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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 29, 2017)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Friday, December 29, 2017 Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN Publisher DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor TIM TRAINOR Opinion Page Editor MARISSA WILLIAMS Regional Advertising Director MARCY ROSENBERG Circulation Manager JANNA HEIMGARTNER Business Office Manager MIKE JENSEN Production Manager OUR VIEW Tip of the hat; kick in the pants A tip of the hat to our new neighbors. You have hopefully met many of them this year, and you definitely met a few this week. People who moved to one of our Eastern Oregon communities in the last year have appeared on our front page all week long, and we will finish the annual series tomorrow. The stories are among our favorites each year, when we get to ask people from all over the world how they ended up in our little corner of it. And it always makes us proud when a consistent through line in their stories is how kind and welcoming people here are, and how quickly newcomers were able to feel comfortable and included. Being good hosts of a welcoming nature is a key attribute in everyone’s life. Not only is being a good neighbor a clear moral requirement, but it helps us continue to be a growing, blossoming region. As the saying goes, if you ain’t growing, you’re dying. Obviously we can’t document everyone who moved to the area, and we know many others out there who have brought their own individual spice to the Eastern Oregon stew. We appreciate and welcome all of you, and tip our hat to everyone who chose our neck of the woods to be your neck of the woods. A kick in the pants to these still-snowy streets, especially in Pendleton. We include below two photos taken at the same time Thursday in Hermiston and Pendleton. And while Pendleton did get a couple more inches of precipitation on Sunday and Monday, the condition of the streets three days after the last measurable snowfall is night and day. Night in Hermiston, where you can see the black asphalt of a clear city street. And day in Pendleton, as snow carpets all of the city’s commercial byways, and remains piled up much higher along our residential roads. And we understand that Hermiston was a few degrees warmer and more than a few degrees flatter. And we also understand that winter happens, and we enjoy the Eastern Oregon tradition to delight in the temporary gridlock that comes when Mother Nature demands her notice. But eventually we all have to get back to being productive members of society, and Pendleton’s inability to clear its roads and sidewalks impairs that. EO photo The intersection of Southeast Third and East Main in Hermiston Thursday afternoon. OTHER VIEWS The dangers of Trump delirium T o travel the liberal byways of back channels, awful judgment and social media over recent weeks outright lies among Trump’s intimates was to learn that Donald Trump to present voters with a powerful case was on the precipice of axing Robert against his fitness for office. Mueller and was likely to use the days But by obsessing over clear just before Christmas, when we were “collusion” and insisting on visible distracted by eggnog and mistletoe, to puppet strings by which Vladimir lower the blade. Putin controlled Trump, we have set Christmas has come. Christmas has the bar dangerously high. Mueller’s David gone. Mueller has not. Leonhardt ultimate findings could be plenty ugly To listen to Nancy Pelosi and other and still be deemed underwhelming. Comment Democratic leaders, the tax overhaul Our overreach is everywhere. that Trump just signed into law is no Some of those social-media threads mere plutocratic folly. It’s “Armageddon” forecasting Mueller’s pre-Christmas firing (Pelosi’s actual word). Their opposition is went further, envisioning street protests righteous, but how will millions of voters that would prompt a brutal response from who notice smaller withholdings from their government forces just itching for the chance. paychecks and more money in their pockets I spotted the phrase “martial law.” square that seemingly Much of the tax-overhaul good fortune with such pushback, which painted prophecies of doom on a the whole of the legislation biblical scale? as an abomination, Some of these didn’t acknowledge that Americans may decide Democrats themselves had that the prophets aren’t to long favored corporate-rate be trusted — and that the reductions. Nor did the president isn’t quite the ferocious back-and-forth pestilence they make him — John McCain, over Trump’s declaration of out to be. U.S. Senator, on Donald Trump Jerusalem as Israel’s capital I’m not minimizing make clear that many Trump’s capriciousness or politicians before him had cupidity. He could yet fire Mueller, the special proposed the same step. That doesn’t make it counsel. Some conservatives’ intensifying prudent, but it does challenge the portrayal of attacks on the counsel and the FBI are clearly his decision as some ploy beyond the pale. grist for that. The issue here is credibility and not And the tax bill is indeed a messy, fiscally giving the president ammunition to discredit reckless means for Republican lawmakers opponents as overwrought, ahistoric partisans to please their donors and crow that they are in a state of indiscriminate freak-out. When getting big things done. we answer melodrama with melodrama, we’re But the end of the world? Come on. That’s playing his game, by his rules, and he wins. not par-for-the-course hyperbole. It’s peculiar- Better to patrol our language and pick our to-Trump hyperventilation, an understandable issues, so that crucial areas of focus — the response to such an indecent president but demoralization of our diplomatic corps, the quite possibly a tactical mistake. It could stacking of the judiciary, the transformation weaken the odds of hobbling him next fall, of the presidency into a marketing scheme — in the midterm elections, and of putting him aren’t lost in the welter and the whirl. far behind us in November 2020. And that’s “I can’t be the car alarm that always goes where I, for one, want him: in the rearview off,” John McCain reportedly said to a friend mirror, growing tinier and tinier as we zoom, this year, explaining his own strategy for pedal to the metal, toward a saner, more tempering Trump. “If I am, I’m not effective.” dignified horizon. There’s wisdom in that. But I worry. When Trump’s opponents All signs right now point to enormous react to so much of what he says and does gains for Democrats in the midterms; I’d with such unfettered outrage, that howl be very surprised, based on the country’s becomes background noise, and it is harder present mood, if they didn’t take control of the to make sure that his unequivocally foul House. But establishing that check on Trump maneuvers stand out from his debatably is much too important to be jeopardized foolish ones. When we constantly conjure the in the slightest. And our Trump-induced direst scenarios, we risk looking like ignorable delirium indeed jeopardizes it, pumping hysterics — and bolstering his grandiose up his impassioned adversaries at the risk claims of martyrdom — if events unfold in a of confusing and alienating dispassionate less damnable fashion. Americans in the middle. Fury isn’t strategy, and there’s no need to They needn’t be convinced that he’s all extrapolate beyond the facts already in our Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. But a possession. singularly miserable jockey? That’s an easy Take the inquiries into the Trump sell. And it’s probably a surer way to eject him campaign’s dealings with Russia. They could from the derby. screech to a halt tomorrow and we’d be left ■ with more than enough evidence of corrupt David Leonhardt is an op-ed columnist for business dealings, conflicts of interest, shady The New York Times. “I can’t be the car alarm that always goes off. If I am, I’m not effective.” YOUR VIEWS Staff photo by E.J. Harris The intersection of Main Street and Dorion Avenue at roughly the same time Thursday in Pendleton. 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. 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. Pendleton’s roads need better Can’t support Walden, tax plan As a taxpayer and member of this community, I would like to know why the city hall and library parking lots got plowed on Christmas Day, when they were not open, and this city cannot plow the streets? After numerous phone calls and inquiries about why this city doesn’t plow the streets, I have come to the conclusion that they do not want to. I have been told that the city has a plow but will not plow the streets of snow because of the numerous complaints by residents about their driveways being blocked by snow berms. There is an easy solution to this problem and that is pile the snow in the middle of the streets and leave the intersections open. Lack of snowplowing slows the response of emergency vehicles. This just goes to prove that this inept city management does not care about the city or its citizens who pay their wages and salaries. If you remove the snow faster, the streets will be thawing out faster — less likely to freeze and have them crumble. Our streets are in major need of repair because the city has not taken the time to prevent damage, but they can build a road to nowhere that no business has invested in moving to Pendleton. I would like to request that every person that reads this letter to the editor call the city and express your dismay with the action of not plowing snow off the streets. When the next election comes around vote, please elect new people into office for the city council and mayor positions. The recent passage of the tax scam, heralded by our own Congressman Greg Walden, is really a plan to appease corporate and filthy rich donors even though it is reported to increase the deficit by $1.46 trillion and throw millions off health insurance. With the puppet strings attached to those donors for their financial support, we cannot believe that U.S. Rep. Walden is really concerned about the middle class or his Oregon constituents. It appears that our congressman has become so comfortable selling out to the Washington special interest lobbyists that he has accepted his role of being one of the major puppets in this tax scam tragedy of epic proportions. The tax scam tragedy isn’t really about “tax relief” with a purported benefit of saving $1,300 a year ($108 per month) for a family of four, it is a tragedy about a tax scam that is designed to destroy our health care, our education system, the middle class, and our democracy as we know it. To pay for this tragedy, the selling out to the filthy rich and corporations, with a debunked trickle-down economics theory is not new. It has been tried before. It didn’t work then and it won’t work now no matter how good the actors — Greg Walden and the other Republicans — are at playing their roles. The short-term “advantages” will cost the middle class the most, but because Rep. Walden has sold his vote, he will pay when he is voted out in November 2018. Mike Clark Pendleton Beverly Sherrill The Dalles