Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/590544
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 MaybeJoetookmyadvice. I told a friend of the VP's re- cently that he should not run for president in 2016 but in- stead should leave the political stage as an elder statesman. No matter why Biden re- ally decided to let Hillary Clin- ton have the Democrats' pres- idential nomination without a fight, it's great news for the GOP. At least it should be. In an ordinary election season, the GOP should be thrilled to pieces at the chance to duke it out with Hillary and the U-Haul load of dirty old political baggage she and her husband are always dragging around with them. But this is no ordinary sea- son. It's the upside-down sea- son of Donald Trump. What Trump has done to hurt the GOP's chances so far is enough to make a conspira- torialist think Hillary and Bill paid him to run as a Repub- lican. But I forgot. Trump is so rich no one has enough loot to buy him off, not even Bill and Hillary. What Trump is doing to the GOP continues to amaze me. It's bad enough he has in- fected what's left of the party's conservative brand with his Democrat-lite ideas. But one-by-one he's been biting his fellow Republi- cans like a liberal attack dog — even ones he's not running against. As part of his nonstop bul- lying of Jeb Bush, Trump tried to make it seem Jeb's big brother George W. was some- how responsible for the 9/11 attack on America. It was a cheap shot that knocked Jeb off his message — a message no one is hearing anyway — and forced him to defend his brother. Democrats have been un- fairly blaming George W. for 9/11 — and everything else that's gone wrong in the world — for eight years. So now Trump piles on? GW could have done noth- ing to stop the attack, which occurred just nine months af- ter he replaced Bill Clinton in the White House. People like Trump forget that in 2001 the U.S. Senate wouldn't allow GW to appoint a new CIA director or appoint other people he needed who could have given him better intelligence information. On top of Trump's stupid 9-11 statement, Dr. Ben Carson came out with an even dumber one. The GOP's Mister Rogers candidate said he would have brought Osama Bin Laden to justice in two weeks without going to war in Afghanistan. He said he simply would have told the Saudis we were going to become oil indepen- dent. That threat to their bot- tom line, he said, would have caused the Saudi's to rush out and capture Osama and turn him over to us. These are the two top-tier Republican people trying to become President of the U.S.? Trump and Carson may say things in the primary that some want to hear. But the most important question is, "Can they actually do what you want them to do if they win?" To be a successful president, even a conservative one, in the real world you have to work with members of Congress, not call them names. Trump will never be able to work with anyone in Congress — on ei- ther side. The GOP desperately needs to save itself from being Trumped. With Hillary and her heavy baggage as the competition, Republicans and conserva- tives have been handed a great chance to win in 2016. But they also have a great chance to absolutely blow win- ning 2016 if they don't stop Trump, who could cinch the nomination as early as next march on Super Tuesday. Despite its dysfunction, the GOP still has time to derail the Trump Express. It has a deep bench of conservative politi- cians and leaders from around the country. But if they're going to beat Hillary and prevent the GOP from becoming the next Whig Party, Republicans have to unite behind someone like Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, John Ka- sich or Chris Christie. They have to choose wisely — and they better do it fast. MichaelReaganisthesonof President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of "The New Reagan Revolution" (St. Martin's Press). Send comments to Reagan@caglecartoons.com. Follow @reaganworld on Twitter. Michael Reagan It's time for Republicans to choose Cartoonist's take I just uncovered a religious tract that Grandmother Es- sie Alford sent me years ago ti- tled "The Secret Place," which con- tained the follow- ing line: "He al- ways spoke with such supreme au- thority that men recognized his word as final. When he said 'I say,' men knew he was right." I wonder if my father used this phase to head up his column for the same reason… to be as- sertive and authoritative, or merely as I do, to mean, "this is the way I see it?" ••• Here is a most succinct anal- ysis of the Middle East and our position in it. It is by one Au- brey Bailey and it certainly clears the air. "Are you confused by what is going on? Let me explain. We support the Iraqi government in the fight against Islamic State. We don't like IS, but IS is supported by Saudi Arabia, whom we do like. We don't like President Assad in Syria. We support the fight against him, but not IS, which is also fight- ing against him. We don't like Iran, but Iran supports the Iraqi government against IS. So some of our friends support our enemies and some of our enemies are our friends and some of our enemies are fight- ing against our other enemies, whom we want to lose, but we don't want our enemies who are fighting our enemies to win. If the people we want to defeat are defeated, they might be replaced by people we like even less. And all of this was started by us invading a coun- try to drive out terrorists who weren't actually there until we went in to drive them out." ••• As the National Rifle Asso- ciation, and other advocates of no gun control, are in their usual denial mode every time this country experiences an- other mass shooting, I urge let- ters to the editor writers to add their two cents worth. One such is Ian Miroff of Oakland to the SF Chron. A portion of his letter reads, "The debate boils down to between competing moral positions. One is that of law- abiding gun owners who be- lieve the 2nd Amendment gives them the unfettered right to bear arms. That they are legally entitled to defend themselves from predators, criminals, and a government they cannot trust. On the other side are those such as myself who feel we have the right to attend church, mov- ies, schools and public events without the ever-present fear of being shot. In a country with so many guns and easy ac- cess to them, this fear has be- come overwhelming. When has it ever been the case that in the name of the greater pub- lic good, human decency and safety that some group has not had to give up what they pre- viously considered to be 'God- given rights?' When will we ac- cept that guns are no differ- ent?" Right. Let's start with a NRA compromise that assault rifles are banned from private own- ership and that hand gun sales are monitored in such a fash- ion they do not fall into unsta- ble hands. ••• Speaking of denial, the Asso- ciated Press is running a story that states that Francis, our new (and favorite) Pope, has a small but treatable brain tumor. The Vatican denies the story but, according to the AP, the Pope travelled by helicopter to a clinic near Pisa to see a Japa- nese brain specialist. This infor- mation is alarming in the sense that people with brain tumors occasionally act in erratic be- havior, and we would not want anyone to question Pope Fran- cis's recent comments on same sex marriage, divorce or the many other clarifications he has brought to the much needed re- form of the Catholic Church. ••• Now I've heard of everything. A company called JBG offers a van titled "Dwell Direct," which has expanded into the realm of real estate sales. It is furnished with a 60-inch TV screen. Therefore prospective home buyers no longer have to find and enter a grubby real estate office in order to find the home of their dreams — not that we have grubby real estate offices in our fair city. Perhaps the day will come when a broker just has a van instead of a perma- nent office location and can go about neighborhoods with a bell ringing. Little kids can get an ice cream cone while their folks ogle a big screen loaded with homes for sale. ••• And now to add to the dan- ger of Donald Trump becoming the Republican candidate for President, is the prediction in a NASA study that indicates there is a 99 percent probability of a Los Angeles-area earthquake within 3 years. Dang. I don't travel that far from home anymore, but it could have repercussions way up here in Northern California. Think what would happen if there was wide spread devasta- tion down there, and somehow proponents of the separation of the state into the State of Jeffer- son had prevailed. We might be flooded with immigrants who would bust the new state's bud- get. Best to keep California in- tact, earthquake or no. ••• The humor of the football season: Ohio State's Urban Meyer on one of his players: "He doesn't know the meaning of the word fear. In fact, I just saw his grades and he doesn't know the meaning of a lot of words." Why do Tennessee fans wear orange? So they can dress that way for the game on Saturday, go hunting on Sunday and pick up trash on Monday. What does the average Ala- bama player get on his SATs? Drool. What do you say to a Mich- igan State University football player dressed in a three-piece suit? "Will the defendant please rise." If three Florida State football players are in the same car, who is driving? The police officer. How can you tell if a Clem- son football player has a girl- friend? There's tobacco juice on both sides of the pickup truck How do you get a former Il- linois football player off your porch? Pay him for the pizza. 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 When he said 'I say,' men knew he was right On top of Trump's stupid 9-11 statement, Dr. Ben Carson came out with an even dumber one. The GOP's Mister Rogers candidate said he would have brought Osama Bin Laden to justice in two weeks without going to war in Afghanistan. Robert Minch StateandNational Assemblyman James Gallagher, 2060Talbert Drive, Ste. 110, Chico 95928, 530895-4217, http:// ad03.asmrc.org/ Senator Jim Nielsen, 2634Forest Ave., Ste. 110, Chico 95928, 530 879-7424, senator.nielsen@sen- ate.ca.gov Governor Jerry Brown, State Capi- tal Building, Sacramento 95814, 916445-2841, fax 916558-3160, governor@governor.ca.gov U.S. Representative Doug La- Malfa, 507Cannon House Office Building, Washington D.C. 20515, 202225-3076 U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, One Post St., Ste. 2450, San Francisco 94104, 415393-0707, fax 415393-0710 U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, 1700 Montgomery St., San Francisco 94111, 510286-8537, 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, Richard Crabtree, 527-2605, Ext. 3061 Corning City Manager, John Brewer, 824-7033 Your officials OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Friday, October 23, 2015 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A4