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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (March 13, 2015)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Friday, March 13, 2015 Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN Publisher JENNINE PERKINSON Advertising Director DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor TIM TRAINOR Opinion Page Editor OUR VIEW Tip of the hat; kick in the pants A tip of the hat to the Irrigon boys basketball team, state 2A champions for the second straight year. Fredy Vera was named player of the game in the state title match, but it was a season-long team effort that pushed the top-seeded club to go 26-1 on the year and defend their title. 7KH.QLJKWVZHUHOHGE\¿UVW\HDU coach Mitch Thompson, who inherited the senior-laden team and earned a title of his own along the way. With the win, Thompson became — as far as we and OSAA historians know — the youngest coach to win an Oregon state basketball title. Congrats to all, and the city of Irrigon, ZKREURXJKWDEOHDFKHURYHUÀRZLQJ crowd to Pendleton for the tournament. The squad will have to replace four graduating starters, but winning begets winning. The Knights know what it takes to reach the top. A kick in the pants to the swift death of an Oregon Senate bill that would have removed non-medical vaccine exemptions. It was abandoned by state Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, a physician herself, before it could have started to move through the senate. Obviously, the government should not be mandating medical decisions for its citizens. Every body is different! But demanding a reasonable medical excuse for opting out of one of the great advances of our day seems reasonable. Steiner Hayward said the pushback was not about personal choice or freedom, but about the effectiveness of the vaccines itself. It’s disappointing WKHUHDUHSHRSOHWKDWDUHVRXQDEOHWREHVZD\HGE\IDFWVDQGVFLHQWL¿F inquiry. But it’s just as disappointing that politicians easily give in to a vocal but clearly outnumbered minority. The proposal had its supporters — including Governor Kate Brown — so it was not a doomed enterprise. Obviously the anti-vaxxers and the anti-Agenda 21ers or the chemtrails- DUHJRLQJWRNLOOXVDOOHUVDUHDORXGDQGDQJU\DQGFRQ¿GHQWEXQFK7KH\ are passionate, but that doesn’t make them right. The well-informed have to be able to stand up for science and reason and do the right thing. You know, like the more progressive states of West Virginia and Mississippi, which have removed such inane arguments for not vaccinating a child. A tip of the hat to the Port of Morrow, which offered to buy 640 acres of the former Umatilla Chemical Depot from the Army for $1 million, which they hope will help facilitate transfer of nearly transfer 9,000 acres to the local development group. The port, just one member of the Columbia Development Authority, decided to shoulder that $1 million burden on its own. With so much on the line, Port of Morrow General Manager Gary Neal told the East Oregonian it was important not to let negotiations slip away. A million dollars is a million dollars. It’s nothing to throw around willy-nilly. But it is a great investment at this point, and the simplest and most direct way to get a large chunk of valuable real estate into local hands. 5HPHPEHUWKDWDW¿UVWWKH$UP\VDLGWKH\ZRXOGGRQDWHWKHODQGIUHH of charge, but recently began backpedaling. Apparently a country that has a defense budget of more than $500 billion a year wanted to quibble over peanuts in the Eastern Oregon prairie. But rather than argue over peanuts, the port put up the dough. It might be enough to avoid long, intractable negotiations and bring another economic punch to Umatilla and Morrow counties. Bravo to the port, for taking a shot and taking one for the team. Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board of Publisher Kathryn Brown, Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, and Opinion Page Editor Tim Trainor. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the East Oregonian. YOUR VIEWS Standardized tests infringe on parent/student rights I offer this opinion as a citizen of the United States, member of the greater Hermiston community, parent of former Hermiston School District students and retired naval veteran. I would like to bring to the attention of your readers a deception about state standardized testing that has been foisted upon the school boards, our districts, their educators and administrators and the families that fuel the enterprise. This deception comes in the form of the Oregon Department of Education, (OAR) 581-022-1910, granting the boards’ and districts’ administrative staffs the ability to grant permissions of already established rights of the individual. This is an overreach of the department. Individual rights of the person need no permissive authority. The unrestricted rights of the parent have been upheld by the U. S. Supreme Court at least four different times since 1940 to the present. Oregon State Department of Education has presented guidelines by which a district may allow or grant permission to the parents of individuals to refrain from, or opt out of, state sponsored standardized testing if they fall into only two categories: those with disabilities; and those who claim religious exemption. This is unjust and I call this paper’s editor and staff to research and report on House Bill 2714, which seeks to make into law that districts must tell parents their rights about testing. Parents already have the right to tell a district that their child does not have to take a test; it is the same right parents use when they decide to go on vacation during the school year. I also ask you and the paper you represent to call out the overreach that creates a deceptive environment that school districts have been required to put forth. Have we come to the point where we have to deceive parents in order to maintain our schools? 3DUHQWV\RXKDYHWKH¿QDOVD\ over whether your child is to take this standardized test, and don’t let the districts bully you or use soft-spoken terms to change your mind about it. If enough of you say no to this, our teachers will begin to focus on what they are supposed to teach, rather than teaching how to do well on a certain type of test. Please contact your state representative about HB 2714 and encourage them to add it to the current statutes. Robert R. Smith Hermiston OTHER VIEWS President Hillary Clinton would be secretive, too N ews that Hillary Clinton know how the billing records came to exclusively used a private be found where they were found,” she email account to keep secret said after testifying before a grand jury her communications as secretary of in January 1996. “I, like everyone else, state should surprise no one. She came would like to know the answer about to Washington more than 20 years ago how those documents showed up after determined to keep secrets, and she’s all these years.” still at it. As the Clinton White House years In 1993, the newly inaugurated SURJUHVVHGWKH¿UVWODG\EHFDPHDSUR Byron President Bill Clinton chose his wife at confounding investigators. A veil of York to head his administration’s most secrecy covered much of what she did, Comment important domestic initiative, health from responding to criticism to dealing care reform. Hillary Clinton proceeded with subpoenas — even to organizing to create a task force that seemed more her own thoughts about events. determined to keep secrets than to restructure In May 1996, when Clinton appeared on health care. “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,” she was “The culture of secrecy is such that the asked if she planned to write a book someday White House refuses to provide a full list of about her experiences in the White House. consultants brought in to aid in the effort,” the “Are you keeping a diary?” Lehrer asked. New York Times reported in February 1993, “Are you keeping good notes on what’s MXVWDIWHUWKH¿UVWODG\JRWVWDUWHG&OLQWRQODWHU happened to you?” went to court rather than reveal the most basic “Heavens, no!” Clinton responded with a details of the effort. Story after story about her laugh. “It would get subpoenaed. I can’t write work used phrases like “wall of secrecy” and anything down.” “shrouded in secrecy” and “frantic, secretive People around her didn’t write anything process.” down, either. “I don’t When the task force put anything down in collapsed in defeat, columnist writing,” Clinton loyalist Maureen Dowd wrote that “it Sidney Blumenthal told the ZDVWKH¿UVWODG\¶VVHFUHF\ Washington Post during and righteousness in trying to the scandal years. (That push through her 1,364-page policy eventually changed; bill that doomed the effort.” Blumenthal was one of the By the end of the Clintons’ ¿UVWGLVFRYHUHGWREHVHQGLQJ ¿UVW\HDULQ:DVKLQJWRQWKH emails to Secretary of State new White House became Clinton’s private address, HQVQDUHGLQWKH¿UVWRI clintonemail.com.) the scandals that would Others in the Clinton last through Bill Clinton’s White House followed the presidency. Hillary Clinton ¿UVWODG\¶VH[DPSOH7RSDLGH was deeply involved, George Stephanopoulos, for sometimes in the original example, told investigators offense, like Travelgate, he did not keep a diary and and sometimes in the legal never made notes about and political pushback, work at the White House. like the Lewinsky scandal. Later, when Stephanopoulos The Clinton trademark was withholding published a highly detailed memoir of those information from investigators. years, he explained that he used a friend, Given that, Clinton’s email secrecy today the liberal journalist Eric Alterman, to help sounds familiar to the investigators who spent him record his thoughts away from prying the 1990s trying to pry information out of subpoenas. KHURI¿FH³7KLVVRUWRIEHKDYLRULVDOOIXOO\ In more recent years, Hillary Clinton consistent with what we dealt with a few years created an atmosphere of secrecy around ago,” says Jackie Bennett, a prosecutor who her presidential campaign. By late 2007, her VHUYHGLQWKHLQGHSHQGHQWFRXQVHO¶VRI¿FH Democratic rivals were “attacking her as investigating the Clintons. “There was almost overly secretive,” according to a Times report. DOZD\VDGHOD\RUVRPHLQVXI¿FLHQWSURGXFWLRQ (In that case, she wanted to keep documents of some document or discovery request.” from her White House years a secret.) For example, as part of the Whitewater So now, as prosecutor Jackie Bennett investigation, a grand jury subpoenaed suggested, Clinton’s obsession with secrecy Clinton’s billing records from her days in as secretary of state, whether it broke any Arkansas. The White House insisted the law or not, is entirely consistent with her records could not be found. Two years passed, SHUIRUPDQFHLQSXEOLFRI¿FHIRUGHFDGHV$QG with no documents. And then one day, the that leads to one obvious lesson: If Hillary White House announced that — surprise! Clinton is elected president, the patterns of a — the records had been found on a table in lifetime won’t change. the White House residence, virtually in plain Ŷ sight. Byron York is chief political correspondent Mrs. Clinton pleaded ignorance. “I do not for The Washington Examiner. A veil of secrecy covered much of what she did as First Lady, from responding to criticism to dealing with subpoenas. LETTERS POLICY The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues and public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website. The newspaper reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about individual services and products or letters that infringe on the rights of private citizens. Submitted letters must be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a daytime phone number. The phone number will not be published. Unsigned letters will not be published. Send letters to Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.