Page 8A
OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
Wednesday, December 13, 2017
Trump signs $700 billion military budget into law
By DARLENE SUPERVILLE
Associated Press
WASHINGTON
—
President Donald Trump
on Tuesday signed into law
a sweeping defense policy
bill that authorizes a $700
billion budget for the mili-
tary, including additional
spending on missile defense
programs to counter North
Korea’s growing nuclear
weapons threat.
But there’s a catch.
The $700 billion budget
won’t become reality until
lawmakers agree to roll back
a 2011 law that set strict
limits on federal spending,
including by the Defense
Department — and they
haven’t yet.
The law caps 2018 defense
spending at $549 billion.
Before he signed the bill
at the White House, Trump
called on Congress to “finish
the job” and eliminate the
cap on defense spending.
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
President Donald Trump holds onto a box containing
the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year
2018 bill, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House,
Tuesday in Washington.
“I think it’s going to
happen,” said the president,
joined by Defense Secretary
Jim Mattis, Joint Chiefs of
Staff Chairman Gen. Joseph
Dunford and other senior
military leaders. “We need
our military. It’s got to be
perfecto.”
He urged Democrats in
Congress to quit threatening
to shut down the government
and “send clean funding and
a clean funding bill to my
desk that fully funds our
great military. Protecting our
country should always be
a bipartisan issue, just like
today’s legislation.”
Temporary government
funding is set to run out on
Dec. 22, the deadline for
lawmakers to send the White
House a broader government
funding bill or risk a partial
government shutdown.
Many Republicans favor
easing the caps for defense
spending only. Democrats
also want increases in other
government spending.
Trump released a lengthy
statement after signing the
bill in which he complained
that multiple provisions
amounted to congressional
overreach that he argued
infringed upon his executive
authority.
Trump used the signing
ceremony to address a sepa-
rate threat, repeating his call
to overhaul U.S. immigration
law following Monday’s
blast in a New York City
subway passageway. It
was the second incident
authorities have described as
terrorism in New York City
since late October.
The president noted that
the individual involved in
October’s deadly incident
came to the U.S. through
the visa lottery program, and
that the individual in this
week’s attack arrived based
on a family connection to an
American citizen.
Trump vowed to end
both immigration programs
quickly. “The lottery system
and chain migration, we’re
going to end them fast,” he
said, calling on Congress to
“get involved immediately.”
The 2018 defense bill
allots about $634 billion for
core Pentagon operations
and nearly $66 billion
for wartime missions in
Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria
and elsewhere. The funding
boost pays for more troops,
jet fighters, ships and other
weapons needed to halt an
erosion of the military’s
combat readiness, according
to the bill’s backers. It also
grants troops a 2.4 percent
pay raise, slightly higher than
what the Pentagon sought.
Trump’s 2018 request
sought $603 billion for basic
functions and $65 billion for
overseas missions.
The defense legislation
includes $12.3 billion for the
Pentagon’s Missile Defense
Agency and orders a more
rapid buildup of the nation’s
missile defense capabilities
“as we continue our campaign
to create maximum pressure
on the vile dictatorship in
North Korea,” Trump said.
“We’re working very
diligently on that, building
up forces,” Trump said.
Trump thanked the bill’s
chief
sponsors,
House
Armed Services Committee
Chairman Mac Thornberry of
Texas, who joined Trump at
the White House, and Senate
Armed Services Committee
Chairman John McCain of
Arizona, who did not.
TOURISM: City investing
in things like a festival street
Continued from 1A
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Christopher Duffley performs during the Community Counseling Solutions Christmas party on Tuesday in
Heppner. In addition to performing music, Duffley also hosts his own post cast called Mission Possible.
DUFFLEY: Will also perform in Condon
“It enables me to
see people as they
really are. I see
no color, tattoos
or crazy hairdos.
It bothers me that
people prejudge
each other. How
different would
it be if everyone
chose to see with
their hearts?”
Continued from 1A
than 2.4 million views on
YouTube. Since then, he has
sung the national anthem at
Fenway Park and NASCAR
races and has recorded three
CDs. He is now 16.
Lindsay couldn’t get the
song and the boy out of her
mind for weeks.
“I could not stop thinking
about Christopher and that
song,” Lindsay said. “One
day driving to Portland, it
came to me — I needed to
ask Christopher to come to
Heppner.”
She was astonished when
Christopher and his mom/
manager Christine accepted
her invitation. Last weekend,
Christopher,
Christine,
Steve and friend David St.
Germaine flew from their
hometown of Manchester,
New Hampshire, and drove
several hours to Heppner.
The others described the
Columbia River, the rolling
wheat fields and other terrain
to Christopher as the miles
slid by. In Eastern Oregon,
Christopher was scheduled
to perform twice in Heppner
and once in Condon and also
visit local schools.
On Tuesday morning, he
was in full preparation mode
at St. Patrick’s Catholic
Church where he would
perform at a Christmas party
for about 150 employees of
Community
Counseling
Solutions, where Lindsay
is executive director. In the
ready room, Christopher
kept up a banter as Steve put
a festive Christmas bow tie
around his son’s neck and
helped him don a jacket.
He polished one of Chris-
topher’s prosthetic eyeballs
after Chris complained of
irritation.
Christine gave her son an
adoring look and described
Christopher as someone
who rises above life’s
hurdles with pure, unfiltered
joy and tenacity. His musical
talent emerged early on, she
said. “He showed signs of
loving music from the time
I picked him up,” she said.
“Pat-a-Cake was his first
song.”
After an introduction by
Lindsay, Christopher took
the stage, settling himself
— Christopher Duffley
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Guests at Community Counseling Solutions Christmas
party received a braille wristband that reads “love”
after a performance by Christopher Duffley on Tuesday
in Heppner. Duffley is both blind and autistic.
behind a keyboard and
microphone. He described
his shaky start to life.
“Instead of 40 weeks,
I came out at 26 weeks,”
he said. “I was also born
with cocaine in my system
to parents who loved me
but could not take care of
me. I was given oxygen for
100 days. My eyes didn’t
develop properly and my
retinas detached.”
He called attention to his
“fake blue eyes.”
“They make me look
normal and handsome,” he
quipped.
Before singing his signa-
ture song, “Open the Eyes
of My Heart,” he described
the way he sees the world.
“My blindness does not
limit me, I just do things
differently,” he said. “It
enables me to see people
as they really are. I see
no color, tattoos or crazy
hairdos. It bothers me that
people prejudge each other.
How different would it be if
everyone chose to see with
their hearts?”
Christopher
delivers
this message often as he
travels around, speaking and
singing. He also produces
his own podcast, “Mission
Possible.”
Christopher
launched
into “Open the Eyes of My
Heart,” playing the keyboard
and singing in clear, strong
tones. In past months, he
has performed the song in
five different languages:
English, Spanish, French,
Korean and Portuguese.
During the Christmas
party, the teen sang three
additional songs, one of
them an original.
Two nights earlier, he
performed for the commu-
nity at Heppner High
School. During the evening,
Lindsay told the story of
Ken Griswold, a 47-year-old
veteran from San Antonio,
Texas, who has struggled
with effects of combat,
divorce and other trials. He
Facebooked Christopher to
say he had found immense
comfort in Christopher’s
singing, adding, “Someday
I would love to meet you to
say thank you and give you
one of the biggest hugs of
your life.”
Lindsay then introduced
Griswold, who had traveled
to Heppner at her invitation.
The veteran walked to
Christopher and gave him
the long-awaited bearhug.
During both of the perfor-
mances, Lindsay faded back
into the audience when she
could and just watched and
listened. When Christopher
finished on Tuesday, he
found Lindsay and give her
an extended hug that rivaled
that of Griswold.
Lindsay later marveled
at Christopher’s impact on
the people who heard him.
She got a rush of comments
about how he inspired them
to see disabilities differently
and keep moving forward
with joy despite tough
circumstances.
“For me, it’s about the
potential of every human
being, about not giving up
on those who are the most
vulnerable, of respecting
differences and even being
thankful for them,” Lindsay
said. “God is good.”
———
Contact Kathy Aney at
kaney@eastoregonian.com
or 941-966-0810.
hopes to use that war chest
to start marketing the facility
in earnest for conventions,
trade shows and other
events that will draw people
from out of town.
The facility recently
hosted the Hermiston Farm
Fair, an agricultural trade
show which Greater Herm-
iston Area Chamber of
Commerce director Debbie
Pedro said is usually the
event which draws the most
people to Hermiston each
year — about 1,500 visitors.
The city is also investing
in things like a downtown
festival street — with
construction planned for
spring — to provide a
venue for smaller events to
entertain travelers during
their stay. And it offered
financial incentives to the
Holiday Inn Express that
opened within easy walking
distance of downtown busi-
nesses.
When tourists come
to Pendleton, they often
come purely for vacation,
and find plenty of events,
tours, museums, outdoor
recreation, shopping and
dining experiences to keep
them busy during their
stay. Those experiences are
promoted by Travel Pend-
leton via a comprehensive
tourism website and other
marketing tools, which is
why Pendleton hoteliers
were opposed to a tax they
felt would duplicate those
efforts.
Hermiston’s hotels, on
the other hand, tend to be
more full during the week
than on weekends. Holiday
Inn Express manager Steven
Arrasmith said during a
meeting last week that the
hotel has “a lot of corporate
travel, and not as much for
leisure.”
If hotels, restaurants and
gas stations are seeing an
uptick during the weekend,
it’s usually for sports tour-
naments held at Kennison
Field and other Hermiston
School District venues that
the community has invested
in.
AAU basketball tour-
naments and trade shows
at EOTEC might not be as
glamorous as the Pendleton
Round-Up, Morgan said,
but they can still direct
out-of-town dollars into
local businesses. They just
require a different strategy.
“The engineer that has to
come here for work, what
are the things that would get
dollars out of his pocket?”
Morgan asked.
Umatilla
County’s
proposed tourism lodging
tax seemed to lean more
toward the Pendleton style
of tourism, which relies on a
distinctive Pendleton brand
of a good time in the “real
west.” The proposal put
together by the county spoke
of “marketing Umatilla
County as a destination”
via brand development,
membership in statewide
tourism associations, social
media campaigns, grants
and paid media campaigns
with analytics gathered
from “our outside-of-area
target audience.”
Morgan
said
one
measuring stick used in
the tourism industry is that
people expect about four
hours of fun for every hour
they traveled. Right now, he
said, Hermiston has about
enough entertainment for
the “just for the heck of it”
visitor to warrant a day trip
from the Tri-Cities. So until
Hermiston builds up some
more tourism events and
assets, he said it didn’t make
sense to try and market it as
a vacation destination.
“We’re not at the stage
where I could justifiably,
with a straight face, tell
people that we’re using
their money wisely,” he
said, explaining why the
city declined a proposal
from the chamber to start
something equivalent to a
Travel Hermiston.
CHAMBER: Currently exploring
all permanent location options
Continued from 1A
smaller community events
and recreation classes to
the conference center and
larger events meant to
bring in tourism to EOTEC.
Moving the parks and
recreation offices to the
conference center will also
help alleviate crowding at
city hall.
In April the council
also voted to offer the
chamber space for free in
the basement of the former
Carnegie Library, which
the city planned to spend
$125,000 remodeling. But
attendees at that city council
meeting called the offer of
a basement an insult to the
chamber after its years of
being a valued community
partner, and questioned
whether the city would
run the center with the
community truly in mind.
The chamber formally
turned down the offer of the
Carnegie Library in June.
Since then, the chamber
has been searching for
a building to call home
before the end of the year.
A news release from the
chamber on Tuesday called
the move to the Cornerstone
Plaza “temporary” and
said chamber staff, board
members and volunteers
“are currently exploring
all permanent location
options.”
The
news
release
stated that the chamber
has enjoyed working with
various groups over 22
years in the conference
center
and
thanked
everyone who had been “so
supportive of the Chamber
and its long time success
in managing the Hermiston
Community Center.”
“We are really looking
forward to 2018 and
the important work the
chamber does to support,
promote and strengthen
our nearly 450 chamber
members as well as its work
in economic development,
advocacy,
leadership,
community events, and
the Hermiston visitor and
welcome center,” the news
release stated.