Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/624733
The hollow recesses of my head were filled with the music of John Williams and the phrase, "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away" when I saw a pre- view of the Donald's first television ad. It reminded me of the trailer for Star Wars with its loud procla- mation about the adventure ahead, the bold mission, in this case, to make America great again, and to defeat the dark side, I mean ISIS. The puffery of the ad and its Star Wars nuance was enhanced by border scenes from Morocco, and the pre- sumed need to develop a force shield against the en- emy's power…or at least a wall paid for by our neigh- bor to the south. The Mo- rocco footage reinforced my Star Wars visions, because they looked like it had been shot on either Tatooine or Jakku, both desert planets in Star Wars films. While the ad may seem ex- pensive, you can tell that Trump is conserving his am- ple cash by not actually com- missioning John Williams to compose some music such as "A March to Greatness," or some such. I can just imag- ine his Minions parading around humming "trump, trump, trump, trumpy trump, trumpy trump" to the bold music. A catchy tune might be a cheap way to get out the vote. Trump also must have saved money when using former consultant to arch- rival Ted Cruz, Katrina Pierson as one of his na- tional spokespersons. You may recognize Pierson as a woman wearing a bullet necklace. Pierson allegedly col- lected $11,000 in unemploy- ment benefits while actually working as a paid consul- tant for Ted Cruz's senato- rial campaign; she allegedly was also caught shop lifting as well. My guess is Trump was able to get her services at a reduced rate. In the meantime, under the dark cover of the bom- bastic barrage from the pri- mary candidates a bold and brave group of armed men, many from out of state, were able to infiltrate and occupy a remote and incon- sequential piece of federal land near Banks, Oregon, claiming to be fighting for "local control" among other things. Apparently they needed to invade Oregon to pro- mote local control because Oregonians were unaware of their own need. Those brave men were full of bravado and fully armed but had little use for their weapons, unless car- rying them just made them feel more manly, since the site was unoccupied. One of their spokespersons said they did not want violence and were prepared to stay on the site for years. The Washington Post and others have suggested we should let them stay there; at least we would know where they are. Perhaps we could build a wall around them. One of those brave souls speaking for the occupy- ing group had the very manly name of "Fluffy Uni- corn." Fluffy complained that the Black Lives Matter movement hasn't gotten the backlash his unnamed gun- slingers have. It is unclear whether he means Black Lives Matter should get more of a back- lash or his brave comrades less. My guess is that Fluffy has an overinflated opinion of his sneaky actions of in- vading an unoccupied site. A backlash, of course, is a counter attack to some ac- tion. At this point Fluffy and his crew have merely held a sit in at a vacant spot. Not much to backlash against, as far as I am concerned. I am not sure if Fluffy is willing to escalate this sil- liness to garner some de- served backlash. If Fluffy and Ammon Bundy, the self-anointed leader of this brave group, really want a backlash, they should at- tempt to occupy a space more people care about; perhaps Trump Tower. I am sure Fluffy must have been confused when it was reported that his fear- less leader, Ammon Bundy, had compared to Rosa Parks, an unarmed civil rights icon who occupied a vacant seat on a segregated bus many years ago. Ammon Bundy said, "We want the government to abide by the Constitu- tion and play by the rules. That is what this protest is about." One wonders whose rules he is referencing, or if he believes those rules do not apply to him. He has also stated he wants to restore the Consti- tution whatever that might mean. Does he want it re- written to pre-Civil War standards, translated into Twitter, or what? In the meantime, he rails against the very govern- ment that has granted him a $530,000 small business loan. Ammon Bundy, Fluffy's leader, is the son of Cliven Bundy, who had an armed standoff with the Bureau of Land Management over fees for grazing his herd on fed- eral land. The elder Bundy has stated he does not recog- nize our government, but seems content using the dollar as currency. At last count he owed us tax pay- ers over $1,000,000 in fees and fines. All fantasy is not happen- ing in a galaxy far, far away, however. The fantasy of the 51st State, that is Jefferson, is still being played out lo- cally. Stay tuned. Joe Harrop is a retired educator with more than 30 years of service to the North State. He can be reached at DrJoeHarrop@sbcglobal.net. JoeHarrop Fantasy land right here on Earth Cartoonist's take Countiesthatactually support State of Jefferson Editor: I am dismayed to see the Jef- fersoners' article Saturday un- der the heading of Politics with no byline. How do we find out who is responsible for that piece? Without an author, it ap- pears to be written and ap- proved by you or your staff. It unfortunately contains mislead- ing and untruthful information. The Jeffersoners' claim that "Six counties have already filed with the state" is not correct. In Tehama County, only a reso- lution was approved and it was not filed with the state. And who knows where the declara- tions from the counties of Sis- kyou, Modoc, Glenn, Yuba and Sutter went? Actually, the leaders of the movement will bring copies of the paperwork to Sacramento, then claim to "file" them with the state. Not the other way around. The Jeffersoners' statement that in addition to the six coun- ties "another 15 and possibly a couple of more are expected to file declarations on Wednes- day" is just not true. A total of 18 counties will not have signed on by Wednesday (Jan. 6). The truth is that Del Norte County voted down the State of Jefferson last year. Shasta County rejected their request. Butte County heard them and asked how the finances would work, but got no follow up. Trinity County voted to declare to remain with the state of Cal- ifornia. Lake County had voted to have an election, but on Dec. 15, 2015 voted to rescind put- ting the issue on any ballot. Af- ter the devastating fires and the extensive help from the state, their representatives and many California firefighters, Lake County took a stand to stay in California. Seven counties, having heard from the Jeffersoners took no action. Lassen and Plumas counties will hold elections in June. The movement lead- ers have not yet made their de- mands in Calaveras, Humboldt, Mendocino or Tuolumne coun- ties. The State of Jefferson article implies that up to 24 counties support them when only six are on record. To claim that coun- ties that said no are counties that have said yes is misleading in the extreme. Does it make you wonder about the claim of thousands and thousands that have joined the movement? I have come to expect mis- truths and exaggerations from the separatists. However, I be- lieve the Daily News could do a lot more to examine the truth for Tehama County if we were forced to join the 51st state. — Sue Gallagher, Los Molinos The fish will be gone Editor: OK I give up. I've written to the papers, to the Department of Fish and Game, and the De- partment of Fish and Wildlife. Maybe you didn't notice that. It's not game anymore that we manage through hunting and fishing. It's wildlife now and our purpose is to protect it at all costs, so the tourists can photo-shop it. Soon they'll take the fish out too, and it will just be the California State Depart- ment of Wildlife. I've written to the Depart- ment of the Interior and I've written to the Winnemum Wintu and you know what? They don't care. None of them. Not one reply from any of them, even the Wintu. Why will they take the fish out? Because the fish will be gone. The salmon are doomed. We could have saved it all but we had more important things to take care of. The sport fishermen know this, but they don't care. Why? Because they prefer the strip- ers. Stripers are a better fight- ing fish and they taste better. Of course the sport fishermen know this, in the back of their tiny little brains and they also know that when the salmon are gone the food source for the stripers will be gone and then they will die out too. So there just won't be any game fish left on the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers. Our grandchildren will have to settle for shad and carp. Oh well. C'est la vie. The thing we need to do now, after we build Jerry's lit- tle choo-choo, is get the twin tunnels built. The San Joa- quin Valley is sinking with all the pumping and if we don't do something quick it will be below sea level and San Fran- cisco Bay will inundate it making it totally useless for farming. So to solve that problem the next big project will be a dike to hold back the bay. Eventu- ally, someone will write a letter to whoever is governor is ask- ing why we don't desalinate the Pacific Ocean, but by that time the dike will have failed and the crops will have failed and Cal- ifornia will have the biggest bayou this side of Louisiana. Do me a favor. Stick this let- ter on your great-grandson's re- frigerator so when he asks what happened to the late great state of California you can just point at it. — Fred Boest, Red Bluff Eighth year of Obama has trashed lifetime savings Editor: Those private sector em- ployees who scrimped, saved and invested during their 45- year work careers have borne the brunt of President Obama's tax and spend policies, includ- ing encouraging the Fed to is- sue worthless bonds that result in almost zero returns on re- tiree savings these past almost 8 years. He has done nothing to re- build the economy since his election. Deficit spending for welfare subsidies does not im- prove the economy. Our nation needs a heavy dose of cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent to cre- ate US jobs. Everyone, should pay sufficient taxes to cover the government services that they received during their work ca- reers. Only the infirm and truly disabled should rely on public welfare, Under Obama we have seen our lifetime savings, including the small company pensions, and our Social Security pen- sions, decline in value by one quarter, when adjusted for infla- tion. Who would have thought that savings could be so quickly wiped out by a White House ac- tion in reducing interest rates to near zero, requiring withdrawal of savings. Hopefully, before there is nothing left of lifetime savings, a presidential candidate will be elected to dramatically cut government spending includ- ing government employment. Government employees receive their pensions, often inflation adjusted, no matter the dark economy that has occurred un- der Obama. Private sector re- tirees these past 30 years must rely on their lifetime savings to fund their retirement, without defined pensions. We are a nation in deep na- tional and global distress. No wonder many are supporting candidate Trump. Hopefully better candidates than Trump and Clinton will come forward that both moderates and con- servatives can elect to recover Obama's trashed economy. — Joseph Neff, Corning Letter to the editor I can just imagine his Minions parading around humming "trump, trump, trump, trumpy trump, trumpy trump" to the bold music. A catchy tune might be a cheap way to get out the vote. GregStevens,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. Box 220, 545 Diamond Ave., Red Bluff, CA 96080 Facebook: Leave comments at FACEBOOK.COM/ RBDAILYNEWS Twitter: Follow and send tweets to @REDBLUFFNEWS State and National 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 Joe Harrop OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Saturday, January 9, 2016 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A4