Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/581854
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 At least they're not pre- tending anymore. The Benghazi Select Com- mittee is nothing more than a taxpayer funded opposi- tion research group deter- mined to stop Hillary Clin- ton from becoming presi- dent. Investigating the attack on our consulate in Benghazi might have started as a way to show that Barack Obama was weak on national secu- rity, but after seven inves- tigations and 13 hearings, Benghazi has become Hill- ary Clinton's Whitewater. Until McCarthy's gaffe, however, congressional lead- ers did a good job of pre- tending the Benghazi Select Committee, which has spent $4.5 million over 72 months, was seeking the truth about Benghazi. Now, that's impos- sible. What happened was that Fox's Sean Hannity was pressing McCarthy for a sin- gle reason why Republican voters should not feel be- trayed by their congressional leaders. McCarthy flailed. He offered up the 50 votes to repeal Obamacare. Hannity scoffed. McCarthy men- tioned the shrinking defi- cit. Hannity talked over him, which in retrospect might have been a blessing. Finally McCarthy found an accomplishment that passed muster with Hannity: "Everybody thought Hill- ary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she's untrustable," said McCarthy. "I agree," said Hannity. "That's something good. I'll give you credit." It's easy to forget that the email scandal is a byprod- uct of Benghazi, which was the first attack on our coun- try that instantly became grounds not for unity but for partisan politics. The speed at which Mitt Romney blamed Obama for the Benghazi attack was shocking. He appeared so suddenly before the press that night on September 11, 2012, that he didn't even take the time to straighten his hair. Romney was so quick to seek political advantage from an attack on an Amer- ican consulate that not only did he not wait until the bodies were buried but he didn't even wait until they were counted. Partisan pol- itics went well beyond the water's edge that day. Obama won, but Beng- hazi lives on. The Benghazi Select Committee has de- volved into a naked attempt to bring down Hillary Clin- ton. The Select Committee has not yet held a hearing with anyone from the De- fense Department, but has questioned eight current or former members of the Clin- ton campaign. The Select Committee isn't trying hard to hide what it's up to, but it's a model of dis- cretion compared to the Re- publican Party. In 2014, the GOP's congressional arm put up a fundraising web- page to "hold Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama account- able for their actions." Rep. Trey Gowdy, the chairman of the Select Committee, com- plained at the time, but the website only came down last week when the Clinton cam- paign pointed out that they were still raising money off Benghazi. The last time we went through all of this was late in Bill Clinton's second term, when congressional Repub- licans investigated Bill Clin- ton for an old real estate deal but impeached him for lying to a special prosecutor about cheating on his wife. What the Republicans could not do at the ballot box they attempted to do by perverting the legal process, turning politics into prose- cution. Now here we are again. Republicans are not even waiting for Hillary to win before ginning up a politi- cal prosecution. And they've long since lost interest in parsing the details about what happened in Benghazi. This is Whitewater, except with emails. The Select Committee has been meeting for 72 months, making it the longest con- gressional investigation ever, longer than congressio- nal probes into Watergate, 9/11, Pearl Harbor, and the Kennedy assassination. The beatings will continue until polling improves. The problem isn't the Clin- tons. The real scandal is that Republicans are so outraged that they can't beat them that they'll do anything to stop them, and they're only too happy to use your tax dollars to fund their politi- cal operation. If there's a grownup left at the Republican National Committee, it's time to give the Benghazi Select Commit- tee a stand down order. Jig's up, fellas. Jason Stanford is a regular 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 Benghazi Select committee should stand down Cartoonist's take Well, our hectoring lecturer- in-chief, Emperor Obama, couldn't wait for the bodies to cool or the blood to dry before po- liticizing the lat- est mass-murder- ing rampage in Roseburg, Oregon last Friday. The murderer had a black mother and had never been victimized for his mixed race background. Without racist, white cops—"acting stupidly"— or a "white Hispanic" neighbor- hood watchman, Obama was left with…guns. It must be emphasized that the most proximate, relevant contributing factor to the car- nage was the lunacy of "gun free zones." Muslim haters-of- American-military chose a "gun free" strip mall recruiting store- front in Tennessee, and un- armed Army soldiers at Fort Hood. Theater shooters seek out "gun free" venues for their massacres. This truism bears repeating: when seconds count, the police are only minutes away (6 min- utes, in the Umpqua Commu- nity College, UCC, case on Fri- day). Among recent changes in gun laws tabulated in an article I saw, Texas was the only state to pass state-level legislation prohibiting any educational fa- cility from denying law abid- ing gun owners their rights on school property. That's very rel- evant to school shootings when you consider that, among the teachers, administrators, em- ployees and (at colleges and universities) adult students, there will normally be for- mer military, off-duty law en- forcement or ordinary citizens possessed of CCW (concealed carry) permits—and trained in the use of their weapons. We already know that he- roes dwell, walk and—in the case of learning facilities— sit in classrooms and walk the campuses among us. As a teacher, who had survived the Nazis, proved back east, some will selflessly throw their bod- ies at such murderous nuts; in Roseburg, a former soldier took a number of bullets as he threw his body at the gunman. That teacher died; the for- mer soldier lived. There would surely be dozens among UCC's 20,000 full and part time stu- dents who could reliably and responsibly carry their own weapons for safety. Oregon, rather than follow- ing Texas' example, was the only state to pass a law fur- ther restricting law abiding, gun-owning citizens. They now impose one of the liber- als' favorite knee-jerk cure-alls for gun violence: "universal background checks" applying to all exchanges, even among family members and gun shows. Remember, the Rose- burg murderer acquired his short and long guns legally, not having a criminal record or an adjudicated mental con- dition. Even the guns he ac- quired from a family member would not have been prohib- ited under that Oregon law for the same reasons. However, one girl is alive be- cause of her premonition, her sense of dread prompting her to not attend class at UCC last Friday. There simply is no con- stitutional, common sense ra- tionale for law-abiding citizens to be denied their God-given right to self-defense in any pub- lic space. Suppose a young law-abid- ing person, with gun training, had a premonition of trouble on campus that day. A relative who legally owned a hand gun could not, under the new Or- egon law, loan them a gun for the purpose of self-protection— not at Umpqua Community Col- lege, nor at their workplace, nor in their travels should a former boy or girl friend be stalking them with malintent. The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with an armed good guy. Given the now-verified tar- geting of self-professed Chris- tians by the killer, "Will Rose- burg Prompt a 'National Con- versation' on Anti-Christian Bigotry?" by David French, raises essential issues. At the drop of a hat, the usual ide- ological buffoons, including Obama, decry racially moti- vated attacks (meaning, of course, black victims of white cops, not of other black gun- men). Media and political left- ists are cocked and loaded (so to speak) to cry "Islamophobia" when Muslims are questioned; the Democrats' phony "war on women" lives on. Regarding our hypocrite- and-liar-in-chief, Obama mis- represented polls on gun con- trol; he lied about the positions of 2nd Amendment/gun rights supporters; he endlessly con- flates gun laws complied with by lawful citizens with those same laws flouted and ignored by criminals. He completely misstated the results of gun-confiscation in Australia (the same leftists that tell us we can't deport 11 mil- lion illegal aliens now shame- lessly advocate confiscating 300 million guns). For insight, read "Australia's 1996 Gun Con- fiscation Didn't Work—And it Wouldn't Work in America," by Mark Antonio Wright. Neither "firearm suicides," "non-fire- arm suicides," nor "firearm ho- micide" rates have reflected the gun-seizing tactic of Austra- lia's law. Obama's despicable phoni- ness is revealed in "Obama: Never Let a Mass Shooting go to Waste!" "Obama and Guns: Then and Now," and "Politicize This" (searchable by title and posted at DonPolson.blogspot. com under "gun rights"). We are apparently supposed to forget Obama's 2008 insis- tence that he "will not take your shotgun…rifle…or hand- gun away." We were liars to say "He wants to take your guns away." Well, my lying eyes and ears witnessed Obama prais- ing confiscation in "Great Brit- ain and Australia" which have "been able to craft laws that almost eliminate mass shoot- ings." Yes, Obama, you want— by your own words—to take our guns away! "So when he says it's okay to 'politicize' these tragedies, he means it in full. When Obama engages in politics, he distorts the truth, demonizes his op- ponents, and seeks any other weapon that may be near to hand. He does this because he sees politics not as a realm for compromise, but the means by which he achieves what he wants, because what he wants is the only right and just thing." (NationalReview.com) 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 Gun sense, nonsense, lying liars Regarding our hypocrite-and-liar- in-chief, Obama misrepresented polls on gun control; he lied about the positions of 2nd Amendment/gun rights supporters; he endlessly conflates gun laws complied with by lawful citizens with those same laws flouted and ignored by criminals. He completely misstated the results of gun- confiscation in Australia (the same leftists that tell us we can't deport 11 million illegal aliens now shamelessly advocate confiscating 300 million guns). 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 Don Polson OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Tuesday, October 6, 2015 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6