Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/684825
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 Lookwhichpartyisblowingitselfupnow and struggling to unify behind a single can- didate. Hint: It's not the Republicans. Afterallthosemonthsof worrying and complaining about having too many candi- dates, the GOP finally found its 2016 presidential candi- date, for good and bad. A couple weeks ago I said the Republican Party was in such sad shape it should use Leslie Gore's 1963 hit "It's my party" for its theme song. The opening line — It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to — was a perfect description of how miserable conservative Republicans and the GOP es- tablishment were at the pros- pect of having Donald Trump as their standard bearer. Now the GOP is suddenly getting its act together and Donald Trump is looking stronger. He has been picking up more support from the party establishment — though it'll dry up real fast if he keeps sucker-punching Republican governors like Susana Marti- nez of New Mexico for no good reason. Trump's poll numbers against Hillary are up. He's already giving "Crooked Hillary" the same roughing up he gave his pri- mary opponents. He's exhuming subjects that she, her pretend husband Bill and their liberal media friends thought were buried decades ago in the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository. Already the names of Bill's victims are coming back to haunt us — Jennifer, Paula, Juanita, Kathleen, Monica... Trump will be repeating those names until November, whether Hillary, Big Media or squeamish Republicans like it or not. For the next six months he'll do to Hillary what liberal journalists won't do because they've still in bed with the Clintons after 24 years. He'll be hitting Hill- ary every day on Benghazi, her emails, her Wall Street speeches, her crooked foun- dation, her Senate record, her record as secretary of state, Whitewater, Vince Foster, her hairdos, her voice, etc., etc. With Trump and Hillary's negative poll numbers being as high as they are, we might still see a third party candi- date emerge to go after con- servative Republicans and the NeverTrump/Anybody But Hillary voter. Meanwhile, it's the Demo- crat Party that's gone to war with itself. Bernie Sanders isn't giving up in his leftwing crusade to take down Hillary. He's got the money, the troops and the rage to make the Democratic con- vention an ugly battle scene. America's most lovable so- cialist is pushing Hillary so far to the left she's about to fall in the Pacific Ocean. She'll never have time to swim back to the center. Even MSNBC can see Hill- ary's whole campaign is a fi- asco. Apparently, she still hasn't watched the highlight reel of the Republican primary to see how Trump destroyed his at- tackers like they were mon- sters in a video game. She's making the same stu- pid mistake they did. She's attacking him, which only makes him stronger with his base and lets Trump hit back even harder at her. Hillary's campaign "style," if you can call it that, is so bor- ing and scripted it's like she's teaching a chemistry class or reading for a poorly written part in a movie. Everything she screeches at her pep rallies has been mea- sured, weighed and poll-tested a dozen times until it's cliched liberal mush. She should let Elizabeth Warren or Larry David read her scripts from now on be- fore half the country slips into a coma. Trump needs to pick a per- fect conservative VP candidate to allay the fears of the Paul Ryans in the GOP, offset his lack of experience and bring some grown-up gravitas to his political stand-up routine. But nothing can save Hill- ary from herself. My old girlfriend Leslie Gore had a follow-up hit to "It's My Party" that, if adapted slightly, describes where Mrs. Clinton is right now. 'Cause now it's Hillary's turn to cry Hillary's turn to cry Hillary's turn to cry 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 Look who's crying now Cartoonist's take Jean Barton wrote last week "Ellington Peek honored on 50th anniversary of auction yard." And justly so. He and his son Brad have done a great job in making the Shasta Auction Yard the thriving enterprise it is to- day. However, no one is perfect, and one of Ellington's observations several years ago was based on lack of informa- tion at best, or lack of judgment at worst. I wrote in my I Say column of May, 2012, "Ellington Peek has published an interesting book regarding his life in the livestock auction business at the same time as I published mine regard- ing my life in the packing house business. Pity he did not read mine first for he might have al- tered what he wrote about the demise of our meat plant. He wrote of the bankruptcy of Minch. There was no Minch bankruptcy. The bankruptcy was of Messina Meats, the suc- cessor to Minch's Wholesale Meats. And he wrote "Old Mr. Minch, when he started years ago, was always reliable." I guess he forgot my father's first name was "Dave." As to "when he started years ago was always re- liable," Ellington should have written "…was always reliable, period." He continued, "When he passed on, his boy took over… wanted to expand and do a lot of things." I was 35 at the time of father's death in 1964, and no longer a "boy." "Son" is the word he was searching for. And expand I did, with zeal; a new kill floor, boning room, load- ing docks and freezer. It seemed necessary to modernize to keep up with the Midwest competi- tion. But rather than whip this dead horse (to mix metaphors) E. Peek was right about at least one thing when he wrote of the bankruptcy: "Everybody had to take the loss and it was a big loss." There is no doubt about that. Over a hundred employ- ees lost their jobs, and cattle- men lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid drafts. The painful memory of the plant closing remains with many, in- cluding me, to this day. ••• Sightem: Pedestrians walk- ing about with a bottle of water clutched in their hand. We didn't do that in my day. It was just as hot then as now, but we didn't walk about with water at the ready. Occasionally you might have a bottle strapped to your bike, but even that was rare. That was when men wore hats rather than baseball caps. The drabbest haberdashery I ever saw in Red Bluff was the Norvell and Hunter store at 724 Main next to Lyon & Garrett Hardware. That was a while ago. Their phone num- ber was 400. All the men's suits were shades of grey and mostly appropriate when going to a fu- neral. I don't remember a sport coat in the place. The hats were grey, the socks were either black or grey and only the ties had a bit of color. As to head coverings, out- door workers often wore pith helmets to ward off the summer sun. Ritchie Sale, patriarch of the large Sale family, could be observed in a light colored fab- ric covered pith helmet. He also wore leather leggings which must have been uncomfortable in the summer. Ah well, just a bunch of trivia as a reminder of a by-gone era. Wait! I just realized why we did not carry water bottles in the old days. The bottles were made of glass and easily broken. This was before the age of plastic. How about that? No plastic in those days. Well then, how was water toted about back then? It might have been in a metal army-type canteen covered with fabric which could be doused with water to keep it cool, or large woven fab- ric bags that could be slung over the front bumper of your car…and because they were designed to leak slowly, they would be cooled by evaporation when the car was moving. Quite clever, I'd say. ••• I am still advocating a vote for H. Clinton as our first female President. Although recent polls show Trump and Clinton run- ning neck and neck, I believe good judgment will prevail over the white supremacy supporters of Trump, and we can once again have civil discourse in the White House. Hillary will bolster her case for responsible conduct by choosing the right running mate. Joe Biden might be the man. Or it could be a woman. At least the prevailing candidate should look and act presidential. ••• Checked in with Karen Kin- ner and inquired as to her hus- band's progress after his hor- rific car crash two months ago. She reports he is recuperating in Brentwood, and although able to get around in a wheelchair, it will still take some time be- fore he is allowed to stand and put weight on his feet and legs. For an active contractor, this must be particularly frustrat- ing. However, advanced medical treatment is undoubtedly keep- ing Dave on the right side of the grass, and with his positive thinking, he will prevail. ••• Sources say 4.4 billion pre- scriptions for drugs were is- sued in 2015. That's an average of 14 per American. Have you exceeded that number, or have you been relatively healthy dur- ing the past year. Or are you a member of a church, via the power of prayer, which enables you to do without 14 prescrip- tions per year? The Christian Science Church was developed by Mary Baker Eddy, who argued that sickness is an illusion that can be corrected by prayer. The church does not require that Christian Scien- tists avoid all medical care but maintains that Christian Science prayer is most effective when not combined with medicine. ••• Upon moving to Canada, a New Yorker bought a chain saw and stipulated, "Big enough to cut down 6 trees." The next day he brought it back and com- plained to the clerk, "I couldn't even cut down one tree." The clerk started up the saw. "What's that noise," the New Yorker yelled. 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 Bone to pick with Peek's characterization of meat plant Apparently, she still hasn't watched the highlight reel of the Republican primary to see how Trump destroyed his attackers like they were monsters in a video game. Sounding off A look at what readers are saying in comments on our website and on social media. I'll never forget what a wonderful woman and mother Margaret Franklin was and is. She helped deliver my babies at St. Eliza- beth's. She was already glowing talking about her grandchildren and children. I'm so saddened for the loss of her own child. Rest in peace Ryan. Michelle Dunn: On the passing of Ryan Franklin, hit by a car while cycling in Idaho This was a fun ride, glad I participated again this year, look forward to next year's event. Terry Brengman: On the Ronnie Lee King Memorial Run held May 21 Robert Minch 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 Your officials OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Friday, May 27, 2016 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A4