Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/628413
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 There's no point in parsing all the verbal volleys in the latest Republican debate, which one again was the equivalent of a Michael Bay action flick, a blustering bludgeoning macho entertainment that pummeled the cognitive intellect and reduced one's brain to the consistency of mixed nuts. So I'll simply focus on the Ted Cruz's hypocrisy-laced outburst about the alleged evils of "New York values." It was so egregiously mind- less, and so stereotypically insulting, that it wound up making Donald Trump look good. Which tells you plenty about Cruz. Cruz birthed this riff on Tuesday, when he said, in ra- dio and later on Fox News, that Trump "comes from New York and embodies New York values .... The rest of the country knows exactly what New York values are, and, I gotta say, they're not Iowa values and they're not New Hampshire values." I get that Cruz is trying to supplant Trump at the top of the heap, but come on, what he said in Thursday night's debate just reeks. "I think most people know exactly what New York val- ues are," Cruz said. "Every- one understands that the values in New York City are socially liberal or pro-abor- tion or pro-gay-marriage, and focus around money and the media." First of all, San Fran- cisco is surely happy to be off the hook. A generation ago, the typical GOP tactic was to tar-brush the opposi- tion as "San Francisco Dem- ocrats," to thus insinuate that all Dems were amoral hedonists with no ties to the stars n' stripes. Now we have Cruz taking the game east- ward. Perhaps he's irked that Saturday Night Live de- scribed him as having "a punchable face," but, clearly, he just thinks that his blan- ket smear will resonate, at Trump's expense, with paro- chial denizens of the Repub- lican base. However, there's a big rea- son why Cruz is hated by so many in his own party. It's his brazen hypocrisy. On the one hand, he con- demns what he calls New York's "focus around money." On the other hand, he hap- pily pockets New York money. One of his biggest benefactors is New York hedge fund mogul Robert Mercer, who has reportedly pumped $11 million into Cruzworld. Another is the New York- based Sullivan & Cromwell law firm. Another is New York-based Goldman Sachs, which loaned a million bucks to his successful '12 Senate bid (this is the money that Cruz failed to disclose because of a so-called paper- work error). And the next time he cruises New York to shill for money, perhaps he should roll down the window of his limo and soak in the obvi- ous info that refutes his ste- reotypical insult. Yeah, there are people in New York who support the constitutional right to an abortion (as else- where in the country), as well as those who support gay marriage (a stance that's now American mainstream). But New York is also the cops who live on Staten Is- land, the working stiffs in Queens, the firefighters who couldn't care less about poli- tics but who would risk their lives to save his. Cruz's yammering pejora- tives about "New York val- ues" prompted Trump to say this: "When the World Trade Center came down, I saw something that no place on Earth could have handled more beautifully, more hu- manely than New York .... You had two 110-story build- ings come crashing down. I saw them come down. Thou- sands of people killed, and the cleanup started the next day, and it was the most hor- rific cleanup, probably in the history of doing this, and in construction. I was down there, and I've never seen anything like it. "And the people in New York fought and fought and fought, and we saw more death, and even the smell of death — nobody under- stood it. And it was with us for months, the smell, the air. And we rebuilt down- town Manhattan, and every- body in the world watched, and everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers. And I have to tell you, that was a very in- sulting statement that Ted made." By that point, even Cruz was compelled to clap. This guy is supposedly so bright, yet he couldn't see that he was walking into the 9/11 buzz saw? It takes a lot to put Trump on the high road, to make him sound like Ci- cero, but somehow Cruz pulled it off. And by the end of the 150-minute marathon, Trump stood taller as a can- didate. Thanks a lot, Ted. But hey, no worries. Be- cause when Ted Cruz is pres- ident, he'll use any interna- tional incident — like the American sailors' encounter with Iran, a crisis that was snuffed within 10 hours — to unleash the dogs of war: "Any nation that captures our fighting men will feel the full force and fury of the United States of America!" Yeah, baby. Carpet-bomb that water, make it glow. Welcome to "Ted Cruz val- ues." I'll take his New York stereotype any day. DickPolmanisthenational political columnist at NewsWorks/WHYY in Philadelphia (newsworks. org/polman) and a "Writer in Residence" at the University of Philadelphia. Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com. Dick Polman Ted Cruz made Donald Trump look good Cartoonist's take I'd like to invite you to a "meet and greet" with Repub- lican Duf Sund- heim, candidate for the U.S. Sen- ate seat being va- cated by Barbara Boxer. He will be at the Hamp- ton Inn & Suites, in the Roundup Room, this after- noon from 1:30 to 4:30. The Tehama County Republican Women Federated hosts Mr. Sundheim's visit and will have some light refresh- ments. I found this writer's take on the debates to be pretty close to the mark: "As bad as our guys are, the Gang of Three is shockingly bad. Bernie is giving HRC a run? Who can imagine listening to him on a regular basis? This is a mea- sure of how weak she is, and if she gets indicted or other- wise falls, the adults (and the Dems in Congress) will surely seek a way to open the conven- tion and nominate Kerry or Biden. It is dangerous for the country to have such fools as the binary choices—yes, some of our guys are trouble, but none of our top three is so stu- pid. It is good for Republicans if the Dems as a party now re- quire candidates to say stupid things, but it is not good for the country." Now, on the disingenuous- ness recently emanating from Emperor Barack Obama. His fatuous town hall, "Guns in America," hosted by Anderson Cooper (to his credit, he asked tough questions) saw a litany of lies from Obama. In case you missed it, Cooper made "an admission against inter- est" when he explained that having Obama face citizen questioners served the viewers better than a press conference. You see, the journalists and reporters basically "agree with Obama" on the issues. Thanks, Anderson, that explains a lot. The NRA, to their credit, "declined the invitation be- cause it is a White House-or- chestrated made-for-TV event and not an opportunity for a genuine dialogue or an effort to find common ground. We remain disappointed that the president has chosen to dem- agogue the issue for political purposes instead of provid- ing real leadership like work- ing to advance Rep. Tim Mur- phy's bipartisan legislation to address the issue of mental health, which is the common denominator in mass shoot- ings." To a rape survivor who stated her desire to pro- tect herself and her children, at home or anywhere else, Obama coldly insisted that she was placing her family in dan- ger just by the presence of a gun. This is Obama's alternate reality where a gun somehow fires itself, especially when in a law-abiding citizen's home; and the extremely remote pos- sibility that a bad guy could wrestle away or steal the gun means you're better off dis- armed. What a lying fool. "President Obama repeat- edly falsely claimed that peo- ple can 'just go on the Inter- net and buy whatever weapon they want.' But he was never forced to agree that any gun bought from a dealer over the Internet has to be sent to a lo- cal dealer that by law has to perform a background check before they can transfer the gun." (Frank Miniter, "Obama gets away with some whoppers on guns at town hall event," 1/7/2016) While whining that "it is fair to call it a conspiracy," that people mistakenly think he wants to take their guns away, actions prove otherwise. He has invoked gun confis- cation in Australia as "effec- tive"; he wants "assault weap- ons" banned and confiscated (cosmetic appearances aside, they function the same as any other semi-automatic long gun); he wants seniors' gun rights abrogated if they fall below some standard of finan- cial hardship. I assume he is in favor of the LA ban on the possession of standard-but-relatively- high-capacity hand guns; he's likely to support the Califor- nia proposal to allow anyone to report you as being men- tally unstable without proof as a pretext to confiscate your guns; he has supported bans on concealed-carry permits; he even opposed gun posses- sion in one's home as an Illi- nois senator. Someone asked what would be bad about California's strictest-in-nation laws, which pass Obama's proposed mus- ter, applying to all states. Great! The laws that failed to prevent the San Bernardino massacre (because the terror- ists acquired guns—as most criminals do—via a "straw buyer" with no criminal re- cord) would fail to stop any other mass shootings. Mean- while, law abiding citizens would needlessly have to wait longer than 3 days—for 10 or 14 days—while someone in- tent on doing them harm with stolen guns or knives, doesn't wait for anything. Obama lied about "smart guns," saying that "[Smart Gun technology] has not been developed primarily be- cause it has been blocked by the NRA" and firearms man- ufactures. The NRA and the NSSF, among other pro-Sec- ond Amendment groups, "have statements on their websites saying they are not opposed to 'smart-gun' technology. Laws that seek to mandate smart- gun technology…are what is impeding smart-gun devel- opment." Moreover, the addi- tional expenses added to the cost of a gun has the perverse effect of pricing the poorest folks, in the most crime-rid- den areas, out of the ability to defend their families. Look up "Obama's Claims About Internet Gun Sales Are Completely False—And Politi- Fact's defense of his claims in- dicates again how little the media understand guns," (Mollie Hemmingway, Jan. 6, thefederalist.com). Anderson Cooper: the media "agree with Obama." In "Ted Cruz is correct: Eric Holder talked about brain- washing people about guns" by Moe Lane, a 1996 Holder quote resurfaced. "We just have to be repetitive about this…We have to do this every day of the week and just really brainwash people into think- ing about guns in a vastly dif- ferent way." Would that in- clude "re-education camps" for "gun nuts?" 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 America's Deceiver-In-Chief A generation ago, the typical GOP tactic was to tar-brush the opposition as "San Francisco Democrats," to thus insinuate that all Dems were amoral hedonists with no ties to the stars n' stripes. Now we have Cruz taking the game eastward. Don Polson StateandNational Assemblyman James Galla- gher, 2060 Talbert Drive, Ste. 110, Chico 95928, 530 895-4217, http:// ad03.asmrc.org/ Senator Jim Nielsen, 2634 For- est 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 Office Building, Washington D.C. 20515, 202 225-3076 U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, One Post St., Ste. 2450, San Fran- cisco 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 OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Tuesday, January 19, 2016 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6