Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/800208
ChipThompson, Editor 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: Daily News 728Main St., Red Bluff, CA 96080 Facebook: Leave comments at FACEBOOK.COM/ RBDAILYNEWS Twitter: Follow and send tweets to @REDBLUFFNEWS SausageisbeingmadeinWashington. But you don't want to watch. Whetheryou'reaDem- ocrat or a Republican, lib- eral or conservative, watch- ing Washing- ton's sausage being made will make you lose your ap- petite for de- mocracy. Whether it's rewriting tax policy or re- pealing and replacing Obam- acare, I've always imagined the process starts somewhere in the basement of the Capitol Building... A bunch of politicians who couldn't scramble an egg for their own breakfast are stuff- ing their favorite kinds of pork and spices into a gigantic meat grinder. They argue about whose ideas are better and make pri- vate deals with each other. All their ingredients get smashed and squished together. Stuff falls on the floor. Some guys who want to please their special friends back home sneak in crazy stuff at the last minute. Others take important stuff out for the same reason. The whole dirty legislative process is too gross for anyone with high morals or political principles to watch, but in the end it turns out a piece of sau- sage that everyone in the coun- try has to eat whether they like it or not. American sausage is not perfect and never will be. And for the last century way too much of it has been made by liberals in Washington. Now Republicans are trying to reverse things by replacing Obamacare with a huge new law that will bring market re- forms, lower costs and patient choice to health care. The whole country has been watching Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and the House as they try to make their Repeal & Replace sausage — on TV. Even with their majorities and a Republican in the White House, Republicans have a lot of tough work to do. Speaker Ryan, as he ex- plained Thursday, will have to pull out every parliamentary trick in the book to slow-walk the Republicans' conservative sausage through Congress. It's also going to take Presi- dent Trump and every Republi- can in Washington to unite and work hard to overcome the op- position of Democrats and the liberal media. The president has to take the lead. He needs to meet with the Republican caucus, get every- one on the same page with him and lay down the law to any conservatives who are thinking of not supporting Repeal & Re- place. Too many "pure" conserva- tives in the Senate, the House Freedom Caucus and at think tanks have been criticizing R&R, calling it "Obamacare Lite" and complaining that it doesn't do X or Y or Z. But Republicans who are ex- pecting R&R to be perfect out of the box, or expect it already to be totally finished and tied with a nice red bow, are dream- ing. What's most important is they need to remember Ronald Reagan's 80-20 doctrine, which said that in Congress no one ever gets 100 percent of what they want in their sausage. In the real world that's the way the lawmaking process works. Conservative Republicans have to be willing to give a lit- tle, be happy to get 80 percent now and work on getting the re- maining 20 percent they want later. Republicans can't blow this opportunity or they might as well forget tax reform and any other big dream for the next four years. They need to find a way to come together to make Repeal & Replace work. They also have to stay off Fox News and CBS and do their complaining in private. Let the Democrats, the pundits and the liberal media do the public crit- icizing. When Republicans add their criticism to the mix, the public perceives Republicans to be in absolute disarray while the lib- erals who gave us Obamacare are unified and look like they know what they are doing. The only time we should hear a public statement from a Re- publican Congressman who doesn't like the House's Repeal & Replace legislation is after it has passed. Then he can say, "You know it might not be perfect but it's a heck of lot better than where we were headed under Obam- acare." Until that great day, if a Re- publican doesn't like the way Paul Ryan is making the R&R sausage, he should just shut the hell up. 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. MichaelReagan Making American sausage isn't pretty Cartoonist's take I wish I had known of a Stan- ford University study (first con- ducted way back in 1975) when I first learned of Donald Trump's election. It would have helped me understand the mindset of those who voted for him. Condensing and simplifying the study's find- ings: Impressions are remark- ably perseverant. The Stanford study has been repeated several times since, but always with the same results. Despite proof that people's pre- conceived ideas and impressions were proved false, they clung doggedly to their false beliefs. An article in The New Yorker by Elizabeth Kolbert states "The Stanford study became fa- mous for the contention that people can't think straight. It was shocking at the time, but it isn't any longer." She continues, "Rarely has this insight seemed more relevant than it does right now." The writer describes "con- firmation bias" as the tendency people have to embrace informa- tion that supports their beliefs and rejects information that contradicts them. She concludes that although the series of stud- ies predate the recent election, they "anticipated Kellyanne Con- way and the rise of her 'alternate facts' contention." At any rate, those looking for reasons why voters elected Trump should read the entire article and its sobering conclu- sions, which appeared in the February 27th issue of The New Yorker. I will supply you with a copy if you stop by the office and request same. ••• And speaking of the current President and his attempts to govern, Section 4 of the Twenty- fifth Amendment to the Con- stitution allows for the removal of a President who can no lon- ger discharge his duties but is unable or unwilling to say so. It empowers the Vice President, along with a majority of either the principal officers of the ex- ecutive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, to declare the Presi- dent unfit and to install the Vice President as acting President. Sources say that after a month in office, Donald J. Trump has already proved him- self unable to discharge his du- ties. His disability isn't laziness or inattention. It expresses it- self in paranoid rants, non-stop feuds carried out in public and impulsive acts that only damage his government and himself. ••• I received an e-mail soliciting support for an Air Force Mon- ument from one Peter Stiglich who signs off as "Colonel Pete." I find it interesting that he hangs on to his military title of Colonel. Most people, retired from conventional employment, rarely tout their previous occu- pation. But, by so doing, perhaps he assumes that he gains a bit of prestige. However, it is unlikely other air force veterans would engage in such self-promotion if they had only retired as enlisted men rather than as an officer and a gentleman. The touting of my own Second Lieutenant sta- tus is certainly no cause for my signing off of this column with such notification of former rank. ••• Johnny-come-lately columnist — but exceptional athlete — W. Cornelius devoted much of his Wednesday column about me, and that is rewarding. He ended with a note to his late mother noting that it was her birth- day and that he misses her very much. St. Patrick's Day however lives in infamy for me for that is the day my mother went to her reward at the hands of intrud- ers in the night. That said, I also miss her very much. ••• A friend suggested that a front page story with photo in the Daily News conveyed a false impression concerning our old meat plant 2 miles west of town. The former plant is indeed lo- cated on Minch Road, the nam- ing of which was considered a nice gesture by the county when it was first named many years ago. However, the Minch fam- ily lost the property when it was foreclosed back in 1975 by the SBA loan department during the bankruptcy proceedings of Mes- sina Meat at the time, a tragic tale best told in my book "The Knocking Pen." The point of this response to the DN article is that the front yard has been a dump- ing grounds for the now owner of the property, whose name es- capes me but is known by local broker Ben Gibson. Anyway, the place is a mess because the cur- rent owner was apparently un- able to find a use for the once grand old building, destroyed by fire but reconstructed in 1946 right after WWII. So, the writer of this column is not directly responsible for the present eyesore unless one con- nects the dots between my reign as President of Minch's Whole- sale Meats, Inc. and the unfor- tunate demise of same when the camel, in the guise of Mes- sina Meats out of Los Angeles, was allowed to get its nose un- der the corporate tent in a fruit- less attempt to void an oppres- sive union contract. It's all cov- ered in my book. Tsk, tsk. ••• Graduation in Chicago Leroy played high school foot- ball in Chicago. He was a great running back, but a really poor student. At graduation, he didn't have enough credits. But he was a great football star and the stu- dents held a rally and demanded the principal give him a diploma anyway. They were so insistent that the principal agreed that if Leroy would answer one ques- tion correctly he would give him a diploma. The one question test was held in the auditorium and all the students packed the place. It was standing room only. The principal was on the stage and told Leroy to come up. Diploma in hand, the princi- pal said: "Leroy, if you can an- swer this one question correctly I'll give you your diploma." "Leroy, how much is three times seven?" Leroy looked up at the ceiling and then down at his shoes, pondering the question. The other students began chanting, "Graduate him any- way. Graduate him anyway." Then Leroy held up his hand and the auditorium became si- lent. He said, "I think I know the answer. Three times seven is twenty-one." A hush fell over the audito- rium and then all the other stu- dents began to chant: "Give him another chance. Give him an- other chance." 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 Stanford study explains mindset of Trump voters The whole dirty legislative process is too gross for anyone with high morals or political principles to watch, but in the end it turns out a piece of sausage that everyone in the country has to eat whether they like it or not. Sounding off A look at what readers are saying in comments on our website and on social media. I'm not surprised, ever since Trump took office everything American is being destroyed. I'm saddened for the eagle's mate, for they mate for life. Helen Hobbs: On the recent shooting death of a bald eagle in Red Bluff Seriously though, what kind of a-hole literally shoots freedom? Rosey Bertoluzza: On the recent shooting death of a bald eagle in Red Bluff 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 Kamala Har- ris, 501 I St., Ste. 7-600, Sacra- mento 95814, 916 448-2787, fax 202 228-3865 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, Kris- tina Miller, 824-7033 YOUR OFFICIALS Michael Reagan Robert Minch OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Friday, March 17, 2017 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6