Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/692166
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, 728Main St., Red Bluff, CA 96080 Facebook: Leave comments at FACEBOOK.COM/ RBDAILYNEWS Twitter: Follow and send tweets to @REDBLUFFNEWS If you want an accurate reading on the 2016 presidential campaign — who's up and who's down, who's ascendant and who's a clown — look no further than Tuesday night's speeches. Because it's all about the optics. HillaryClintonspenther time making history. Donald Trump spent his time doing damage control. And Bernie Sanders — his- tory's roadkill, crushed in California and New Jersey — did his best impression of Hi- roo Onoda, a Japanese sol- dier who hunkered in the jun- gle for decades, refusing to accept the reality that World War II had ended. There's no denying Clin- ton's achievement as the first female presidential nomi- nee. Hopefully we're not so jaded or cynical or hateful or just plain weary that we can't open ourselves to the witness- ing of history. A sizeable share of women won't vote for Clinton, but the historic nature of her candi- dacy should not be underesti- mated. Every campaign needs a narrative, and Clinton's has a built-in emotional component. As she remarked Tuesday night, "I really wish my mother could be here... I wish she could see her daughter become the Dem- ocratic party's nominee." By contrast, Trump's op- tics were... how shall I say this charitably... wretched. For 10 long days, the Repub- lican nominee had splashed in the sewer, damning a fed- eral judge for his Mexican her- itage and insisting the judge is unfit to handle a massive case in which Trump is being sued for fraud. The backlash from his own party reached a crescendo Tuesday when Paul Ryan said Trump's attacks were the "textbook definition" of racism. Temporarily chastised, Trump surfaced in presiden- tial mode, or at least some fac- simile thereof. After ridicul- ing Clinton or using a Tele- prompter, Trump duly read from one (except for the mo- ment when he ad-libbed a toi- let joke). The aim was to dem- onstrate that he's capable of talking for 30 straight min- utes without saying anything racist, sexist, or faintly fas- cist, and, yes, he cleared that low hurdle. ("I understand the responsibility of carrying the mantle.") But it was like lash- ing a wild beast to a stake in the hope that he won't break free. Most of his lines were old stump chunks ("We are only going to have great trade deals, OK?" and "We will make our country strong again, we will make Amer- ica great again") — and how noteworthy it was that he said nothing about the burgeon- ing Hispanic electorate (His- panics are likely to cost him at least four states — Colo- rado, Nevada, Virginia, Flor- ida). His sole remark about blacks dripped with paternal- istic condescension: "We are going to take care of our Afri- can Americans." Indeed, Clinton in her own speech assailed Trump's treat- ment of minorities: "'Make America great again' is code for 'Let's take America back- wards.' Back to a time when opportunity and dignity was reserved for some, not all." Anyone who thinks that Trump's Teleprompter speech signals a "new Trump" should bone up on human nature. A narcissistic demagogue who knows nothing about policy is simply who he is. Lots of Re- publicans and conservatives realize that. Which is why Bill Kristol calls Trump "a roar- ing jackass" and conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt dis- missed Trump's speech by say- ing, "The plane is still heading toward the mountain." Or, as nonpartisan analyst Larry Sabato said, "This year's GOP is living with both its feet planted on banana peels." The next opportunity for slippage may come early next week, when Trump is promis- ing to deliver a speech about the Clintons — in his words, "all of the things that have taken place with the Clin- tons." Will he limit himself to legitimate questions about, say, the work of the Clinton Foundation, or will he steer the plane into the mountain, ranting on the intercom about Vince Foster and other 1990s nothingburgers? Mitch McConnell said, "We're all anxious to hear what he may say next." I bet he is. Because each spasm of Republican anxiety could bring Clinton closer to her ul- timate historic achievement. DickPolmanisthenational political columnist at NewsWorks/WHYY in Philadelphia (newsworks. org/polman) and a "Writer in Residence" at the University of Pennsylvania. Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com. Dick Polman Clinton makes history, Trump mops his mess Cartoonist's take The whole, as I see it, is a sum of the parts. The whole, in the case of the mass murder of gay nightclub attendees in Orlando, Florida early Saturday morning, is the diabolical intent and determination of followers of radical Islam to slaughter "infidels." An imam visiting Florida said that it is "compassionate" to kill homosexuals—"Let's get rid of them now"—under Islamic tenets. They're often thrown off tall buildings in Muslim lands. Look up, at Clarionproject. org, "5 Ways Is- lamists Set the Stage for the Or- lando Attack; Muslim leaders may condemn the attacks, but that doesn't address the underlying ideology that says homosexuals are evil and wor- thy of death," by Ryan Mauro. One knee jerk reaction, il- legitimate but sadly predict- able, is the pointing of ideo- logical fingers at the weapons: handguns and "assault" rifles with high capacity magazines. Just like with the radicalized jihadists in San Bernardino, a few armed citizens might have made a difference in the death toll, but that misses the big picture while focusing on weaponry. Bars in Florida, it should be noted, are by law "gun free" zones; the obvious results were seen in Orlando. Those same club-goers could have been killed with suicide vests worn by Islamic fanat- ics and assembled with Inter- net instructions. We found out in the Boston marathon mas- sacre that household pressure cookers can do a more-than- adequate, evil job of killing innocent bystanders. Chris- tians, homosexuals and insuffi- ciently observant Muslims are brutally killed every day with knives, rocks, gasoline, drown- ing, as well as the assisted fall from a high roof. For bettor or worse, we have political figures and choices of leaders asking for our trust in the face of such religiously inspired terrorism. Witness our distracter-in-chief, Barack Obama, blindly refusing to de- scribe the radical religious na- ture of the Islamic State, its fighters and Internet prosely- tizers. He is hamstringing the battle abroad by overly restric- tive rules-of-engagement and no-civilian-deaths policies ap- plied to drone and manned bombing of ISIS targets. The same type of ideologi- cally-driven law enforcement shackles were evident in the FBI statements that the Or- lando jihadist, Omar Mateen, had numerous investigated contacts that failed to warrant actionable, closer surveillance. Such surveillance might have revealed personal or Inter- net connections with motiva- tional sources that reinforced his intent to commit mass ho- micide. A security guard and co-worker at his place of em- ployment found Mateen's rac- ist, homicidal and anti-ho- mosexual rants so disturbing that he left his job. He stated that his complaints to man- agement weren't taken seri- ously because of Mateen's Mus- lim faith. So, if you think Obama's pol- icies, beliefs and statements— ignoring Islamic terrorism and harping on guns ad infinitum, ad nauseam—is a winning, se- curity-minded strategy, you have what we have. You also have more of the same from Hillary Clinton, who has of- fered not one iota of distinction from what I have just described as it relates to Obama. Whether she admits it or not, Hillary Clinton is running as Obama's third term, which is certainly his observable position. Moreover, Clinton has re- fused to agree to the notion that the 2nd Amendment con- fers a personal right to fire- arm ownership, a patently ob- vious right but one denied by four current Supreme Court justices. Hence, we have her useless blather about "common sense gun safety" measures. Has she, or other liberal anti-gun Democrats, pro- posed any reasonable, work- able policies designed to pre- vent guns from getting into the hands of mentally unsta- ble persons? Are any of them proposing a mandate that the FBI place someone with Omar Mateen's type of background on the federal registry disal- lowing them from purchasing firearms? For that matter, you can read every day about guns in the hands of felons and gang members already barred from possessing them—they just steal them or get some- one with a clean record to buy them. The Orlando homophobic Muslim Mateen called 9-1-1 and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. Hillary states that "this talk and demagogu- ery and rhetoric is not going to solve the problem. I'm not go- ing to…declare war on a reli- gion." I ask what problem is it then? Would that be the reli- gion of the Islamists that de- clared war on us? The reli- gion, shariah, declared by the highest imams in the Middle East to be the one true Muslim faith? Based on the same Ko- ran that repeatedly used the word terror—or variations of that word—to describe what faithful Muslims should do to infidels? In "Obama: 'We' are to blame, not Islamic terrorism, for massacre," by John Pod- horetz, Obama is quoted sim- ply calling it "terror." JP: "But using the word 'terror' with- out a defining adjective is like a doctor calling a disease 'can- cer' without making note of the affected area of the body… So determined is the presi- dent to avoid the subject of Is- lamist, ISIS-inspired or ISIS- directed terrorism that he con- cluded 'we need the strength and courage to change' our at- titudes toward the LGBT com- munity. That's just disgusting. There's no other word for it." Hugh Hewitt: "Thus far in 2016, 9 people have been ar- rested in 8 states for ISIS-re- lated threats…There are 36 plots uncovered in Europe, 24 plots in the United States, 23 plots outside the U.S. or Eu- rope. 40,000 jihadis have trav- eled to ISIS land—6,900 of them from the west, 250 from America. Director James Comey says there are 950 in- vestigations in 50 states. That's the context." Say what you will, but if Trump's policy had been in effect, Omar Mateen's par- ents would not have been al- lowed into America and Omar couldn't have committed the atrocities. 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 Gay-hating jihadist in Orlando Anyone who thinks that Trump's Teleprompter speech signals a "new Trump" should bone up on human nature. A narcissistic demagogue who knows nothing about policy is simply who he is. Don Polson StateandNational Assemblyman James Gallagher, 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 LaMalfa, 507 Cannon House Office Building, Washing- ton D.C. 20515, 202 225-3076 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, Kristina Miller, 824-7033 YOUR OFFICIALS Those same club-goers could have been killed with suicide vests worn by Islamic fanatics and assembled with Internet instructions. We found out in the Boston marathon massacre that household pressure cookers can do a more-than- adequate, evil job of killing innocent bystanders. OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Tuesday, June 14, 2016 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6