Save our Forests
I remember, as a child, seeing the branches of the majestic elm trees on the green in the center of town, cover the sky.Then we were hit with the Dutch Elm disease and most of the elm trees died.The hemlocks in much of the country are plagued by the woolly adelgid, an insect native to East Asia. Losing our hemlocks would be devastating. Currently, a huge threat to our ash trees is the emerald ash borer, which has already killed thousands of ash trees all over the country.
How does our country fight these diseases that are attacking our forests? It is with the National Forest Service, where scientists work to find ways to stop the foreign insects and diseases attacking trees to save our forests.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins of the Trump administration is closing fifty-seven of the seventy-seven research stations of the Forest Service across the country.She wants to shrink the Forest Service headquarters and move it from Washington DC to Utah. The Forest Service has a crucial role in preserving one hundred and ninety- two million acres of forests covering forty- three states from the Big Cypress National Park in Florida to the hardwood forests of Glacier National Park on the Canadian border.The current administration wants to end the “roadless rule” put in by the Clinton administration, which since 2001 has protected millions of acres of undeveloped forests from exploitation by lumbering and mining.
Trees in our national forests help fight against climate change by storing ten percent of carbon and the Forest Service is vital for fighting the insects and diseases attacking these forests. The National Forest Service should not be reduced or destroyed.
Lizbeth Piel
Sharon
Thanks for cemetery tour
A thank you to the Falls Village-Canaan Historical Society for the cemetery tour honoring Revolutionary War Veterans. It is volunteer groups like this that help our small towns thrive.
Terry Blass
Falls Village
Impeach Trump now, not later
Every day I wake up, I wonder whether it’s possible for Trump’s corruption to reach a higher level.Trump appears to be an evil genius able to constantly devise new, creative ways to take advantage of his position to enrich his family and friends, and he has a team of sycophants who are all too eager to carry out his schemes.This needs to end now, and there needs to be justice brought against the crooks who have been perpetrating this corruption and theft of resources from the rest of us as ordinary Americans and taxpayers.
Senator Schumer and House Minority Leader Jeffries have decided to delay any push for impeachment until after the mid-term elections.But what if there’s no election? Trump has stated, “there should not be an election [in November]”, and “I have the right to do whatever I want as President,” and “nobody can stop me, only my own moral sense.”Waiting for an election to occur first may be too late.We cannot take this risk.
You might ask how one might have an impeachment proceeding without the majority of the House voting for it and, even if it occurs, the improbability of two thirds of the Senate voting for conviction.However, there are increasing numbers of disaffected Republicans who detest Trump and may be willing to add the few votes needed tip the balance in the House to support an impeachment proceeding.
Even if the Senate would fail to convict the President, the record of crimes and supporting evidence gathered during impeachment would better enable lawsuits accusing criminal behavior to be made sooner than later. Moreover, in an election year, those House members voting not to impeach, or those Senators voting not to convict, would “own” part of the corruption when the chickens eventually come home to roost.And they will come home.
An impeachment proceeding would lay bare to the American public immediately before the mid-term elections just how corrupt the administration has become.It would make it more difficult for the President to hinder the execution of the midterm elections by, say, cooking up a national security “threat” and invoking the Insurrection Act.It would increase the pressure on the President not to mess with the election process.
According to multiple polls, a little over half of Americans support impeachment of Trump.Schumer and Jeffries need to step aside to allow new Democratic leadership to represent the desires of their constituents.They are failed politicians with insufficient gumption and leadership, and who enabled deeply flawed Trump to ascend to the presidency a second time.If the Democrats lose again, they will have gotten what they deserve given their poor and misguided leadership.And we, the American people, will pay for it.Do you deserve that?
Lloyd Baroody
Lakeville
