A20 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5 , 2019
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR[email protected]LOCAL OPINIONSJoin the debate at washingtonpost.com/local-opinionsB
ORIS JOHNSON’S attempt to sideline the
British Parliament to force through the
country’s exit from the European Union
seemed on Wednesday to have blown up in
his face. Confronted with the prime minister’s
imminent imposition of a prolonged recess, his
opponents voted t o seize control of the parliamenta-
ry agenda, then passed a bill aimed at blocking him
from triggering a “no-deal Brexit” on Oct. 31, as he
had threatened to do. Along the way, Mr. Johnson’s
Conservative Party splintered: More than 20 of its
Parliament members, including some of its most
senior figures, voted with the opposition and were
then expelled.
Westminster has been rocked by angry rhetoric
and complex maneuvering this week, with both
Mr. Johnson and his opponents testing the limits of
the country’s unwritten constitution. The most
likely result of the prime minister’s d efeat seemed to
be a snap election, either just before or sometime
after the Oct. 31 Brexit deadline. That is, in one
sense, encouraging: Democracy, in the form of a
national vote, is the best way out of Britain’sdeepening crisis. But voters could be offered an
unpalatable choice between a Conservative Party
seemingly bent on a radical rupture with the E.U.
and a Labour alternative committed to a socialist
revolution. Either could do far-reaching damage to
Britain’s economy.
Mr. Johnson brought this on with his reckless
attempt to deliver on his pledge that Britain would
leave the E.U. at the end of next month, “do or die.”
Knowing that Parliament had rejected the terms for
departure negotiated by the previous government
— which E.U. l eaders insist are not subject to change
— and that there was also no majority for a no-deal
Brexit, the new prime minister sought to preserve
the latter option by forcing Parliament into recess
for five weeks, beginning next week. He claimed he
intended to use the threat of a sharp break to
negotiate new terms with Brussels by late October.
And yet E.U. leaders and Conservative Party dissi-
dents said this week that Mr. Johnson had advanced
no new proposals.
The suspicion that Mr. Johnson was trying to
force a no-deal exit on an unwilling country, whichaccording to government estimates would have to
live with shortages of food and medicine in the
aftermath, helped prompt a remarkable number of
Conservatives to turn against the government,
including several longtime cabinet ministers and
Winston Churchill’s grandson. They did so knowing
that their votes could end their political careers. It
was a rare display of principled integrity in a
parliamentary scrum that has seen both Mr. John-
son and his opponents transgress norms of pro-
cedure and rhetoric. Opponents described
Mr. Johnson’s parliamentary suspension as a “coup,”
while others warned that the opposition’s unusual
vote to strip control of the parliamentary agenda
from the government set a dangerous precedent.
The jousting is likely to continue as Mr. Johnson
seeks t o hold an election before Oct. 31, or otherwise
find a way to complete Brexit by that date, and
Labour tries to force an extension of the exit
deadline to early next year before agreeing to an
election date. It’s hard to wish either party success;
both appear committed to policies that would be
bad for Britain.Britain’s lose-lose situation
As Brexit looms, Mr. Johnson and his opponents are offering voters bad options.
Two Aug. 31 Metro articles painted different
pictures of whether the District is a safe place to
live. “D.C. rises to No. 7 in world’s safest cities
index, up from 23rd two years ago” reported the
results of the latest Economist Intelligence Unit
report ranking 60 cities using an index of
57 indicators, including digital security, access to
quality health care and disaster preparedness.
According to the report, the District did a lot
better because “our measures and methodology
give us a better understanding of its s trengths a nd
weaknesses.”
“One dead, six wounded following overnight
and early-morning violence” t old a different story.
A 16-year-old boy was found shot dead. In five
other incidents, “no one suffered serious injuries,but all of the victims were taken to hospitals.” All
involved gunshot or stab wounds. A man and a
woman were hit by bullets fired from a passing
car. Police found a man with gunshot wounds. A
woman eating dinner at her dining room table
heard several shots, then discovered a bullet had
hit her in the lower back. Police found 34 shell
casings a couple blocks away. A man passing a
small group of men was shot in the back. A
woman was stabbed in the ribs by a man trying to
rob her.
On the issue of whether the District is safe, the
situation can look very different from an econo-
mist’s downtown suite than f rom a city street on a
hot summer night.
Karl Polzer , Falls ChurchTwo perspectives on safety in the District
ABCDE
AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER
F
OR DAYS, Americans along the United States’
southeastern coast have b een bracing f or Hur-
ricane Dorian. But the storm might already
have done its worst, to the small archipelago
nation of t he B ahamas. Even as emergency managers
prepare for possible landfall in F lorida, Georgia o r the
Carolinas, the federal government must not forget
about our neighbors, just 50 miles from Miami, nor
fail to take the lessons Dorian teaches about the
changing planet.
The destruction is near-total in some places. Early
aerial photos show whole towns inundated, shipping
containers tossed around, roofs floating on stagnant
floodwaters, airports submerged. Dorian left a mas-
sive swath of Grand Bahama Island underwater. Aid
groups fear that nearly half the homes on Grand
Bahama a nd the A bacos have b een severely d amaged
or destroyed, a ccording t o the BBC. Low visibility a nd
turbulence have hampered helicopter rescuers, a nd a
changed coastline and massive amounts of floatingdebris h ave thwarted s hip-based emergency services.
While the death toll stood at 20 as of Wednesday
evening, that is sure to rise as search and rescue
operations continue. This is the result of a Category 5
storm that sat over Grand Bahama for 40 hours,
moving a mere 1 mile per hour, pouring 35 inches of
rain i n some areas.
In its lethargic pace, Dorian resembles Hurricane
Harvey, which pummeled Houston i n 2017; the f lood-
ing was catastrophic because the rain simply kept
coming. As climate change progresses, experts warn
that more s low-moving s torms might be t he result, a s
the winds that steer these storms shift. It is already
clear that global warming tends to make hurricanes
stronger and w etter, driven b y warm waters t hat have
soaked up the excess solar energy humans have
trapped with greenhouse gas emissions. Dorian
“looks like what we’re going to have more of in the
future,” Princeton University’s Gabriel Vecchi told t he
New York Times.A responsible government would minimize the risk
by restraining greenhouse gas emissions. But the best
one can hope for from the Trump administration is
that it be responsive to the current crisis. Federal
resources have begun flowing into the Bahamas. The
Coast Guard dispatched helicopters and cutters to aid
in search and rescue. The U.S. Agency for International
Development has a relief team on the ground that will
provide emergency housing, food and sanitation help.
Emergency responders from Fairfax and Los Angeles
counties were on their way on Wednesday afternoon.
The real test will come when the floodwaters
recede and the bodies are counted. “We are in the
midst of one of the greatest national crises in our
country’s history,” Bahamian Prime Minister Hubert
Minnis said. With only 400,000 inhabitants and an
economy highly dependent on tourism, his country
does not have ample spare resources to recover. The
United States should stand ready to help — not just
with rescue but with t he r ebuilding, t oo.Catastrophe in the Bahamas
The hurricane has devastated the archipelago nation. The United States must continue to lend a hand.
I
N IRELAND on Tuesday, Vice President Pence
met with Ta oiseach Leo Varadkar, greeted
business leaders at the U. S. ambassador’s
residence and then flew to a resort o n the other
side of the country, where he is staying. On its face,
his choice to lodge in Doonbeg, which requires him
to commute to meetings within the island nation
aboard A ir Force Two, s eems odd. When one f actors
in that the resort is owned by President Trump,
these facts signify much more: They are more
evidence of the Trump administration’s casual
indifference to government ethics.
Mr. Pence told reporters Tuesday he had always
planned a trip to Doonbeg, because he has familial
roots in the town, and that staying at the 120-room
Trump resort made sense for his large staff. B ut t hat
is not a satisfactory explanation for staying across
the country from Dublin, the nation’s capital and
the s ite of the m eetings he is o stensibly in Ireland to
attend. Marc Short, Mr. Pence’s c hief of staff, a rgued
that, after Mr. Trump canceled his trip to Poland,
leaving Mr. Pence to fill in for him, the scrambled
schedule limited the vice president’s options. Ye t he
also admitted that Mr. Trump suggested the stay at
Doonbeg.
Trumpworld’s ethical carelessness has steadily
spread from Mr. Trump himself, who began his
presidency by refusing to disclose his basic finan-
cial information and properly distance himself
from his privately held business, to the rest of his
administration. Cabinet official after Cabinet offi-
cial has resigned because they wasted taxpayer
dollars on expensive trips a nd b landishments. Now,
the vice president brings a gaggle of staff to a resort
the president owns, at the president’s urging, and
he shrugs it off as unavoidable.
Mr. Pence should have been more attuned to the
appearance of self-dealing. If there were ever a
good time for such a lapse, this is not it. Mr. Trump
ended last month’s Group of Seven conference bytalking up his struggling Doral golf resort in South
Florida and suggesting that he would hold the next
G-7 summit there. The Trump International Hotel
in Washington has already become a conduit
through which foreign and domestic lobbyists can
funnel revenue into the president’s business. They
have, at grand scale.
Senior administration officials should not find
themselves in the position of deciding whether to
spend large amounts of public or private money ata property the president owns. Mr. Trump claims
he is losing money on net during his administra-
tion, as though serving were a burden that
justified the enrichment his business gains from
his office.
Then again, because the president has refused to
release his tax returns, all the public has is
Mr. Trump’s word that he is losing money. That and
$395 will buy you one night in the Trump
International Hotel.The Doonbeg
boondoggle
Mr. Pence’s stay at Mr. Tr ump’s
resort in Ireland reeks of corruption.ABCDE
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1301 K St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071 (202) 334-For millennia, humans killed one another on the
ground. Then, we acquired the skills to kill one
another on water. Soon after, we learned to kill in the
air and then underwater. Now, w e will surely learn to
kill in space [“Trump formally launches U.S. Space
Command,” Politics & the Nation, Aug. 30]. Is there
any hope for us left?
David Marchand , Towson, Md.The next arena
In his Aug. 30 op-ed, “Why white evangelicals
should panic,” Michael Gerson hypothesized that
President Trump is the primary reason younger
people are declining to follow in their grandparents’
evangelical footsteps.
But there could be another explanation, one less
palatable to religious believers such as Mr. Gerson.
Thanks to advances in education, today’s young
people have superior critical-thinking skills to those
of their grandparents. Consequently, more of them
are choosing science over stories and rationality
over belief.
This explanation is also consistent with the fact
that interest in religion in general is falling among
today’s younger people.
If better education is indeed the main reason
young people are deserting evangelicalism, then,
contrary to Mr. Gerson’s hope, Mr. Trump’s upcom-
ing defeat will not be its savior.
Robin Broadfield , WashingtonNot Mr. Trump’s fault
It is hardly surprising or news that Alaska
Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R) and Alaska’s congressional
delegation asked President Trump to restore the
2003 exemption for the To ngass National Forest
from the “roadless rule.” Every Alaska governor
since 2001 has litigated its application to the
To ngass, and every congressional delegation mem-
ber has asked for a total To ngass exemption. The
stated justification for the rule simply does not apply
to the To ngass because To ngass had already under-
gone congressional reviews in 1980 and 1990 and an
Agriculture Department secretarial review in 1999
that collectively set aside more than 6.6 million acres
of the To ngass as wilderness and other designations
prior to promulgation of the roadless rule.
Exemption of the To ngass from the 2001 roadless
rule has been Agriculture Department policy since
2003 and remains so today.
“The Department has concluded that the social
and economic hardships to Southeast Alaska out-
weigh the potential long-term ecological benefits
because the To ngass Forest Plan adequately pro-
vides for the ecological sustainability of the To ngass.
Every facet of Southeast Alaska’s economy is impor-
tant, and the potential adverse impacts from appli-
cation of the roadless rule are not warranted, given
the abundance of roadless areas and protections
already afforded in the To ngass Forest Plan.”
This policy determination has not been changed
by the USDA. So, the president was right to tell
Mr. Perdue to either implement that policy or
explain why he is changing it.
Frank H. Murkowski , Juneau, Alaska
The writer, a Republican, was governor
of Alaska from 2002 to 2006 and a U.S. senator
from 1981 to 2002.The roadless rule isn’t needed
The Aug. 29 editorial “A delicate balance for
the Amazon” rightly condemned Brazil’s Bolsonaro
administration push to “develop” the Amazon
through deforestation but failed to motivate readers
and the U.S. government to take action. Clear-cut
old-growth tropical rainforest does not grow back.
The immense diversity of rare species is gone
forever. Loggers frequently set fires to clear land for
logging roads, and the United States and Europe
each imported about 10,000 cubic meters of Brazil-
ian hardwood. Consumers can identify wood floor-
ing and voice their objection to deforestation by
boycotting Brazilian woods. Bamboo flooring is a
more sustainable durable alternative.
The Trump administration announced a plan to
allow logging roads in the To ngass National Forest,
the world’s largest remaining temperate rainforest.
If President Trump can slap tariffs on China and
suggest U.S. companies disinvest from China, he
could just as easily declare deforestation an unfair
trade practice and stop doing business with Brazil.
Mr. Trump could even leverage his friendship with
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to encourage him
to do better; instead, Mr. Trump was a no-show at t he
Group of Seven summit session on climate change.
When the United States is creating a demand for
Brazilian wood and our forestry practices are setting
such a poor example, do we really have the moral
authority to chastise Brazil?
Michael J. Beattie , ViennaRainforests need political pressure
It w as interesting to read in the Aug. 31 The World
article “In Poland, a WWII issue that remains
unresolved,” that Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and
Ta mmy Baldwin (D-Wis.) are leading a “bipartisan
group of 88 senators” entreating Poland to resolve
the issue of land taken from Jews and non-Jews by
the Nazis and Communists. I wonder if this same
group is urging our own government to look into the
restitution of land stolen from African Americans, a
story covered by many media sources, including
A.T. McWilliams’s Aug. 29 op-ed, “My ancestors’ case
for reparations.” These two pieces should be placed
side by side for context.
Marijane Monck , ColumbiaThe article on restitution for properties confis-
cated by the Nazis failed to mention that many
Jewish-owned properties were identified to the
Nazis and occupied by Poles. Holocaust survivors
returning to Poland after the war to reclaim their
homes were threatened or killed. In a “roots” trip to
Poland with my brother to visit the homes of our
parents who survived Auschwitz and Dachau, locals
shunned us for fear we were there to reclaim our
family’s homes. We are not interested in reclaiming
their property; we would like acknowledgment of
the anti-Semitism that continues in Poland.
David Jacobson-Kram , McLeanBigger issues than land restitution
EDITORIALSTOM TOLES Letters to the editor: [email protected]