Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/609333
ImaginetheRepublicanfreakoutifaSyrian Muslim refugee had pumped bullets into a Colorado cop and an Iraq war veteran. But because the deed was done by an all-Amer- ican misfit flexing his Second Amendment muscle, a white guy who shared the GOP's hatred of Planned Parenthood, the Repub- lican response has veered from silence to incoherence. Ifthiswereajustworld,at least four Republican presi- dential candidates — Rubio, Fiorina, Huckabee, and Cruz — would be arraigned in the court of public opinion for in- citing violence. How shame- less it is that they warn about foreign threats, while ginning up the dirtbags at home. Did Robert Lewis Dear breathe in the toxic vapors those Republicans and their echo chamber allies have re- peatedly pumped into the at- mosphere? Did he hear the lies they've repeatedly fed into the news cycle, the lies about Planned Parenthood selling body parts for profit? Somewhere, somehow, he picked up the rhetoric about "body parts," because he has voiced his motivation: "no more body parts." And a law enforcement official describes the rampage as "definitely po- litically motivated." A few months ago, in re- sponse to the heavily ed- ited videos that purported to show that Planned Par- enthood sells body parts for profit — a claim that ev- ery state investigation has found baseless — Ted Cruz raged and lied: "We are a na- tion that harvests body parts of little baby boys and girls. It is the very definition of in- humanity to treat children like agriculture, to be grown and killed for their body parts, to be sold for profit." But when asked this weekend to comment about the Col- orado shootings, Cruz said Dear isn't an abortion-hater at all; rather, he called Dear "a transgendered leftist ac- tivist." A few months ago, Mike Huckabee claimed that Planned Parenthood is "sell- ing babies' body parts like the parts of a Buick," a well- rehearsed line he used in de- bates and various interviews. But when asked Sunday to comment about the Colorado shootings, he said: "I think that's a little bit disingenuous on the part of Planned Par- enthood to blame people who have a strong philosophical disagreement with the dis- membering of human babies and with the selling of body parts, to say that we would like to retaliate by sending some mad man into a clinic to kill people." A few months ago, Marco Rubio lied about the Planned Parenthood videos by accus- ing the organization of push- ing women to get abortions "so that those tissues can be harvested and sold for a profit." He also said that peo- ple needed to get more "fired up" about those (never docu- mented) sales for profit. But this weekend, would you care to guess what Rubio said about the three dead peo- ple? He said nothing. But he found the time this weekend to tweet some jocktalk ("Go Gators") and to sell scarves emblazoned with his name ("Stay warm this winter with our new cold weather bun- dle"). How predictably pathetic that these politicians rant so much about refugees, but willfully ignore the clear and present domestic dan- ger. Study after study — by (among others) the nonpar- tisan New America Foun- dation, the Department of Homeland Security, the Police Executive Research Forum — have long documented that terrorism within our borders is overwhelmingly committed by white American nut jobs. But for Republicans, that kind of empirical material is just too factish. A friend of the slain war veteran said that when he heard the news, "I couldn't believe it. He died in his own country." Indeed he did. Per- haps the domestic terrorism death toll would be trimmed a tad if the demagogues stop feeding their rancid red meat to the unhinged fringe. DickPolmanisthenational political columnist at NewsWorks/WHYY in Philadelphia and a "Writer in Residence" at the University of Philadelphia. Email him at dickpolman7@ gmail.com. DickPolman White domestic terrorist says 'No more body parts' Cartoonist's take In a postscript for the Thanksgiving commemoration/ holiday/shop-athon, from Pres- ident Lincoln's 1863 proclama- tion, his recog- nition of that for which we—even over 150 years later—still have to give thanks: "The year that is draw- ing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these boun- ties, which are so constantly en- joyed that we are prone to for- get the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God." Events have driven the news cycle: the economy, terrorism, Donald Trump's latest self-cre- ated outrage, refugees, climate conferences, etc. I still find the November media storm over Dr. Ben Carson's biography fascinat- ing. First, you had intense scru- tiny of the media's object of dis- memberment-by-analysis; such scrutiny is designed to create a maximum kerfuffle of con- flicting, unverifiable narratives. Then comes deflection from how that same scrutiny could be applied to persons and is- sues on the left side of the spec- trum with devastating effect. That then all gets swept into the memory hole before the news media can be held to account for gross, biased malpractice. In a number of cringe-worthy episodes, the collective news me- dia gave Carson the type of bio- graphical anal exam previously seen in the hysterical reaction to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's ar- rival on the Republican ticket in 2008. The title of John Nolte's article says it all: "WSJ, CNN, Politico Debunked: Anti-Car- son bio Attacks Crumble Under Scrutiny." (Look it up) That would be in contradis- tinction to the ho-hum treat- ment of then-Senator Obama's easily examined, question- able and troubling biography. I say "easily examined" in the sense that several writers on the right, seeing the news media swoon over the potential elec- tion of America's first black pres- ident (together with all of the ex- pected racial healing…it hasn't worked that way, though), did dig into Obama's history. Stanley Kurtz produced his exhaustive reference in 2010, "Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism." I wrote weekly columns in 2008 that eachtook a different aspect of the duplicity and hypocrisy of Obama's life, and policy posi- tions, running out of time well before I ran out of material, by the November election. The media frenzy over Car- son's story succeeded only in drawing attention to his re- markable rise from the life- and-hope-destroying realities of a gritty and violent urban life, and a single-mother, to be- come one of the world's fore- most leaders in a highly special- ized field of neurosurgery. The preposterous efforts, the over- blown rhetoric and faux got- cha moments—in embarrass- ing service of a shameless cam- paign to undermine Carson's veracity—were only margin- ally successful. Not one aspect of his younger life was revealed as phony: he was a violent youth that reformed through religion and could, however, have gone to West Point had he not chosen the medical field. National Review's John Fund illustrated the double standard in "Ben Carson: Where Was the Media's Interest in Obama's Re- lation to the Rev. Wright, Frank Davis, Bill Ayers…?" Jonathon M. Seidl, writing in June, 2012, at The Blaze (theblaze.com), re- viewed a book by The Wash- ington Post's David Maraniss, "Barack Obama: The Story" (Maraniss—not right-of-center). Seidl's piece, "Details in New biography of Obama Lead to Stunning Conclusion: 'Delib- erate Distortions' and 'Myth- making'" (searchable by title), lays out "Maraniss' idea that Obama's memoir, 'Dreams From My Father,' was riddled with fic- tion and composite characters… and is now leading to some stunning conclusions." Maraniss "catalogues dozens of instances in which Obama deviated sig- nificantly from the truth in his book." Ben Smith: "By its conclu- sion I counted 38 instances in which the biographer convinc- ingly disputes significant ele- ments of Obama's own story of his life and his family history." Just before the 2008 elec- tion, asked at a conference if the media have been too soft on Obama, Maraniss an- swered "Yes." He went on to say that through the subtle choice of which stories to cover and where to deploy investigative re- sources, the national media had handed Obama "hundreds of millions of dollars in free pub- licity." The blatant double standard could be applied to the current presumed Democrat presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton. A car- toon by Stiglich of Creators.com portrayed Hillary as a blond- maned, four-legged equine ut- tering blatant fabrications: "Chelsea was jogging around the World Trade Center on 9/11," "I landed in Bosnia under sniper fire," "We were dead broke when we left the White House," "The Benghazi attack was the result of a video," "What emails?" This picture of serial-fabulist Clinton was titled, "My Little Phony." One could add her tortured assertion of rejection when try- ing to join the Marines, a story that oozes disingenuousness when compared to the then-cur- rent agenda by leftists to prove how sexist and chauvinist Amer- ica's military were. What a crock: Approach a recruiter as a 27-year old, out of shape woman with bad eyesight so as to be able to claim discrimination. That's worse than lying. She also tried to join NASA, was "always" a Yankees fan, and lied about her wealth. Don't worry your little heads about conflicts-of-interest, though. Not from George Ste- phenopoulos, who donated $75,000 to the Clinton Founda- tion. Certainly not from Chuck Todd, whose corporate employer had an executive hold a fund- raiser for Hillary early in No- vember. 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 Scrutiny for Reps, not for Dems Perhaps the domestic terrorism death toll would be trimmed a tad if the demagogues stop feeding their rancid red meat to the unhinged fringe. Sounding off Alookatwhatreadersaresayingincommentsonourwebsiteandonsocialmedia. Droppedtoonly$6.4million?Wow,just wow. Dorothy Kersey: On construction estimate reduction for new Tehama County Library. Congrats on being clean, keep up the good work. Your testimony will help reach other people. Tammy and Charles Robin Watkins: On woman going from drug court to counselor. Don Polson Greg Stevens, Publisher Chip Thompson, Editor EDITORIAL BOARD 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. 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OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Tuesday, December 1, 2015 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6