident, is the resultant damage fixed with peanut butter? Karen Roske Ritchie: On the visit to Red Bluff this week of Planters NUTmobile. 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 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 Corning City Manager, John Brewer, 824-7033 Your officials Robert Minch Obama pulled out all the stops trying to persuade everyone that his bad deal is not only a good deal, it's the best deal with Iran we can ever hope to get. 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