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Wednesday, June 13, 2018 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
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Where is the love for
Oregon and Country?
Steve Nugent
Guest Columnist
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 Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned.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 noticed that many of the prescribed burns
on National Forest Land have a lot of fresh
stumps and large piles of left-behind branches,
presumably from the logged trees.
Though I understand that fire is a natural
part of the cycle, I feel confused over the idea
that intentionally setting fires outside of the
natural fire season, potentially setting/con-
trolling those fires with chemicals, cutting
down trees, hauling the cut trees away, pil-
ing remaining branches up, and creating new
roads to manage these prescribed areas is any-
where close to what would happen in a natural
fire event.
My understanding of a natural fire is that
the trees and down wood burn during the time
of year when nature deems it to happen. How
is the current strategy actually mimicking
nature by intentionally causing fires without
leaving all of the trees and down wood in
place? Isn’t fire ecology about allowing the
down wood and remaining trees to burn in
place so that the resulting ashes can feed the
current and future flora and fauna? Where is
all the wood going?
Leslie Hawes
s
s
s
To the Editor:
I would like to respond to the guest column
(“Open the gate,” The Nugget, June 6, page
2) by Glenn Brown.
First of all, he is wrong when he stated that
ODOT plows the road twice. ODOT plows
the road only once and it isn’t to make a bike
See LETTERS on page 24
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Jeff Mackey’s letter
last week supported Greg
Walden for trying to repeal
Obamacare and replace it
with Walden’s bare-bones
plan that would have resulted
in 1/3 of Central Oregonians
losing their health insur-
ance. This plan was unani-
mously rejected by all heath-
care organizations. Even
Republicans realized that
it was garbage and voted it
down.
You cannot convince me
that Walden is looking after
Central Oregonians’ best
interests.
I participated in protests
to get Walden to hold a Town
Hall in Bend on his health
plan. He never showed his
face to defend it.
Health insurance is a bur-
den for everyone, until you
need it. I have heard many
stories from those who hated
Obamacare until they were
really sick and realized how
great it is. Rather than modi-
fying Obamacare to address
its weaknesses, Walden’s
plan would have replaced
it with low-quality, cheap
insurance with payout limits,
no included preventive care,
eliminating the Individual
Mandate and Medicaid
expansion. Totally worth-
less and likely to cause many
people to go into bankruptcy
or die when catastrophic
health issues occur, with
nothing to keep insurance
companies in check.
W h a t c o n s e r v a t i v e s
need to realize is that
Obamacare was based on
a GOP plan already imple-
mented and working well
in Massachusetts. This plan
used market-forces and pri-
vate insurance marketplace
rather than government-con-
trolled healthcare like most
other developed countries
have. ACA enabled mil-
lions of consumers to have
healthcare for the first time.
It cost more for a few, but the
insurance was much better.
Obama backed this because
he wanted buy-in from
Republicans in Congress. If
left to his own preferences,
I suspect that Obama would
go for a Bernie Sanders-style
single-payer system con-
trolled by the government
instead. Obama was trying
to get compromise on this
rather than something that the
other party would object to.
For this compromise,
Obama got years of obstruc-
tion in return. It became
a political football for
Republicans to discredit
Obama. It’s still a good plan
and the ONLY way to get to
a market-driven insurance
system that actually works.
Then Mackey asks “What
did I miss?” listing lower
taxes, rule of law, creating
jobs and greater security that
he believes we have now, as
if Walden or Trump had any-
thing to do with these.
Trump has created the
illusion of greater security
rather than actually improv-
ing it. How is it possible that
we are more secure when:
• He has done everything
that Putin wants in order to
break up the world order that
has benefited the U.S. since
WWII and degrade our posi-
tion as world leaders, includ-
ing: Non-support of NATO,
siding with Russia on Assad,
starting trade-wars with our
allies and backing out of the
Iran nuclear deal.
• He trades insults pub-
licly with North Korea,
almost escalating to nuclear
war
• Allies are now reluctant
to share intelligence because
it might get disclosed pub-
licly by Trump
• FBI informants are
now reluctant to cooper-
ate because they might be
compromised
• Allies don’t trust our
word anymore because we
are backing out of so many
agreements
• Russians can interfere
with our politics and spread
propaganda with impunity
and the Whitehouse says
nothing
• Immigrant parents are
being separated from their
children, against interna-
tional law
• True felons are being
pardoned for political
purposes
• Nothing significant is
being done to address the
opioid crisis
• Rhetoric from Trump
has made some of the popu-
lation untrusting of legiti-
mate news sources and trust-
ing of political propaganda
from dubious sources
• Trump himself uses
unsecured phones for official
communication. If Hillary
did this, she would be in jail.
Rule of law? You must be
kidding. Laws only apply to
the little people in the U.S.
now. Laws don’t apply to
Trump.
Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and
are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.
