OPINION
Wallowa County Chieftain
A4
Wednesday, May 22, 2019
VOICE of the CHIEFTAIN
CELEBRATION AND REMEMBRANCE
I
n Wallowa County, late May
is a time of celebration and
remembrance. Celebration as
our youth graduate and move for-
ward toward fulfi lling lives. Remem-
brance of those who gave their lives
so that these young people could ful-
fi ll their dreams. Though they may
seem unrelated, the two are intimately
intertwined.
We all know that without the free-
dom to choose our individual paths
— the life, liberty and pursuit of hap-
piness that Jefferson enshrined in
the Declaration of Independence —
our nation would be impoverished in
spirit and innovation. Education is a
major stepping-stone along this path.
Our June graduates are well on
their way toward applying those three
unalienable rights to a successful and
productive future. Some will go on to
college and perhaps graduate school.
Others will hone their skills in less
academic settings. Some will become
doctors, nurses, computer coders,
lawyers, veterinarians, and some will
start businesses. Some will enter the
armed services. Some will become
skilled mechanics, fi refi ghters, artists,
pilots, or heavy equipment operators.
Some will construct our fences, barns,
houses and buildings.
We should be proud of each and
every student, each and every gradu-
ate. They are on their way to a bright
future of their own choosing, and
one that America’s Founding Fathers
sought to guarantee. We hope that
they will stay here and continue to
build our community. Or if not, that
they will one day return.
But without the sacrifi ce of those
we remember on Memorial Day, none
of this would be possible. Memorial
Day is an occasion that rose from our
grass-roots tributes to soldiers who
died in the Civil War. In the late years
of the war, and after its end, Amer-
icans began spontaneously holding
springtime services in towns and cem-
eteries across the nation to remember
those who gave their lives for their
cause. In 1971, Memorial Day — the
last Monday of May — became an
offi cial U.S. holiday. Waterloo, New
York has been recognized as the offi -
cial place of origin. Their remem-
brance was fi rst held as an offi cial
community-wide event on May 5,
1866, with businesses closed and ser-
vices at local cemeteries.
This year, the Eagle Cap VFW
Post 4307 and Wallowa Lake Amer-
ican Legion Post 157 will hold ser-
vices at Wallowa County cemeteries,
culminating in a 1 p.m. service at the
County Courthouse that will remem-
ber 29 men and women who have
served and who passed away this
year, including military, EMT, and
fi refi ghters. We owe a huge debt of
gratitude to them. We should all pause
and pay them tribute, as well as to the
many living veterans who have had
their lives forever changed by their
service.
Without the sacrifi ce of these men
and women throughout our history,
our graduates would not have the
bright futures and the paths to life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness
that Americans are assured today. Cel-
ebration and Remembrance. It’s a
time for both.
Notes on our current political standoff
S
ometimes it’s helpful to take
a few steps back in order to
get a better perspective on
what is happening around you
right now.
If you turn the clock back about
30 years, you might recall that
Reagan’s presidency was marred
by the Iran-Contra scandal, while
George H.W. Bush’s one term as
president began as the world cele-
brated the tearing down of the Ber-
lin Wall and the collapse of the
Soviet Union. What you might
not recall from that period is that a
couple of years into his presidency,
Bush acted on the advice of his
deputy Attorney General William
Barr and pardoned several former
Reagan administration offi cials for
their role in the illegal arms deal,
effectively ensuring that Defense
Secretary Caspar Weinberger
would not testify that the former
vice president had not really been
“out of the loop,” as Bush had
claimed, regarding that violation
of law. Barr was later rewarded for
his loyalty and expeditious han-
dling of the matter by being pro-
moted to Attorney General, where
he served until Bill Clinton was
elected in 1992.
Meanwhile in the former
Soviet Union, new countries were
forming, previously held state
assets were being gobbled up by
high-ranking offi cials, oligarchs
were consolidating vast wealth,
and an economy and govern-
ment that resembled an organized
crime syndicate was fi lling the
newly created economic and polit-
ical void. Foremost in the scram-
ble for power was Vladimir Putin,
the former head of the Soviet spy
agency, who knew how to use his
inside connections and secret dirt
to leverage power for his own per-
sonal and political gain.
At the same time in the United
States, according to recent revela-
tions from tax returns over more
than a decade during this period,
a fl amboyant New York business-
man named Donald Trump was
losing more than a billion dol-
lars in a variety of failed ventures
including casinos, hotels, an air-
line, and a football league, and
paying virtually no taxes during
that time. In fact, the estimate of a
billion in losses might have been
conservative, because according
to a story told by Trump’s daugh-
ter Ivanka, her father once pointed
to a homeless panhandler and said
casually, “That guy is worth about
POLITICAL
PHILOSOPHY
John McColgan
eight billion dollars more than I
am.”
Fortunately — though per-
haps not coincidentally for Trump
— toward the end of the nine-
ties, when Trump’s real estate ven-
tures were about all he had left
and when he could not get a con-
ventional loan from U.S. banks,
along came a former Soviet offi -
cial and another Russian investor
who called themselves the Bay-
rock Group, and they began shift-
ing Trump’s focus from real estate
development to selling his world-
wide “brand.” Within a few years,
Deutsche Bank, which was now
doing more business with Rus-
sian and eastern European inves-
tors, were willing to back some of
Trump’s real estate developments,
and by 2008, Donald Trump Jr.
reported that “Russians make up a
pretty disproportionate cross-sec-
tion of a lot of our assets.” One
example was a property in Flor-
ida that Trump Sr. was able to sell
to a Russian investor for $95 mil-
lion during the depths of the hous-
ing collapse, apparently only for
the odd purpose of allowing that
oligarch to tear down the buildings
and sell the land for a mere $35
million.
By 2015, Trump was boast-
ing that in Russia, he had met with
“the top level people, both oli-
garchs and generals, and top of the
government people. I can’t go fur-
ther than that,” he continued mys-
teriously, before adding, “and the
relationship was extraordinary.”
What Trump labeled as
“extraordinary” is probably true
in the literal sense of the term, but
others have found Trump’s “rela-
tionship” with the Russians to be
peculiar and highly suspicious. So
much so that in July of 2016, the
FBI began to investigate whether
Trump or members of his presi-
dential campaign might be conspir-
ing with Russians to infl uence the
campaign and the election. Follow-
ing revelations about that investi-
gation in early 2017, Trump fi red
his FBI Director James Comey, but
in order to quell the uproar that fol-
lowed, a special investigation was
authorized into Russian meddling,
headed by Robert Mueller, another
former FBI Director who was
deeply respected by politicians on
both sides of the aisle.
About a year into Mueller’s
investigation, in June 2018, along
came a 20-page letter from the for-
mer Attorney General William
Barr to President Trump, in which
the then-civilian Barr complained
about the entire nature, scope, and
alleged unfairness of the special
counsel’s investigation. Trump
obviously relished Barr’s criticism,
and he rewarded Barr for his views
by choosing him in 2019 to replace
Jeff Sessions as the new Attorney
General.
So it really should have come
as no surprise to people who have
followed Barr’s career that now
Barr has tried to condense the 448
page Mueller Report into a four
page letter that aims to exoner-
ate the president of all wrongdo-
ing, even though Mueller himself
did not do that in his actual report.
Meanwhile a newly elected Dem-
ocratic House is exercising their
Constitutional powers by conduct-
ing their own investigations into
Trump’s fi nances, and his con-
nections with the Russians during
the campaign and during his
administration.
In response, Barr seems to be
acting more as Trump’s personal
attorney rather than as the Attor-
ney General of the United States.
In the absence of Michael Cohen,
Trump’s former “fi xer” who has
now been convicted on several
charges, Barr has stepped in to
try to “fi x” the president’s trou-
bles by arguing that Congress has
no power to investigate or pros-
ecute a sitting president, and that
the courts might not have such
power either. Suffi ce to say that
the chairs of the House Commit-
tees on Financial Services, Intel-
ligence, Judiciary, and Oversight
and Reform all disagree, as does
the House Speaker.
Barr recently taunted Mrs.
Pelosi, asking if she had brought
her handcuffs for him. But what
she has brought are contempt
charges that have been approved
in committee and will likely soon
be brought against Barr before the
entire House.
Stay tuned for further
developments.
———
John McColgan writes from his
home in Joseph
WHERE TO WRITE
Washington, D.C.
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D —
516 Hart Senate Offi ce Building,
Washington D.C. 20510. Phone:
202-224-5244. E-mail: wayne_kin-
ney@wyden.senate.gov Web site:
http://wyden.senate.gov Fax:
202-228-2717.
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D — 313
Hart Senate Offi ce Building, Wash-
ington D.C. 20510. Phone: 202-224-
3753. E-mail: senator@merkley.sen-
ate.gov. Fax: 202-228-3997.
U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, R
(Second District) — 1404 Long-
worth Building, Washington D.C.
20515. Phone: 202-225-6730. No
direct e-mail because of spam.
Web site: www.walden.house.gov
Fax: 202-225-5774. Medford offi ce:
14 North Central, Suite 112, Med-
ford, OR 97501. Phone: 541-776-
4646. Fax: 541-779-0204.
Pending Bills
For information on bills in Con-
gress — Phone: 202-225-1772.
Wallowa County’s Newspaper Since 1884
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VOLUME 134
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P.O. Box 338 • Enterprise, OR 97828
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Phone: 541-426-4567 • Fax: 541-426-3921
Contents copyright © 2019. All rights reserved.
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Salem
Gov. Kate Brown, D — 160
State Capitol, Salem 97310. Phone:
503-378-4582. Fax: 503-378-8970.
Web site: www.governor.state.
or.us/governor.html.
Oregon Legislature — State
Capitol, Salem, 97310. Phone:
(503) 986-1180. Web site: www.
leg.state.or.us (includes Oregon
Constitution and Oregon Revised
Statutes).
State Rep. Greg Barreto,
R-Cove (District 58) — Room
H-384, State Capitol, 900 Court St.
N.E., Salem OR 97301. Phone: 503-
986-1458. E-mail: rep.gregbar-
reto@state.or.us. Web site: http://
www.oregonlegislature.gov/
barreto
State Sen. Bill Hansell, R (Dis-
trict 29) — Room S-423, State
Capitol, Salem 97301. Phone: 503-
986-1729. E-mail: Sen.BillHansell@
state.or.us. Web site: www.oregon-
legislature.gov/hansell.
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