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OPINION
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gainesvilletimes.com
Friday, November 9, 2018
Shannon Casas Editor in Chief | 770-718-3417 | scasas@gainesvilletimes.com
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of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
LETTERS
Some concerns of
proposed 279-lot
subdivision are
ignored by board
On Monday, Nov. 5, 2018, Ponderosa Farms
LLC presented its proposal to the Hall County
Planning Commission for a 279-lot subdivision
on a 121-acre tract on Ponderosa Farm Road.
During the meeting, the Planning Com
mission heard from multiple residents who
objected and had serious concerns regarding
the proposal.
Unfortunately the Planning Commission
did not address any of the concerns brought to
them by our residents.
The main concern raised by homeowners
in the area was the overwhelming number of
homes being proposed on the amount of acre
age — 279 houses on 121 acres is ridiculous and
Ponderosa Farm Road cannot handle this over
development.
Hall County Planning Commission members
made their mind up before ever hearing one
objection or concern from homeowners in the
area.
The commission voted unanimously and
approved the proposal. Fortunately, we have
one last chance to be heard and express our
concerns for the overdevelopment of this farm
land as it now goes to the Hall County Board of
Commissioners for final approval.
A subdivision is not the problem, 2.3 houses
per acre is. We ask that all Hall County commis
sioners please be open minded (unlike the Plan
ning Commission) and listen to the concerns
raised by homeowners. May common sense
prevail.
Kevin Sturm
Gainesville
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Your government officials
U.S. government
President Donald frump, The White House, 1600
Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20500,
202-456-1111,202-456-1414, fax, 202-456-
2461; www.whitehouse.gov
Sen. Johnny Isakson, 131 Russell Senate Office
Building, Washington, DC 20510, 202-224-
3643, fax, 202-228-0724; One Overton Park,
3625 Cumberland Blvd., Suite 970, Atlanta
30339, 770-661-0999, fax, 770-661-0768;
isakson.senate.gov
Sen. David Perdue, 383 Russell Senate Office
Building, Washington, DC 20510, 202-224-
3521, fax 202-228-1031; 3280 Peachtree Road
NE Suite 2640, Atlanta 30303, 404-865-0087,
fax 404-865-0311; perdue.senate.gov.
U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, 1504 Longworth House
Office Building, Washington, DC 20515, 202-
225-9893; 210 Washington St. NW, Suite 202,
Gainesville 30501,770-297-3388; dougcollins.
house.gov
U.S. Rep Rob Woodall, 1725 Longworth House
Office Building, Washington, DC 20515, 202-
225-4272, fax 202-225-4696; 75 Langley Drive,
Lawrenceville 30045, 770-232-3005, fax 770-
232-2909; woodall.house.gov
Hall County government
Board of Commissioners, 2875 Browns Bridge
Road, Gainesville, P.O. Drawer 1435, Gainesville
30503, 770-535-8288, www.hallcounty.org.
Chairman Richard Higgins, rhiggins@hallcounty.
org; District 1, Kathy Cooper, kcooper@
hallcounty.org; District 2, Billy Powell, bpowell@
hallcounty.org; District 3, Scott Gibbs, sgibbs@
hallcounty.org; District 4, Jeff Stowe, jstowe@
hallcounty.org.
County Administrator, Jock Connell, jconnell@
hallcounty.org
Planning Commission, 2875 Browns Bridge Road,
Gainesville, 770-531-6809.
Tax Commissioner’s Office, 2875 Browns Bridge
Road, P.O. Box 1579, Gainesville 30503, 770-
531 -6950, taxcommissioner@hallcounty.org
Tax Assessor’s Office, 2875 Browns Bridge Road,
Gainesville 30504, rswatson@hallcounty.org.
Real estate property, P.O. Box 2895, Gainesville
30503, 770-531 -6720; personal property, P.O.
Box 1780, Gainesville 30503, 770-531 -6749
Public Works, 2875 Browns Bridge Road,
Gainesville, 770-531-6800, krearden@
hallcounty.org
Extension office, 734 E. Crescent Drive,
Gainesville, 770-535-8293
Marshal’s Office, P.O. Drawer 1435, Gainesville,
770-531-6762
Elections Office, 2875 Browns Bridge Road,
Gainesville, 770-531-6945, elections®
hallcounty.org
Sheriff’s Office, Sheriff Gerald Couch, 610
Main St., Gainesville, 770-531-6885, www.
hallcountysheriffsoffice.org
Fire Department, 470 Crescent Drive, Gainesville,
770-531 -6838, www.hallcounty.org/fireservices
Sessions’ firing shows Trump’s
strange definition of loyalty
The day after the midterm
elections, President Trump
fired Attorney General Jeff
Sessions, replacing him at
least temporarily with a more
pliable loyalist. When Sessions
got the news on Wednesday,
he asked if he could finish the
week. Nope. Close of business
today was the answer.
Now, as a matter of law,
Sessions wasn’t fired. The
president asked him for
his resignation and Sessions agreed.
That matters, because if Sessions had
made Trump fire him, some restrictions
would kick in that might make killing
the Mueller investigation more difficult,
if the president ends up going that way.
In other words, Sessions’ last official act
as attorney general was one more act of
unrequited loyalty to the boss.
Trump talks a lot about loyalty. He says
it’s very important to him. A few months
ago, he suggested it should be against the
law for people facing criminal charges to
“flip” on their bosses. This was in the con
text of his former lawyer, Michael Cohen,
reportedly considering doing exactly that.
In Trump’s best-selling book “The Art
of the Deal,” there’s a fascinating pas
sage about his mentor, infamous lawyer/
fixer Roy Cohn. “He was a truly loyal
guy,” Trump wrote. “It was a manner of
honor with him.”
He went on: “Just compare that with
all the hundreds of ‘respectable’ guys
who make careers out of boasting about
their uncompromising integrity but have
absolutely no loyalty.... Roy was the sort
of guy who’d be there at your hospital bed
long after everyone else had bailed out,
literally standing by you to the death.”
But it was a one-way street.
When Cohn contracted AIDS,
“Donald found out about it
and just dropped him like a
hot potato,” Susan Bell, Cohn’s
longtime secretary, told Polit
ico. “It was like night and day. ”
Trump literally and figura
tively wouldn’t stand by the
man who would’ve stood by
him.
Sessions was the first sena
tor to endorse Trump, at a
time when doing so was still a consider
able political risk. He campaigned for
Trump. He defended Trump’s most
controversial statements — about
immigration, about Hillary Clinton, etc.
A longtime advocate of restrictionist
immigration policies, aggressive law
enforcement and the drug war, Sessions
saw in Trump a real opportunity to get
his preferred agenda implemented.
And, as attorney general, Sessions more
than any other Cabinet secretary put pol
icy meat on the bones of Trump’s rhetoric.
But none of that mattered, because
Sessions, a former U.S. attorney and
Alabama attorney general, believed he
needed to recuse himself from the Muel
ler probe into allegations that Trump
“colluded” with Russia. According to
various reports, Sessions believed he not
only had a legal and ethical obligation to
do so, he also believed his recusal would
be politically beneficial to the president
because it would protect the integrity of
the investigation.
Trump saw it differently. He believed
that the first loyalty of the attorney gen
eral should be to Trump personally, not
to the law or the Department of Justice.
This view was shared by Trump’s
most reliable loyalists, many of whom
claim to be passionately committed to
the “Trump agenda.” But whenever that
claim is put to the test, they reveal they
are more committed to Trump himself.
Jeanine Pirro of Fox News railed
against Sessions, calling him a “shill”
and hectoring him to “resign immedi
ately” or “put on his big boy pants.” Lib
erty University President Jerry Falwell
Jr., who tends to define both conserva
tism and Christianity as personal loyalty
to Trump, said that Sessions was merely
one of those conservatives who “pre
tend” to be a “friend of conservatives
and the faith community.” He also said
Sessions should rot in jail because, well,
because Falwell is an idiot.
This is all one piece of the broader
tapestry of what Trumpism always boils
down to when put to the test: a cult of
personality. Support of the man is more
important than support of anything else,
including Trump’s own agenda. I dis
agree with Sessions on quite a few things,
but the notion that he isn’t a conservative
is silly. More importantly, the idea that
he’s not a conservative — or a man of
integrity — simply because he wouldn’t
display blind loyalty to the president is
grotesquely unconservative.
Sessions resigned from the Senate to
become attorney general because he
thought he could accomplish important
things. Trump had him fired (he refused
to even talk to Sessions personally)
because at the end of the day, the only
truly important thing in Trump world is
Trump.
Jonah Goldberg is an editor-at-large of
National Review Online and a visiting
fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
JMmm
JONAH GOLDBERG
goldbergcolumn@
gmail.com
D&byV&MtetVfatercGraip
LISA BENSON I Washington Post Writers Group
What does 2020 mean for Trump and Dems?
The Chicago Tribune Editorial Board
What was the biggest surprise of
this election in which Democrats won
control of the U.S. House? Maybe that
President Donald Trump is still plan
ning to visit France this weekend for a
World War I commemoration, instead
of traveling to a battleground state for a
political rally.
No, it’s not too soon to be thinking
about 2020. Because you know Trump is
gaming out re-election strategies right
now, just as Rep. Nancy Pelosi, among
other Democratic leaders, is contem
plating how her party can retake the
presidency and Senate.
You weren’t hoping to take a
breather from politics, were you?
This next stage of competition will
play out on multiple levels. Soon, some
of the Democrats who’ve been popping
up in Iowa and New Hampshire will
join U.S. Rep. John Delaney, D-Md., as
announced presidential challengers.
That surely will fire up Trump, who
loves campaigning at least as much as
governing.
Meanwhile in Washington, expect
that every day will be a struggle for
control of the government — and the
political narrative. With their House
victories, Democrats are no longer
strictly the voice of opposition in
D.C. Chances are any major legisla
tion passed during the second half of
Trump’s term — can Americans even
hope for legislative solutions in a grid-
locked capital? — will require coopera
tion from Democrats. Maybe there will
be no such cooperation, which some in
the party would see as capitulation.
Along with their majority position,
House Democrats will gain oversight
powers, including the ability to launch
investigations and demand documents
— on Russian interference in elections,
relations with Saudi Arabia, the admin
istration scandal du jour. That could
make life difficult for Trump.
Here’s what Rep. Gerald Connolly
of Virginia, the top Democrat on the
oversight subcommittee on governing
operations, told Bloomberg: “It’s not
like we’re going to go drunk-crazy with
subpoenas. But it may seem that way
because we are coming off a two-year
drought of no subpoenas.” So not drunk
on power, but maybe a little tipsy.
On Wednesday, Rep. Jerrold Nadler
of New York gave Americans another
preview of their emerging approach
as he reacted to the news that Attorney
General Jeff Sessions had resigned at
Trump’s request. Nadler, likely to chair
the House Judiciary Committee, said he
wants to know more about the impact
of Sessions’ departure on the Mueller
investigation. “We will be holding people
accountable,” Nadler warned. Given a
binary choice of legislate or investigate,
we’re guessing that Connolly and Nadler
would choose the latter.
There’s widespread belief that
divided government is positive for the
country because it nudges the parties
to compromise. “Bipartisanship,” they
used to call it, like back in 1986 when
President Ronald Reagan signed a tax
reform act sponsored by Democrats.
Americans of a certain temperament
look back fondly at that era.
Trump won’t go there of his own
volition. The self-described “counter
puncher” is most energized when he’s
berating foes and stirring up dust. It’s
an ugly act that doesn’t always work.
Trump, after all, failed to keep Repub
licans in charge of the House. That was
mainly because he incited aggrieved
Democrats to support their candidates.
But while Trump lost the House
battle, he didn’t lose the war. His presi
dency did not succumb to a blue wave
of opposition. Republicans appear to
have increased their clout in the Sen
ate, which means they’ll likely keep
confirming Trump’s judicial nominees.
They also won a number of important
races for governor; they pivot to 2020
holding the governorships (and thus
levers of power) in Florida and Ohio,
arguably the two most crucial swing
states in a presidential election.
On Wednesday and beyond, America
is just as divided as it was before Tues
day’s election. But with that flip of
House control and with lingering divi
sions in both major parties, everything
is amped up.
Is that a reason for Americans to
despair? Not at all. There’s work to
be done as well as progress to be pro
tected. The economy is going great
guns; employers are hiring. Trump
and the Democrats may dislike each
other, but they can’t engage in fisticuffs
24/7. Both will want to show voters they
know how to run the country.
Because the race to 2020 is on.
She Stines
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