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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.
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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,
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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
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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-
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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.
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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?
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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
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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
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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
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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’
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emails to Secretary of State
new White House became
Clinton’s private address,
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clintonemail.com.)
the scandals that would
Others in the Clinton
last through Bill Clinton’s
White House followed the
presidency. Hillary Clinton
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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.
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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
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Democratic rivals were “attacking her as
investigating the Clintons. “There was almost
overly secretive,” according to a Times report.
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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.