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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 6, 2017)
2 Wednesday, December 6, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon O P I N I O N The Russians won in 2016 Jim Cornelius Editor Letters to the Editor… The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer’s name, address and phone number. Let- ters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily 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 Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned.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: I have a suggestion/challenge: School dis- trict officials should arrange to have the site and footprint of the proposed bus barn flagged, and then invite the community (taxpayers) to come out and see for themselves what is being considered. Patrick Eckford s s s To the Editor: Bonnie Malone’s letter on November 29 could have been written by a number of people in Sisters who frequent the library and always looked forward to finding Charlotte Nichter present. What a loss to the library and the commu- nity. Having an employee loyal for over two decades to a job she carried out well is hard to come by and should be celebrated instead of dismissed. Even if her limitations kept her from doing 100 percent of what she used to do, continuing her on as an employee would have been the right thing to do. Edie Jones s s s To the Editor: I totally agree with Bonnie Malone’s letter regarding Charlotte Nitcher and am very dis- appointed in the Deschutes Library Board in their unanimous vote to “fire” Charlotte. Am especially disappointed in the Board member who is also on the Friends of Sisters Library and my neighbor. Sue Edgerton s s s To the Editor: I did not realize that Charlotte Nitcher had See LETTERS on page 31 Sisters Weather Forecast Courtesy of the National Weather Service, Pendleton, Oregon Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday Sunny Sunny Mostly Sunny Mostly Sunny Mostly Sunny Mostly Sunny 36/16 41/17 45/20 45/21 44/21 44/31 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. Editor: Jim Cornelius Production Manager: Leith Easterling Classifieds & Circulation: Teresa Mahnken Advertising: Karen Kassy Graphic Design: Jess Draper Proofreader: Pete Rathbun Accounting: Erin Bordonaro Owner: J. Louis Mullen 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. General Michael Flynn’s guilty plea for lying to the FBI about contacts with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak is a major step forward in an investi- gation that will lead to the impeachment of President Donald Trump. Or it’s not. In fact, it’s a sign that Robert Mueller’s investigation is running out of steam. The rampant specula- tion as to what Flynn’s plea means or doesn’t mean in the ongoing “Russia inves- tigation” is a perfect reflec- tion of the tribalism that afflicts American culture and politics at the end of 2017 — a tribalism that is easy for our adversaries in the world to exploit. Those who ardently wish to see the end of what they consider a dangerous and illegitimate presidency can hardly contain their excite- ment at each step — no matter how small or opaque in its significance — in an investigative process they hope will bring Trump down. Those who defend Trump — despite his team’s obvious obfusca- tions over Russia — insist that there’s really nothing to see here, that the nature of the charges against Flynn, Paul Manafort and George Papadopoulos actually “prove that there was no collusion.” The question of collu- sion is itself misleading; it’s being used as a kind of shorthand for possible criminal activity. But col- lusion itself is not a crime. It is possible that there was cooperation between the Trump campaign and Russia. It is possible that that cooperation violated specific statutes, such as election laws. We don’t know. Mueller may find such criminal action; he may not. We k n o w t h a t t h e charges against Manafort are for money laundering, not for collusion-related crimes. Papadopoulos and Flynn have pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. We also know that the Trump team’s repeated assertions that nobody in the campaign had contacts with Russia are not true. We don’t know what might amount to collusion and if there was collusion whether specific actions broke spe- cific laws. Presumably, we’ll find out, eventually. It may be that if Trump goes down in this farcical scandal, it will be at his own hand — or, rather, his Twitter finger. On Saturday, he tweeted: “I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!” The tweet implies that Trump knew that Flynn had lied to the FBI before he fired FBI Director James Comey — which could amount to obstruction of justice. The White House obviously is aware that the tweet puts Trump’s tail in a crack, which is why they’re going with “the lawyer tweeted it.” The blame-the-dog ploy? Really? At this point, the only absolute certainty is that the Russia investigation will further divide Americans and deepen the cultural and political rifts that were so apparent in the 2016 elec- tion. And that will suit the Russians and Vladimir Putin to a T. Experienced Kremlin- watchers believe that Putin wasn’t so much focused on a certain outcome in the presidential election as he was on sowing chaos, undermining Americans’ confidence in our institu- tions, and bloodying the nose of Hillary Clinton. The operation succeeded beyond all possible expec- tations — and the ongo- ing fallout is a gift to the Russians that will keep on giving, way past the holi- day season. Which makes Vladimir Putin the sole winner of the 2016 election. Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.
