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Wednesday, February 20, 2019 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
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Editorial…
A national emergency
Republicans, especially those who style
themselves Constitutional Conservatives,
should stand up in full-throated opposition to
President Trump9s declaration of a national
emergency in order to secure funding for a
border wall.
Regardless of one9s position on border
security, this declaration is the wrong course.
It abrogates the provisions of Article One of
the U.S. Constitution, which explicitly gives
power of the purse to Congress. It further
empowers an executive branch that has far
exceeded the powers envisioned for it by the
Founders. It9s especially egregious given that
Trump himself says, <I didn9t need to do this,
but I9d rather do it much faster.=
If he <didn9t need to do this,= it9s not an
emergency and the declaration is illegitimate.
When President Obama proclaimed that
<We9re not just going to be waiting for leg-
islation. I9ve got a pen and I9ve got a phone...
and I can use that pen to sign executive orders
and take executive actions and administra-
tive actions,= Constitutional Conservatives
rightly raised a hue and cry about executive
overreach.
They can now demonstrate that they are
loyal to principle rather than merely loyal
to power by taking the same stand against
Trump9s declaration. Some, to their credit,
already have.
If principle isn9t enough to appeal to them,
perhaps they should contemplate the prospect
of, oh, say, a President Kamala Harris cit-
ing the Trump precedent to declare <national
emergencies= over healthcare, climate change,
shootings or any other issue she deems fit.
Making an outcry won9t mean much then,
will it?
Jim Cornelius, Editor in Chief
Letters to the Editor…
The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer9s 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 Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned.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 want to thank the Sisters Chamber of
Commerce and its members for the unex-
pected honor of being chosen and awarded
the Presidents Award. When I heard my name
announced at the Chamber Dinner & Awards, I
was speechless and humbled by such an honor.
I also want to thank the Sisters community
for allowing me to capture so many wonderful
and exciting moments in their daily lives. I am
so lucky to be surrounded by so many wonder-
ful people and organizations that make up the
greater Sisters community and be allowed to
capture so many awesome moments.
I especially want to thank my beauti-
ful wife, Marlene, for the amazing encour-
agement and support that I am given. I also
want to thank our local newspaper for their
encouragement, acknowledgement and sup-
port. God bless all those that live here and
those whose lives I have touched.
Go Outlaws!
Jerry Baldock
Outlaws Photography
s
s
s
To the Editor:
Pete Rathbun has been a familiar face at
Sisters Folk Festival for more than 10 years.
Amidst organizational changes that are cur-
rently underway, Pete has decided step down
at the Folk Festival and accept an offer in a
new industry.
Sisters Folk Festival is very thankful to
See LETTERS on page 23
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nugget_2019-02-20.indd 2
Jonah
Goldberg
Donald Trump can9t win
in 2020 but the Democrats
can lose, and they seem
determined to give it their
best shot.
Just going by the num-
bers, barring a compelling
independent candidacy of
someone likely to siphon
votes from the Democratic
column, it seems impossible
for Trump to get re-elected.
Of course, it9s not impos-
sible, because we never get to
the future as the crow flies. In
the heat of an election, many
Trump-skeptical Republicans
and Republican-leaning vot-
ers will come home. But if
that happens, it almost surely
won9t happen because Trump
moderated his behavior.
If the president could
pivot to a more <presiden-
tial= persona he would have
done it already. When Brit-
ish Prime Minister Marga-
ret Thatcher was confronted
with calls to turn away
from her market-liberat-
ing reforms, she famously
declared, <The lady9s not
for turning.= Trump, while a
very different kind of leader,
could give a speech declar-
ing, <The man is not for
pivoting.=
So, the only variable in
the binary presidential elec-
tion lies on the left side of
the ledger. If the Democrats
present a face that is scarier
than the reality show of the
previous four years, many
Americans could vote against
the Democrats rather than for
the Republicans.
That process is already
starting. Erick Erickson, a
prominent <Never Trump=
conservative in 2016 and
a Trump critic since then,
announced on Monday that
he will be voting for Trump
in 2020.
Democrats would be wise
to pay attention. Erickson
hasn9t suddenly fallen in love
with Trump; he9s grown deci-
sively horrified by the Dem-
ocrats. And I can9t blame
him. Just last week, Demo-
crats unveiled the Green
New Deal, a wild-eyed fan-
tasy of an agenda that would
cost trillions, destroy whole
industries and serve as a Tro-
jan horse for socialism.
Not long before that, Sen.
Kamala Harris (D-Calif.)
cavalierly admitted that
<Medicare for all= would
wipe out the insurance poli-
cies of more than a 100
million Americans. She
has done some backpedal-
ing since, but other leading
Democrats remain commit-
ted, including Sen. Kirsten
Gillibrand of New York,
who recently said eliminat-
ing private insurance was an
<urgent goal.=
The scandals unravel-
ing the Democratic Party
in Virginia have obscured
the fact that the controversy
started because someone
was appalled by Gov. Ralph
Northam9s defense of legis-
lation that seemed to support
the right to terminate the life
of delivered babies.
There9s ample room to
criticize the way Trump has
handled immigration and
shoved all his chips into the
center of the table for his
wall, but some of the Demo-
crats9 rhetoric about immi-
gration 4 the need to abolish
Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, for example
4 hasn9t made them appear
like a reasonable alternative.
A host of other story lines,
largely ignored or down-
played by the mainstream
media, have caught the atten-
tion of conservatives none-
theless, from increasingly
open hostility to Catholic
judicial nominees to greater
tolerance for anti-Semitic
rhetoric.
House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi (D-Calif.) seems to
grasp that it9s in her party9s
interest not to go overboard
in response to Trump, but col-
lectively it9s as if the Demo-
crats think the savvy political
response to the radicalism
they see in Trumpism is an
alternatively radical agenda.
The problem is that Trump9s
actual agenda (so far) hasn9t
been as radical as the disori-
entating nature of his norm-
defying personal conduct
and obvious contempt for
institutional safeguards has
led many liberals to believe.
In many respects the par-
ties are mirroring each other,
as the incentive structure on
both sides is geared toward
the extremes. Politics is no
longer about capturing the
center where most voters
gravitate, but revving up the
ranks of the most passion-
ate. Faced with that reality,
enough Americans may hold
their noses and vote against
the devil they don9t know.
© 2019 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.
2/19/19 10:56 AM