A16
LOCAL/REGIONAL
Wallowa County Chieftain
Wednesday, January 26, 2022
‘The election was not stolen, it was bought’
By DICK MASON
The Observer
LA GRANDE — Ore-
gon U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz,
R-Ontario, does not believe
former President Donald
Trump’s claim that Pres-
ident Joe Biden won the
2020 presidential election
because of voter fraud.
“The election was not
stolen, it was bought,”
Bentz, a fi rst-term congress-
man, said during a meet-
and-greet Thursday, Jan. 6,
in La Grande.
Bentz said Democrats
had an enormous edge in
funding donors with deep
pockets, including one who
donated $400 million to
Biden’s campaign. Bentz
said the Democrats spent
several times more money
per vote than the Republi-
cans did.
Bentz referenced a large
donation Facebook founder
Mark Zuckerberg made and
suggested it benefi ted Biden
and Democrats.
According to a 2020 arti-
cle from the news website
Vox, Zuckerberg and his
Alex Wittwer/EO Media Group
Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario, speaks to a group of residents during a meet-and-greet Thursday,
Jan. 6, 2022, at Brother Bear Cafe in La Grande.
wife, Priscilla Chan, per-
sonally made a $300 mil-
lion donation to two groups:
Center for Tech and Civic
Life and the Center for
Election Innovation &
Research. The money was
specifi cally designated to
recruit poll workers, supply
them with personal protec-
tion equipment and set up
drive-thru voting. The rest
was distributed to state elec-
tion offi cials throughout the
country.
Both groups are 501(c)(3)
nonprofi ts, which are legally
prohibited from political
campaign activity.
Bentz is hopeful Repub-
licans can win control of
the House of Represen-
tatives in midterm elec-
tions in November. He
noted, though, that is when
heavy lifting will begin for
Republicans. He said House
minority leader Kevin
McCarthy,
R-California,
issued this warning earlier
when speaking at a gather-
ing of about 40 Republican
freshmen in Congress.
McCarthy said members
of the minority party have
it easier because they often
fi nd themselves just voting
no. McCarthy said, how-
ever, they will fi nd when
they are in the majority
party the situation can be
more challenging.
“He told us, ‘When you
are in power you have to
make things happen, it is
hard,’” Bentz said.
Bentz spoke in La Grande
on the one-year anniversary
of the day Trump supporters
rioted at the Capitol Build-
ing in an attempt to reverse
the results of the 2020 pres-
idential election. Bentz said
he believes Democrats are
blowing the Jan. 6 riot out
of proportion in an attempt
to divert attention from the
issues people really are con-
cerned about.
“It is a huge opportu-
nity for them to distract
the nation from infl ation,’’
Bentz said.
Bentz also said United
States Attorney General
Merrick Garland is asking
the FBI to investigate a rise
in harassment and threats
of violence against school
board members nation-
wide. Bentz said it is not
the FBI’s place to do this.
“This is what communi-
ties should be looking into,”
he said.
On Oct. 4, Garland re -
leased a memo directing
the FBI to meet with fed-
eral, state, local and tribal
law enforcement to develop
strategies
to
address
“harassment, intimidation
and threats of violence”
against school board mem-
bers and school employees.
Later that month, Gar-
land defended the memo
at a Senate Judiciary Com-
mittee meeting after Repub-
licans accused the attor-
ney general of overreach,
according to The Associ-
ated Press.
“The obligation of the
Justice Department is to
protect the American people
against violence and threats
of violence and that partic-
ularly includes public offi -
cials,” Garland said.
Slight improvement in drought conditions, drought monitor shows
By RONALD BOND
Wallowa County Chieftain
ENTERPRISE
—
Drought conditions that
have heavily impacted Wal-
lowa County — and, really,
the entire West — are start-
ing to show a little improve-
ment, but there is a ways to
go before it lifts entirely.
In recent weeks, the U.S.
Drought Monitor website,
which is “produced through
a partnership between the
National Drought Mitiga-
tion Center at the Univer-
sity of Nebraska-Lincoln, the
United States Department of
Agriculture, and the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration,” has shown
the severe drought condi-
tions slightly improving in
the state in recent weeks.
Wallowa County saw its
largest movement in late
December and early Janu-
ary, as the Dec. 30 update
showed the county with
58.84% of its territory in the
“extreme drought” range,
down from 78.87% the pre-
vious week, and down from
more than 82% just two
weeks earlier. And on Jan. 6,
the percentage of the county
in the extreme range was
down to 38.1%. The number
was the same on the Jan. 13
and 20 reports.
The remainder of the
county is still in drought
conditions, but is catego-
rized as “severe.”
The drought monitor has
six stages that a region is
categorized in, ranging from
“None” or no drought, all the
way to D4, the worst, which
is considered “exceptional
drought.” In between are D0
(abnormally dry), D1 (mod-
erate drought), D2 (severe
drought) and D3 (extreme
drought).
The state saw its worst
conditions this year in the
Sept. 14, 2021, report, which
showed the entire state in
at least D1 and more than
99.3% of its territory in D2,
or a severe drought. That
report was also the third in
a row to show 76.69% of the
state in extreme drought —
including most of Wallowa
County — and was the third
of seven straight weeks that
showed 26.59% of the state
in an exceptional drought,
marked on the monitor’s
map with a streak of crim-
son cutting through the mid-
dle of the state.
At its worst this sum-
mer, Wallowa County had
83.22% of its range in either
D3 or D4, where it stayed
from Aug. 31 to Oct. 19.
During that stretch, there
was a sliver — 1.43% —
of the county marked as
D4, or exceptional drought.
That D4 percentage, in fact,
held from the fi rst report in
August until the last report
in November.
The county fi rst moved
into D2 on the June 8 report,
and the entirety of the
county has been in D2 or
worse since July 6.
One winter ago, in
December 2020, 61% of the
county was considered to
be abnormally dry, but the
other 39% was rated as hav-
ing no drought. The worst
conditions in 2020, in fact,
actually happened in the fi rst
month of the year, when the
entirety of the county was in
at least D0 and only 4.17%
was in D1.
According to the drought
monitor website, the last
time conditions were even
close to this bad in Decem-
ber was in 2015, when
the month started with the
whole county in at least
D2 and nearly 98% of the
county in D3. By the mid-
dle of the month, the whole
county was still in severe
drought, but the extreme
drought conditions were
wiped out.
That summer, the county
was considered in extreme
drought from Aug. 25 to
Nov. 24.
Other than 2015, the
last time the website shows
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drought conditions close
to the current level were in
2007 and 2001. The site has
data going back to 2000.
Snowy conditions in the
county — which included
near-record snowfall earlier
in December in Joseph —
have helped. The National
Weather Service reported
27.3 inches of snow in
Joseph in December, which
is more than three times the
monthly average. That total
has amounted to 2.29 inches
of precipitation during the
month, close to an inch
above the average of 1.29
inches.
The county is in an area
that the Climate Prediction
Center believes will remain
in a drought through mid-
March, though it expects the
conditions to improve.
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