Don's Tuesday Column

         THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson    Red Bluff Daily News   10/30/2018

      Anti-car plans? Bombers and killers

There was an article about a county “active transportation” plan seeking input. My reaction was similar to the cautious reaction I had to the announcement about Cal Trans seeking input on the realignment of Hwy 36/Main Street lanes to facilitate traffic movement. Caution is due because we’ve seen from Sacramento to Portland that when it comes to idealistic and seemingly reasonable measures designed to “help” us “for our own good,” there can often be a hidden, anti-automotive-transportation agenda.

Gov. Brown talked openly about a “road diet” to slowly squeeze drivers with inconveniences associated with, if not fewer lane-miles to use, a concerted plan to shift transportation dollars away from additional roads serving cars to bike lanes, buses and light rail. None of those fit into the choices freely made by people who clearly prefer to get in their cars to get somewhere, expecting the exorbitant taxes we pay to provide the greatest possible ease for their work, recreation, entertainment and errand trips.

When in Oregon, we became aware of efforts involving their own Gov. Brown’s similar plans to disfavor cars on Portland’s streets. They have taken some major traffic corridor streets, which had four lanes and parking, and re-purposed enough of the roadway to bike lanes that drivers are left exasperated with one lane in each direction, watching mostly unused, empty bike lanes while they are stalled in traffic. Beware.

There was a supposedly straight news article from the AP that described President Trump as (maybe the writers didn’t choose the title) a “scaremonger” stoking fears among his base. I almost spit my coffee to read those descriptors and wondered if I had ever seen similar words used over the last 30 years as Democrats have waged campaign after political campaign devoted to scaring seniors that Republicans will take away Medicare and Social Security. They made a crude cartoon of Rep. Paul Ryan pushing a wheelchair-bound granny off a cliff, for Pete’s sake. Republicans stealing lunches from school kids was shamelessly, unquestioningly regurgitated by some of those same writers and Associated Press stories.

Witness the proven lies I exposed in this column being used against Rep. LaMalfa by his opponent, Ms. Denney, and her mouthpieces, supporters and campaign flyers. Democrats own fear-mongering tactics. When you consider that Democrats are the party of “sanctuary” cities and states, we have good cause to fear for our property and lives at the hands of illegal alien criminals released to prey on the innocent instead of being transferred to I.C.E for deportation. It’s obvious that Americans living near the border have more to fear from aliens hauling drugs or human chattel without a border wall than with it. I don’t like Democrats because they get people killed through anti-gun and pro-illegal alien laws, and soft-on-crime judges and “reforms.”

Had the dozen or so dud (not hoax or fake) bombs—as well as the abominable anti-Semitic mass murders—appeared yesterday instead of days ago, this column would have a very different message, borne of grief and condolences. Since less than 24 hours passed before the most despicable political, Trump-deranged reactions, I have nothing but anathema for the Democrat/progressive/media’s leftist knee-jerk spewing of obsessive hatred.

Here are some thoughts, in no particular order: All of the blathering about how “Trump needs to tone it down” and “reverse statements that condone violence” so misses the essential truth (intentionally, as I see it) of Trump’s rhetoric and tweets as to render their criticism null and void. First, candidate Trump’s campaign event attendees were repeatedly assaulted by antifa/occupy/black lives matter types; Trump never once told his fans to go out and attack anyone. He encouraged rough treatment at times in his rallies when they were disrupted by protesters—you can disagree with that but one protester actually attempted to rush the stage while others engaged in middle-finger insults and sign-wielding interruptions.

I think they had it coming when attacking his rallies; you don’t see any of that now when many thousands are showing up. Charlottesville? Trump never praised white nazis; he rightly said that “good people were on both sides” of the Confederate monument removal debate and protests. That is all.

No respectable, legitimate conservative Trump supporter held Bernie Sanders responsible for James Hodgkinson who attempted to murder Rep. Steve Scalise and, but for armed security, would have slaughtered as many Republicans as his ammo could allow. No one held Al Gore to blame for the environmental fanatic Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, who had a dog-eared copy of Gore’s book, “Earth in the Balance” for inspiration due to the impending disasters outlined therein. Obama was buddies with the Weathermen bomber, Bill Ayers, who wished he’d done more bombing, to no condemnation by Obama.

If President Trump’s and his supporters’ vitriol over the “fake news” media seems untoward and intemperate, please explain how 2-years’ worth of demonization, lies and Trump-as-Hitler is within the bounds of decency for honest reporting and opining. The hyperbolic voices in the news and commentary should be responsible enough to know that equating someone to Hitler or other evildoers is tantamount to saying that it would be justified to kill him, wouldn’t it?

The wannabe bombmaker, Sayoc, was a 25+year criminal who demonstrates that Broward Co. Florida has a problem with putting and keeping criminals in jail. Trump had nothing to do with inspiring a self-deluded, fake-Seminole, strip club worker and exaggerator-of-his-own-resume.

When it comes to anti-Semitism, are we really being asked to disregard the clear evidence of Trump’s support of Israel and close family ties to the Jewish faith? The synagogue murderer hated Trump for all of that. Does the decades-long affinity of the left with Jew-hating Muslim fundamentalists and racists, up to and including Al Sharpton, Jessie Jackson, Louis Farrakhan and the Women’s March leader and sharia-devotee Linda Sarsour—that means nothing?

How does Barack Obama get no responsibility for his anti-Israel, Iran-supporting nuclear deal? More next week.