Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/806154
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 BothpartiesinWashingtoncan'tstopgoing down their favorite rathole. And the rest of us poor civilians from coast- to-coast and in-between have to watch — and suffer. Theentirecountryhasbeen poisoned by the constant "I hate you more than you hate me" biparti- sanship from D.C., which throws around lots of charges and counter- charges with virtually no solid evidence to back them up. Each party won't stop dig- ging their rathole. President Trump continues to insist that President Obama orderedsurveillance of Trump Tower last fall. The liberal media openly scoffs. Democrats continue to insist that the Trump campaign and the Russian hackers colluded to defeat Hillary Clinton. The liberal media openly fans the sparks of that conspir- acy, assuming and hoping it's true. When it comes to each of these dumb ratholes, it doesn't matter what the latest scoops or opinions from CNN or FOX News are. It doesn't matter what the next reckless Republican or Democrat congressman says is or is not true about the surveil- lance of the Trump Tower, the FBI, collusion with the Rus- sians, the weather or anything else. Did some members of the Trump Team who were not named Flynn talk to Russians who may or may not have been spies or Putin cronies last year? Probably. Does it mean that a devious Trump-Russkie pact was made to wreck Hillary's campaign — and successfully did so? Nope — and nope. Were President Trump and his transition staff the "inci- dental" target of data collec- tion by American intelligence agencies last year. Probably. These days just about ev- ery human who emails, texts, tweets or talks on a phone to any foreign citizen about any- thing is surveilled by some fed- eral agency or other. But that doesn't prove — or disprove — that the president's infamous "Obama 'wiretapped' Trump Tower" tweet is accu- rate. With each of these ratholes, it's not "Where's the beef?" It's "Where's the evidence?" Both sides are guilty. Democrats want you to hate Trump. Trump wants you to hate Democrats, even though he was one for most of his life. Both sides are rolling around in this endless childish mud fight and we have to sit and watch it. It's sent the whole country into a permanent state of polit- ical disunion and argument. Wives and husbands, broth- ers and sisters, golf and poker buddies, parents and kids — they're all either arguing about politics or not talking to each other because of politics. All it takes is the mere men- tion of the T-word — Trump — to ruin a dinner or a coffee break. It's maddening and frustrat- ing and it ticks me off to have to watch this crap. Conspiracy theories have left the fringes of the social media and are now playing out live every day in Washington. Each is pushing their own conspir- acy theory and we all have to suffer because of it. As for the Trump-Russian conspiracy theory, the Dem- ocrat dogs in Congress won't ever let go of that bone. The lack of evidence or proof doesn't matter to them. They'd be happy to hold hearings from now until November of 2020. President Trump can do his part to end at least half of the problem today. He can walk away from the whole Obama-wiretapping ra- thole and say, "Thanks for in- vestigating, guys. Thanks for letting me know Trump Tower was not wiretapped by Obama, as I was led to believe." Trump needs to accept the truth and publicly say, "Hey, the Democrats didn't wiretap me." And Democrats need to say, "Hey, there was no collusion with the Russians." And then they both need to get on with the important busi- ness of fixing the country. 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 Ratholes of Washington Cartoonist's take I have it on good author- ity that the editor of this splen- did newspaper prefers his local columnists write of local happen- ings and of lo- cal interest. This would encompass articles such as weather, County Supervisor mach- inations, down- town beautifica- tion efforts and window deco- rations at certain times of the year. The list probably should not include photos of city and county employees receiving awards, but that is just a per- sonal observation. When seeing such articles one should always wonder what prompted such accolades. But, I digress. However, with the exception of the William Tells column au- thor, who decidedly writes lo- cal of his children's pets, his Christmas ornaments and his family's trip to a cabin on the coast that lacked present day amenities like television and wi-fi, most of us rely on parrot- ing other columnists who offer insider information regarding national events of which we lo- cals are not privy. That said, It would be nice to dispense with the palace in- trigue emanating from the Trump administration except, on a certain level, it is all good fun. However, on another level it as frightening as when Nixon lied and was desperately trying to avoid impeachment. In the April 3 issue of Time, the cover reads "Is truth dead?" If you believe in the estab- lished media as I do, read on. If you believe all news is fake news and biased against Don- ald Trump, then best you turn to the joke at the end of this column. Still reading? Then read the following article by Nancy Gibbs, editor of the maga- zine, which is titled "When a President can't be taken at his world." She writes, in part, "On our cover, in April 1966, were the words "Is God dead?" and 97% of Americans told pollsters they believed in God. Half a century later I suspect about as many would say they believe in truth, and yet we find ourselves having an intense debate over its role and power in the face of a President who treats it like a toy. The old adage that "a lie gets halfway around the world before truth has a chance to get its pants on" was true even be- fore the invention of Twitter. But it has been given new rele- vance by an early-rising Chief Executive and his smartphone. "Like many newsrooms, we at Time have wrestled with when to say someone is lying. We can point out when a Pres- ident gets his facts wrong. We can measure distortions, read between the lines and ask the follow-up question. But there is a limit to what we can deduce about motive or intent, the in- terior wiring of the whopper, as opposed to its explosive impact. Even the nature of coverage be- comes complicated: social sci- entists have shown that repeti- tion of a false statement , even in the course of disputing it, of- ten increases the number of people who believe it." See the 1975 Stanford Uni- versity study I mentioned two weeks ago. ••• Speaking of Nancy Gibbs, and crestfallen that we still don't have a woman President of the United States, I nomi- nate Ms. Gibbs for said posi- tion. We have seen what hap- pens when an unprepared man achieves the title, but think how equipped the knowledge- able Nancy Gibbs would be with all facets of national and international activity. Talk about hitting the ground run- ning. ••• Eating is such a pleasure, and yet overeating can lead to an unpleasant aftermath — i.e., weight gain and indigestion. Author Alexander Sifferlin sug- gests ingesting the following to make your after eating as pleasant as your eating binge: Eggs, edamame, blackberries, figs, grass-fed steak, quinoa pasta, romaine lettuce, whole- grain bread, potatoes, acorn squash, almonds and corn. A quick personal accounting in- dicates I indulge, frequently, with all except edamame, figs and quinoa pasta. These foods are as alien to me as Muslims to Trump. ••• Jeanne Louise Calment had the longest confirmed human lifespan on record: 122 years and 164 days. She was born in Arles, France, on 21st February 1875. When the Eiffel Tower was built, she was 14 year old. It was at this time that she met Vincent van Gogh. "He was dirty, badly dressed and dis- agreeable," she recalled in an interview given in 1988. Jeanne retained sharp mental facul- ties. When she was asked on her 120th birthday what kind of fu- ture she expected to have, she replied: "A very short one." Quotes and rules of life from Jeanne Calment: "Being young is a state of mind, it doesn't de- pend on one's body, I'm actu- ally still a young girl; it's just that I haven't looked so good for the past 70 years. I've been forgotten by our good lord. "If you can't change some- thing, don't worry about it. "I see badly, I hear badly, and I feel bad, but everything's fine. "I took pleasure when I could. I acted clearly and mor- ally and without regret. I'm very lucky." ••• Speaking of birthdays, please be advised that April 3rd is just around the corner and is the birthday of Herb Caen, Saralu Gonsalves and yours truly. Herb has long gone to his re- ward, but Saralu and I are still kicking, though perhaps not kicking as high we once did. When comes the date, I will be 88. If I subscribed to the con- cept of heaven, and was un- fortunate to enter the pearly gates soon and I meet my fa- ther, I will be 24 years his se- nior rather than the spoiled kid he knew prior to his demise. ••• A very square Englishman went to America to learn some jokes. He was told one about a woman walking in the woods met a horseman, a fellow walker and an actor. Which one knew her? The answer? "The horseman knew her." He went back to England and told the joke to a large crowd: "An equestrian, a pe- destrian and a thespian met a woman walking in the woods. Which one knew her? The an- swer? Horse s..t." 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 Pondering the death of the truth Conspiracy theories have left the fringes of the social media and are now playing out live every day in Washington. Each is pushing their own conspiracy theory and we all have to suffer because of it. Sounding off A look at what readers are saying in comments on our website and on social media. So that's what it takes to get a pothole filled in Red Bluff these days. Now we know. Robert Staton: On a closure at Rio and Cedar to repair a sinkhole due to a failed drain pipe. For years I've used the kid seat belt to lock my purse in the cart, it's always the loading the vehicle that is tricky, glad she got it back, and very glad nobody was injured in the process. Lee McLeod: On a woman chasing down a thief a er her purse was stolen from a cart. 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 Robert Minch Michael Reagan OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Friday, March 31, 2017 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6