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Written by: Philip Murphy

Published: 21 June 2017

According to our intelligence services, one of the most important tools the Russians used to influence our election was RT (Russia Today), the Russian government funded TV news station, which the intelligence agencies thought was so important they devoted seven pages to it in their 25 page report on Russian election meddling.

Oddly enough, the hosts of RT are uniformly liberal progressives, unlike their conservative Russian government sponsors. In fact, during the entire campaign RT’s top prime time host was Thom Hartmann, who also has a daily radio program run on hundreds of stations across the nation including our own KPFZ 88.1 in Lakeport.

Hartmann’s hour-long show was run on RT twice every weekday, so they could hit prime time slots on both the east and west coast. Hartmann originally backed Sanders, but as soon as Hillary won the primary he fully supported her and stepped-up his daily assaults on Trump.

There were no Trump supporters among RT hosts, but there were plenty of Trump critics, the only Trump supporters featured were guests. So for at least two hours a day RT viewers got solid support for Hillary, and all day long they heard relentless attacks on Trump during the last five months of the campaign.

The fact the RT was completely biased in favor of Hillary was never mentioned by the mainstream media (MSM), and it was also never mentioned in the intelligence agency report, where instead they claimed RT was disrupting our elections by giving air time to third party candidates and by running stories on how easy it was to hack our electronic voting machine systems!

So the Russians did interfere with our election by giving Hillary support on a daily basis with no support whatsoever for Trump. This fact has been completely ignored, along with the fact that our intelligence agencies complained that the Russians were publicly pointing out the weaknesses of our election cyber security at the same time the Russians were supposedly hacking into those systems.

There are an endless number of reasons to be appalled by the presidency of Donald Trump, but every claim coming from democrats, intelligence agencies or news media about Russian election meddling should be viewed with intense skepticism, as the DNC, MSM and CIA’s lack of honesty and competence is the one thing that is indisputable.

Philip Murphy lives in Finley, Calif.

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Written by: Congressman Mike Thompson

Published: 15 June 2017

Hatred has no place in our politics. Violence is not the way we settle our differences.

The attack on Members of Congress was cowardly and inexcusable, and threats and statements that appeared afterwards on social media are inflammatory and counterproductive. We are better than this.

The rancor and venom I have witnessed lately is poisonous, and it has to stop. We will destroy ourselves if we do not step back, take a deep breath, and remember that we are all Americans.

We all care deeply for our country and our countrymen. There is much more that unites us than divides us, and I urge us all to stand together in support of all those wounded today, their loved ones, and their families.

Congressman Mike Thompson is proud to represent California’s Fifth Congressional District, which includes all or part of Contra Costa, Lake, Napa, Solano and Sonoma counties. He is a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee. Rep. Thompson is also a member of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition and chairs the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force as well as the bipartisan, bicameral Congressional Wine Caucus.

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Written by: Rob Brown

Published: 31 March 2016

I am writing in response to the article printed in the Ukiah Daily Journal titled "Lady Cats Dramatic Comeback," and written by David Taxis.

First, it should be noted that his motivation for this piece was driven by the Coach Wingler's decision to not allow him to sit in a lawn chair in foul territory. I'm sure this decision was made more for the safety of the players than it was for the protection of some low-level sports writer who could actually benefit from a line drive to his melon.

He begins the article with, "We all have our impressions of Lake County," and his tone is obviously not complimentary. I can assure him that, based on the kindness and generosity of the good people of Mendocino County during the last six months in the aftermath of the Valley Fire, their impression is obviously much different than his. 

He also describes the "mule trails" above Clear Lake and I am guessing that his reading skills are equal to his writing talents and he misread the directions on the best route to Lakeport and ended up driving over Cow Mountain instead.

He also mentions "Lakeport's reputation aside," as if he is qualified to be critical of the good people of this town.

This editorial of the geographic area is bad enough but it is his disrespectful editorial and personal comments that proved to be incredibly irresponsible and tasteless.

He offers an insulting physical description of the umpire and, after looking at Mr. Taxis' Facebook page, I found it ironic that he would be able to be judgmental of anyone's personal appearance.

The part of this article that I found to be the most offensive was his misogynistic and disrespectful treatment of the young women from both teams. As a father of two daughters and as a high school coach of young women, I am deeply offended and I would expect more from the Ukiah Daily Journal than to allow that kind of work to make it to their readers.

While I am not from Lakeport and I actually coach a rival team of Clear Lake High School, I have the good fortune of being friends with many of the players on their softball team as well as a deep respect for their coach, Doug Wingler.

It makes me grateful for the exceptional, thoughtful and respectful coverage that our local Lake County news sources give to our youth sports.

I would hope that the UDJ would reconsider who they send to cover a game in the future, their readers deserve better and certainly our kids deserve better.

Rob Brown lives in Kelseyville, Calif. He is a high school wrestling coach and Lake County supervisor.