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Wednesday, May 8, 2019 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
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National security
threat?
By Steve Nugent
Guest Columnist
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 Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned.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.
Clarification: In last week9s issue, colum-
nist T. Lee Brown endorsed school board can-
didate Mandee Seeley. Her page 2 op-ed col-
umn quoted Courtney Snead, interim director
of Sisters Park & Recreation District, Seeley9s
employer, who described some of Seeley9s
work. To clarify: Neither SPRD nor its direc-
tor endorse any candidate for public office. The
endorsement came from the columnist alone.
s
s
s
To the Editor:
I want to give a shout-out to our SHS stu-
dent drivers! They continually impress me in
their consistency to use their blinkers. I drive
to the HS at least once a day (sometimes 3x)
and am surprised daily by their blinker use as
they pull IN to the parking lot, drive OUT of
the parking lot and all around town.
It9s true. Safety (physical AND emotional) is
higher on the list for iGen (Internet Generation).
Born in the late 1960s, I9m a GenX who is fas-
cinated by the book called iGen (Thank you
G. Greaney for the book recommendation!).
Author, Jean M. Twenge, PhD., refers to those
born 1995 to 2012 as iGen. Unlike Millennials,
they don9t remember a time before the Internet
(and this, specifically, changes this population).
Twenge has done extensive data analysis from
more than 11 million respondents over multiple
decades (since 1976).
One thing she does point out is that fewer
16-year-olds are wanting to obtain a driver9s
license 4 because <driving= might not be safe
and risk-taking is at an all-time low with this
generation. That alone is intriguing to me. My
16th birthday was defined by my trip to the
DMV to get my license.
If you are raising an iGen, employing an
iGen (or ever plan to leave the house), you
need to check this book out (or download it if
you ARE an iGen). You9ll be surprised at data
graphs of the iGen9s unique qualities of how
they spend their time and money, how they
behave (physical interactions with others out-
side of their family, etc.) and their surprising
See LETTERS on page 37
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There are still chants of
<lock her up= referring to
Hillary Clinton at Trump
rallies, even though she
was never indicted for any
wrongdoing. Trump would
love to lock up anyone that
criticizes him or challenges
him. Trump even threatened
to lock Hillary up after he
was elected. That is what
authoritarian dictators do.
If you had been pay-
ing attention, you would
know that Trump envies the
world9s dictators the most.
I think he dreams of being
one. Hillary used a personal
email server for some of her
official business and it was
an unwise thing to do in our
current world of cyber-espi-
onage. A slap on the hand
was sufficient.
In the U.S., you don9t
punish someone just
because you don9t like
them. The irony is that the
Trump administration has
a record of security abuses
that makes any previous
administration look like
choir boys:
Within the first days
of the Trump presidency,
Trump was having talks
with his intelligence offi-
cials about the North Korea
nuclear threat on a public
patio at Mar-a-Lago, within
earshot of the other patrons.
Trump has used unse-
cured personal cell phones
for conducting official
White House business,
including talks with for-
eign leaders for more than 2
years. These can be hacked
and listened in on. To my
knowledge, he continues to
do this.
Ivanka Trump and Jared
Kushner both used personal
email accounts for offi-
cial White House business
until this was flagged by
the media. No indictments
there, yet. They would
get pardons from Trump
anyway.
Trump disclosed top-
secret intelligence from
an ally to the Russian
Ambassador in the oval
office to the dismay of the
ally and our intelligence
officials.
Trump has held a num-
ber of high-level secre-
tive meetings with foreign
adversaries, including
Russia, that did not include
any US intelligence or State
Department officials. These
meetings were never docu-
mented and Congress is
pursuing more information
on what transpired in these
meetings.
Twenty-five top-security
clearances were approved
for Trump family mem-
bers and appointees despite
objections from White
House security staff. These
applicants all had conflicts
of interest and/or dealings
with foreign adversaries.
Trump made sure that they
were all approved anyway.
According to the media,
there is evidence that the
blockade of Qatar or delays
in removing it was insti-
gated by Jared Kushner
because Qatar denied him a
loan to bail him out of his
failing 666 5th Ave. prop-
erty $1.2B debt. It was
revenge and punishment for
Qatar and self-dealing by
Kushner.
Most people don9t real-
ize this, but the U.S. was
closer to nuclear war than
any other time in history due
to Trumps threatening rhet-
oric with Kim Jong Un last
year. Security analysts and
intelligence officials close
to this were very scared.
The whole military was on
heightened alert. Luckily
things have moderated, but
the heat is being turned up
again by North Korea.
Mar-a-Lago was recently
infiltrated by a Chinese
woman carrying malware.
The Secret Service can-
not provide security at this
site, but Trump insists on
using it.
Pretty much all of the
dangerous behaviors that
Hillary warned us about
have come to pass. We have
an incompetent President
that appoints incompetent
White House cabinet offi-
cials that end up resigning
or getting fired. We have
a President that supports
nepotism. He does not see
himself as a President that
shares the power to govern
the country. He sees him-
self as a king and a ruler,
and his family is the Trump
Dynasty. It seems that there
are laws, rules and safe-
guards for the rest of us that
don9t apply to elite Trump
and the elite Trump family.
T h e re a l t h re a t to
national security is not
migrants seeking asylum
at our southern border, it9s
Trump himself.
Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and
are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.