Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/702825
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 The ancient Greek dramatist Aeschylus is of- ten credited with that old chestnut about truth being the first casualty of war. It's a good thing Aeschylus wasn't around for the release of the House Benghazi Committee report. Withfour,competingnarra- tives of the September 2012 at- tacks hitting the street within hours of each other, the truth not only became a casualty, it fell into that bottomless gap that separates fact and inter- net-fed conspiracy theory. Far from settling anything, which was its putative goal, the committee's majority report (at a cost of $7 million) and its disputatious, alternate-reality hangers-on only served to push people further into their respec- tive corners. Democrats, Republicans, ra- bid conservatives and the con- spiracy-minded each came away convinced this week that their version of reality was the right and true one. Whether they came away any smarter is less clear. Shocking no one, the Demo- cratic report soft-pedaled any notion of culpability for Clinton and President Barack Obama, putting it all down to campaign season politics. In this, they were ably as- sisted by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, of Cal- ifornia, who pantsed the com- mittee and it's chairman, U.S. Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C), and his committee by publicly ad- mitting that it was all about politics from the start. Then Gowdy, who said he wouldn't release his report in the middle of the campaign season, went ahead and did it anyway. The report by majority Re- publicans concluded that Clin- ton and President Barack Obama should have been more aware of the danger to Ameri- cans in Libya and done more to protect them. The years-long probe has al- ready produced its most dam- aging revelation: That Clinton, openly flouting secrecy rules, used a private email server while she was the nation's top diplomat. It's resulted in the FBI investigation that could yet topple her candidacy. The minority-majority report by U.S. Reps. Mike Pompeo of Kansas and Jim Jordan of Ohio, concluded that Clinton's actions during the attacks were "mor- ally reprehensible," MSNBC re- ported. But when Pompeo was asked by NBC News to back that con- clusion up, all he could manage was that it was something he believed "in my heart," which is hardly guilt beyond a reason- able doubt. The conclusions by that Citi- zens Commission should be fa- miliar to anyone who's spent time prowling the dark recesses of the right-wing web. It re- peats, for instance, the fantas- tical charge that Obama and Clinton were running guns to al-Qaeda rebels in Libya. But it's the perfect metaphor for our hyper-partisan and hy- per-polarized times. In poll after poll, includ- ing one most recently as this month, the divides between Re- publicans and Democrats are stark. And they have only been deepened by this year's unusu- ally combative presidential elec- tion. For instance, more than half the Democratic respondents (55 percent) to a recent Pew poll said the Republican Party made them feel "afraid," while a plu- rality (49 percent) of Republi- cans said the same. And it's worse among the more engaged, with seven in 10 Democratic respondents and nearly two-thirds of Republi- cans (62 percent) giving the same answer, the Pew canvass found. More than half of Republi- cans (52 percent) said Demo- crats were "closed-minded," and "dishonest" (47 percent), com- pared to the seven in 10 and 42 percent, respectively, of Demo- crats who said the same about Republicans, the Pew poll found. A 2014 Pew poll, meanwhile, found liberals and conserva- tives were each more likely to get their information from a small cluster of sources. So, if you're a voter, who are you going to believe about Benghazi? The short answer is whichever group's account most closely aligns to your world- view. Expecting an objective ac- count of the Benghazi attacks during an election year was only slightly more optimistic than expecting the Phillies to take home a pennant this sea- son. It's a nice fantasy — but there's no way it could ever hap- pen. Anaward-winningpolitical journalist, Micek is the Opinion Editor and Political Columnist for PennLive/The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa. Readers may follow him on Twitter @ByJohnLMicek and e-mail him at jmicek@ pennlive.com. John Micek The one truth about Benghazi Cartoonist's take Summer's first bookend is behind us; I wrote what I hope were illuminating and infor- mative perspec- tives on Ameri- ca's Declaration of Independence (and our current tenuous state of independence). Some issues and events still war- rant attention; others, not so much. Trump University faded as a campaign/media obses- sion just as it was coming to light that Bill Clinton pock- eted some $16 million for lend- ing his name and backing to a "university" that delivered far less than Trump's did for en- rollees. Look up, "Hillary Uni- versity: Bill Clinton Bagged $16.46 million From For-Profit College as State Dept. Fun- neled $55 million Back" (Ste- phen K. Bannon). You see, Hillary launched what she thought was a dev- astating attack on the Donald over a lawsuit by disgruntled students. It was a thinly-veiled deflection from "her deep in- volvement with a controversial for-profit college that made the Clintons millions, even as the school faced serious legal scru- tiny and criminal investiga- tions. In April 2015, Bill Clin- ton was forced to abruptly re- sign from his lucrative perch as honorary chancellor of Lau- reate Education, a for-profit college company. "The reason for Clinton's immediate departure: 'Clin- ton Cash' revealed, and Bloom- berg confirmed, that Laureate funneled Bill Clinton $16.46 million over five years while Hillary Clinton's State Dept. pumped at least $55 million to a group run by Laureate's founder and chairman, Doug- las Becker, a man with strong ties to the Clinton Global Ini- tiative. Laureate has donated between $1 million and $5 mil- lion to the Clinton Founda- tion." "During Bill Clinton's ten- ure as Laureate's chancellor, the school spent many mil- lions a year on aggressive tele- marketing, flashy Internet banner ads, and billboards de- signed to lure often unpre- pared students from impov- erished countries to enroll in its for-profit classes. The goal: get as many students, re- gardless of skill level, signed up and paying tuition." This reads so much like what you would expect (if you were a liberal) to be a scam fomented by Republican Trump. And yet, it actually illustrates the mega-narrative of avaricious, grafting, manipulative and, yes, Clintonian financial skull- duggery. For Clinton and her media sycophants and water-carri- ers, Clinton U. was a "time to move on, nothing to see here" moment. Then (for the media gatekeepers), it was "Another Islamic terrorist killed Amer- icans; time to shift the de- bate to gun control and LGBT rights." Along came gay pride demonstrations and an Oc- cupy/Social-Justice-Warrior sit-in and publicity stunt by Democrats in Congress to an- alyze and obsess over. Any- thing to avoid issues Amer- ican voters care about: our sub-par economic recovery, un- controlled immigration and Is- lamic terrorism. About a month ago, soon after the Orlando terror- ist slaughter, John Lott, au- thor of the statistically cor- rect "More Guns, Less Crime," wrote "Why terrorists target gun-free zones." He made the irrefutable observation that not one of the mass shootings since at least 2000, includ- ing Sunday's, would've been stopped by these (proposed) laws. Nor would renewing the federal 'assault weapons ban' solve the problem; even re- search paid for by Bill Clin- ton's administration found no evidence the ban reduced any type of crime… "PoliceOne, a private orga- nization with 450,000 mem- bers (380,000 full-time active law enforcement and 70,000 retired), polled its members in 2013 shortly after the New- town, Conn., massacre. Eighty percent of respondents said al- lowing legally armed citizens to carry guns in places such as Newtown and Aurora would have reduced the number of casualties. Another 6 percent thought the presence of legally armed civilians would 'likely' have prevented the innocent casualties altogether." Illustrating the convergence of suicidal gun-free zones and agenda-driven news media, I'll remind readers of the words of an actual "ISIS sympathizer who planned a shooting at one of the largest churches in De- troit. An FBI wire recorded him explaining why he had picked the church as a target: 'It's easy, and a lot of people go there. Plus people are not al- lowed to carry guns in church. Plus it would make the news.'" My hopes aside, terrorists will continue killing. And yet, we saw and heard Emperor Obama bemoan the ease for "individuals, who are troubled or disturbed or want to engage in violent acts, to get very powerful weapons…That's a problem (for which) we need to do some soul searching." Conservative 2nd Amend- ment advocate Dana Loesch showered the Twitter-verse with ways to complete the sen- tence, "We need to do some soul-searching says the pres- ident… 1) who gave guns to Mexican drug cartels and Gar- land Islamic terrorist Nadir Soofi, 2) whose administration kept the Tsarnaevs on welfare and a watch list, 3) whose ad- ministration admittedly re- fused to prosecute fraudu- lent 4473s (ATF gun purchase forms), "4) who allowed illegally possessed gun crime prosecu- tions to plummet in his watch, 5) whose administration cut arms deals with middle east- ern countries that punish ho- mosexuality with death, 6) who released terrorists back to the battlefield to kill our troops, 7) who wants to render innocents defenseless while domestic terror attacks in- crease, 8) who refuses to bring charges against terror suspects on lists thus allowing them to buy guns." No, Barack Obama's name won't be on the ballot but, make no mistake, he and Hill- ary and every Democrat that votes will cast their choice for Obama's third term economy, further diminishment of your gun rights as a law-abiding American and continued Is- lamic terrorism. 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 Media wants to avert your gaze In poll after poll, including one most recently as this month, the divides between Republicans and Democrats are stark. And they have only been deepened by this year's unusually combative presidential election. Sounding off A look at what readers are saying in comments on our website and on social media. He's guilty. No excuse to lie over and over and his DNA was found on the inside of the knot. No reason it would be there. He may not be acting alone, but he's guilty. That's my opinion. Leslie Sorrels: On the sentencing of Quentin Bealer for the murder of Marysa Nichols Whose job was it to check the integrity of the bridge before letting a 6-ton vehicle drive across it? Linda Hayes: On the collapse of Jellys Ferry Bridge a er a crash damaged it 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 ForestAve.,Ste.110,Chico95928, 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 Your officials OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Tuesday, July 12, 2016 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6