OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 2017
Founded in 1873
DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
Water
under
the bridge
Compiled by Bob Duke
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
10 years ago this week — 2007
A historic landslide above Bond Street that started moving again in
early January is creeping a little faster. Three inches of rainfall last week-
end caused “significant movement” this week, Astoria Public Works
Director Ken Cook said, and made it necessary to close two streets to
traffic: Commercial Street between First Street and Hume Avenue, and
First Street between Duane and Commercial streets.
There are no homes on the city-owned slide site, where about 20 homes
were destroyed in January 1954, and others were moved to safer ground.
Pause this presidency!
Today’s Coast Weekend introduces a new multimedia style
of publication.
Ever since the debut of that little invention known as the
internet, more and more people are getting their news electron-
ically. Computers are increasingly the first place people turn to
for information and entertainment.
Thanks to the vision and enthusiasm of Coast Weekend’s
management and staff, the magazine has undergone a meta-
morphosis. It’s now a brighter, more colorful and more diverse
paper, with an electronic counterpart on the World Wide Web
— www.coastweekend.com
Washington Congressman Brian Baird has announced his opposition
to the Bradwood Landing liquefied natural gas project — citing negative
impacts on river commerce, the environment and private property owners
as well as a potential burden on local taxpayers as his reasons.
The new traffic signal installation at the intersection of Lief
Erikson Drive and 33rd Street is scheduled to be turned on
Wednesday.
50 years ago — 1967
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
President Donald Trump is applauded as he arrives in the East Room of the White House on Tuesday for
a meeting with the House Deputy Whip team.
By CHARLES BLOW
New York Times News Service
T
The Daily Astorian/File
The Japan Holly, one of a growing fleet of new log carrying
freighters operating between Japan and Northwest ports, was at
Pier 1 of the port docks loading a full cargo of logs.
The city of Astoria’s new IBM bookkeeping machinery, a set of six
machines, is now set up and fully operating in city hall.
Arthur Hubbell, IBM machine operator for the city, said the set-up is
known as a Series 50 installation. It can handle the city’s bookkeeping
work and provide detailed records of many other city operations.
Machines included are a key punch machine to put information in code
into cards; a reproducing punch machine to transmit needed information
for a special project to other cards; an accounting machine to accumulate
totals, add and subtract; an interpreter to print what information is desired,
a sorter which sorts out 450 to 650 cards a minute, and a collator which
files groups of cards in numerical order.
The recent report from the U.S. Maritime Administration
that 11 Victory ships are to be towed from Astoria base to those
at Olympia and Suisun Bay is clear evidence that the USMA is
proceeding with its plans to abandon Astoria with no regard
for the protests by Rep. Wendell Wyatt and Sen. Wayne Morse.
This federal agency once used to deny it intended to aban-
don Astoria, then admitted it was considering doing so, then
tried to do it behind the backs of the Oregon delegation, then
promised to review its plans and inform Wyatt, then neglected
to do so and resumed its plans for abandonment anyway.
Coastal residents Wednesday objected to bills designed to give more
beachlands to the state.
One of the measures would extend public ownership of beaches from
the mean high tide line to the “vegetation line.”
The second would provide that title to all future accretions seaward of
the high tide line would remain with the state.
75 years ago — 1942
Cannon Beach citizens are entering into civilian defense
duties with vigor and enthusiasm, according to officers of the
sheriff’s department who conducted fingerprinting for air raid
wardens and other defense workers there Monday night.
Sheriff Paul Kearney and Deputy Myron Jones finger-
printed 93 defense workers or 97 percent of the total defense
personnel of Cannon Beach during a three hour session at the
Roy Becker place.
The Becker place is headquarters for the Cannon Beach
emergency hospital.
Fingerprinting of Gearhart defense workers will take place
Wednesday night at 7:30 upstairs in the City Hall, Kearney
said.
Schoolchildren of Clatsop County have purchased approximately
$3,200 worth of defense savings stamps, Chairman William McGregor of
the county defense savings committee reported Friday.
he American people must
immediately demand a
cessation of all consequential
actions by this “president” until we
can be assured that
Russian efforts to
hack our election,
in a way that was
clearly meant to help
him and damage
his opponent, did
not also include collusion with
or cover-up by anyone involved
in the Trump campaign and now
administration.
This may sound extreme, but if
the gathering fog of suspicion should
yield an actual connection, it would
be one of the most egregious assaults
on our democracy ever. It would not
only be unprecedented, it would be
a profound wound to faith in our
sovereignty.
Viewed through the serious lens
of those epic implications, no action
to put this presidency on pause is
extreme. Rather, it is exceedingly
prudent.
Some things must be done and
some positions filled simply to
keep the government operational.
Absolute abrogation of adminis-
trative authority is infeasible and
ill advised. But a bare minimum
standard must be applied until we
know more about what the current
raft of investigations yield. Indeed, it
may be that the current investigative
apparatuses are insufficient and a
special commission or special coun-
sel is in order.
In any event, we can’t keep
cruising along as if the unanswered
question isn’t existential.
Americans must demand at least
a momentary respite from — my
preference would be a permanent
termination of — Trump’s aggres-
sive agenda to dramatically alter
the social, economic and political
contours of this country.
America deserves to know
beyond a shadow of a doubt that
our president is legitimate before
he issues a single new disruptive
executive order.
America deserves to know that
he is legitimate before he pursues a
program to dismantle Obamacare.
America deserves to know that
he is legitimate before he pushes
through a budget that obscenely
expands military spending while
making dramatic cuts in other areas.
America deserves to know that
he is legitimate before the Senate
moves forward with confirmation
hearings for his Supreme Court
nominee.
Republicans pitched a fit when
President Barack Obama nominated
Merrick Garland to fill the seat
made open by the death of Antonin
Scalia, falsely arguing that a presi-
dent should not be allowed to fill a
vacancy during the last year of his
term. Well, it is not at all clear to me
that this will not be the last year of
Donald Trump’s term, should these
investigations reveal something
untoward between his regime and
Russia.
Americans
must demand
at least a
momentary
respite from —
my preference
would be a
permanent
termination
of — Trump’s
aggressive
agenda to
dramatically
alter the social,
economic
and political
contours of
this country.
We have known for some time
that the Russians interfered in our
election in an effort to favor Trump.
What we are learning in recent
weeks are the number of Trump
advisers and administrative officials
who had contact with the Russian
ambassador before the election, the
frequency of those contacts, and the
attempts, at least by some, to conceal
those contacts.
But we now know, according to
reporting by The Washington Post,
that Attorney General Jeff Sessions
also met at least twice with the
ambassador during the campaign
— once at the Republican National
Convention — and then lied about
those contacts under oath during his
confirmation hearings.
Then this weekend in a series of
tweets Trump made a scandalous
and completely unsubstantiated alle-
gation that Obama had “my ‘wires
tapped’ in Trump Tower” in October
2016. He said of his baseless charge,
“This is McCarthyism!” and “This is
Nixon/Watergate” and called Obama
a “Bad (or sick) guy!”
This is absolutely outrageous.
One of three things is true here:
Obama, during the waning months
of an eight-year term free of personal
scandal, decided to maliciously
and illegally tap the phones of the
candidate all the polls at the time
predicted would lose; a law enforce-
ment agency was able to present
evidence and convince a federal
judge that someone or some group
of people in Trump Tower were
engaged in illegal activity; or this
“president,” who has proved himself
a pathological liar, is once again
chasing conspiratorial windmills and
seeking to detract and deflect from
legitimate scandal. Any of these
scenarios has the profoundest of
consequences.
There is a helluva lot of smoke
here for there to be no fire. Maybe
all of these contacts with the
Russians have some benign and
believable explanation that escapes
me at the moment. Maybe this is just
the culmination of an extraordinary
series of coincidences. Maybe.
I actually hope that’s true. The
alternative explanation is nearly
unfathomable in its ability to injure
our democracy.
Whatever the case, we need
answers before we simply pretend
that there is some sort of political
inertia pulling us forward and that
the Trump agenda is an inevitable
consequence of a suspect election.
No!
An NBC News/Wall Street
Journal poll released last month
found that a majority of Americans
believe “Congress should investigate
whether Donald Trump’s presiden-
tial campaign had contact with the
Russian government in 2016.”
That’s important, but not enough.
Until that investigation is completed,
that same majority of Americans
must put elected officials on notice
that there will be a price to pay if
they aid and abet Trump’s agenda
before the truth is known.
We must all demand without
equivocation: Pause this presidency!