Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (July 5, 2017)
2 Wednesday, July 5, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon O P I N I O N Jonah Goldberg Welcome Quilters! Letters to the Editor… The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer’s name, address and phone number. Letters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not neces- sarily shared by the Editor. The Nugget reserves the right to edit, omit, respond or ask for a response to letters submitted to the Editor. Letters should be no longer than 300 words. Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned. The deadline for all letters is noon Monday. To the Editor: The devastating June 25 motor-vehicle crash outside the Black Butte Ranch main entrance has been cruel to victims and their families. They must all be in our thoughts and prayers. The Oregon State Police and local law enforcement authorities as well as the Oregon Department of Transportation played vital roles on scene. I particularly want to commend the firefighters and paramedics from the Black Butte Ranch and Sisters-Camp Sherman Fire Departments. They did an extraordinary job. We are lucky to have them. Larry Stuker Black Butte Ranch s s s To the Editor: Have you caught the new show in town? The Roundabout? Get a DQ, sit on the patio and watch. It’s already a lo-o-o-ng running show as participants are backed up to Tollgate. Tom Kopec Sisters Weather Forecast Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday Sunny Sunny Sunny Sunny Sunny Sunny 91/49 89/51 89/49 88/49 88/na na/na The Nugget Newspaper, Inc. Website: www.nuggetnews.com 442 E. Main Ave., P.O. Box 698, Sisters, Oregon 97759 Tel: 541-549-9941 | Fax: 541-549-9940 | editor@nuggetnews.com Postmaster: Send address changes to The Nugget Newspaper, P.O. Box 698, Sisters, OR 97759. Third Class Postage Paid at Sisters, Oregon. Publisher - Editor: Kiki Dolson News Editor: Jim Cornelius Production Manager: Leith Easterling Classifieds & Circulation: Teresa Mahnken Advertising: Karen Kassy Graphic Design: Jess Draper Proofreader: Pete Rathbun Accounting: Erin Bordonaro The Nugget is mailed to residents within the Sisters School District; subscriptions are available outside delivery area. Third-class postage: one year, $45; six months (or less), $25. First-class postage: one year, $85; six months, $55. Published Weekly. ©2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. All advertising which appears in The Nugget is the property of The Nugget and may not be used without explicit permission. The Nugget Newspaper, Inc. assumes no liability or responsibility for information contained in advertisements, articles, stories, lists, calendar etc. within this publication. All submissions to The Nugget Newspaper will be treated as uncondition- ally assigned for publication and copyrighting purposes and subject to The Nugget Newspaper’s unrestricted right to edit and comment editorially, that all rights are currently available, and that the material in no way infringes upon the rights of any person. The publisher assumes no responsibility for return or safety of artwork, photos, or manuscripts. I do not fear much cor- rection when I say that my columns of the last few years have not been char- acterized by an overabun- dance of cheerfulness and optimism. For instance, about a year ago, I endorsed a Twitter personality for president. No, not that one. I backed SMOD, the “Sweet Meteor of Death,” whose sole presi- dential campaign promise was to deliver an extinction- level event upon impact with earth. But SMOD, like so many politicians, disappointed me, which is why my refrain of the last few years has been, “Cheer up, for the worst is yet to come.” I bring this up for two reasons. First, to acknowl- edge for the reader my misanthropic biases, and second, to beg some indul- gence, as I’m unaccustomed to describing the light at the end of the tunnel as anything other than a locomotive’s headlamp. So here it goes: Maybe things are getting better. The standard brief against the president, from the left and much of the desiccated center, is that Donald Trump is a threat to the constitu- tional order. I do not dismiss this view out of hand, and if President Trump were much more popular, I’d worry about it more. But to date, things aren’t working that way. The press, by its own self-aggrandizing account, is enjoying some new golden age. Newspaper subscrip- tions are up. No thanks to the White House’s own efforts, this really is the most transpar- ent administration in his- tory. Leaks make it almost impossible for the White House to keep anything secret. And when it does, the president’s Twitter account serves almost as a live feed into what he is thinking. O b v i o u s l y, l i b e r a l s despise the president’s agenda, but most of what he has accomplished, almost entirely through executive orders, has actually been entirely defensible — and from a conservative perspec- tive, laudable — on policy terms. If you don’t like him rescinding so many of President Obama’s execu- tive orders, perhaps you should have pushed harder for Obama to get things done the proper way — through the legislative process. Then there’s Congress. For decades, under Republican and Democratic presidents and Republican and Democratic majorities, Congress has been a feckless doormat for the president, ceding ever more authority to the executive branch. This is not how it’s supposed to work. Congress is the “first branch” of government pre- cisely because the founders saw in the presidency the threat of despotism, or what Edmund Randolph called “the foetus of monarchy.” That’s why Congress has all the real power under the Constitution: the sole authority to declare war, levy taxes, ratify treaties and craft legislation. Most of the Republicans in Congress have little experience in crafting seri- ous legislation, never mind asserting their first branch prerogatives. Thanks in part to the president’s incompe- tence and in part to his lau- datory desire to delegate the tough decisions to Congress, House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have had to step up, filling a breach that began under Woodrow Wilson and became a chasm at the end of the Obama years. No one can dispute that it’s been an ugly and at times embarrassing process, one that seems frightening to Beltway denizens who’ve grown accustomed to presi- dents driving outside their constitutional lanes. Nor can it be argued that the rank- and-file Republicans rac- ing to hastily slap together healthcare legislation and tax reform are doing so primarily out of a patriotic fidelity to the founders’ vision. Rather, they know that if they don’t deliver, they will be thrown out of office like drunks who can’t pay their bar tabs. But that’s OK. The founders under- stood that political ambition was the lifeblood of institu- tional heath. © 2017 Tribune Content Agency, LLC Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.