Herald and Review from Decatur, Illinois • A5

DECATUR HERALD REVIEW FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2017 A5 1 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Closing Scovill a bad message to send On Sunday, Oct. 30, the Decatur Park District closed one of the three remaining public golf courses, Scovill. The park district claims nancial responsibility, saying they a ord to keep the course open. At the same time, several groups in Decatur are touting the viability of the area, saying things like and So which is it? Scovill is a great golf course ering something that neither of the other remaining Decatur courses have: terrain. Hickory Point and Red Tail are good courses, but they are at.

They ght Central Illinois geography. Scovill ered challenges by changing elevation, not lengthening the fairways. Closing Scovill does a couple of things. First, it will reduce the number of people coming to Decatur. I have a able number, but sure Scovill attracted a number of people because of its unique challenges.

With Scovill gone, that uniqueness is gone. Second, the remaining two golf courses will have to take on the leagues and other golfers that played Scovill. That will a ect the golfers still here. Think play is slow now? Just wait. Finally, closing a full 18-hole golf course imply being limitless, beautifying the area or representing a thriving community.

It implies being limited, dulling resources and accepting decline. In other words, hypocrisy. Barry Schwalbe, Decatur Founded 1872 A Lee Enterprises Inc. organization Editorial Board Julie Bechtel, publisher Tim Cain, audience engagement editor Chris Coates, executive editor Scott Perry, managing editor-print Unsigned editorials are opinions reached by a consensus of the editorial board and ect the institutional voice of the Herald Review. Other articles, cartoons and letters on this page necessarily ect the views of the board.

DIALOGUE aturday is Veterans Day, a federal holiday that commemorates and honors every veteran who has served and is serving in armed forces. It has its roots in Armistice Day, the day when world leaders signed the documents to end World War I at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. Veterans past and present from the Revolutionary War to our present-day warriors, are honored and memorialized with speeches, prayers, pride and tears. It always been that way. Ask a Vietnam War veteran how he or she was welcomed home in the early 1970s, and likely get a hard stare as those painful memories are dredged up.

This year, Veterans Day recalls the centennial of the beginning of the rst World War. Few are left of the those who served during World War II. Veterans of more recent wars, icts and peacetime service are gradually aging and nding themselves in need of help that can be provided through various organizations and the Veterans Administration. There are those who believe is reserved for people who served in war time, and those who served on hostile ground. We prefer to use the designation to honor all who have served overseas and stateside, in war time and in peace.

Anyone who chooses to wear the uniform and bear arms to serve, protect and defend the United States is worth celebrating, thanking and remembering. We are proud to help give back through our partnership with local groups to provide Veterans Corner. But Saturday, on Veterans Day, we ask that you consider attending a Veterans Day ceremony, observing a moment of silence at 11 a.m., shaking a hand of someone in uniform, or just paying silent tribute to those who have served and continue to serve our country. Earlier this year, we mourned the death of Harristown sailor Petty Ocer 3rd Class Logan Palmer, 23, a Sangamon Valley High School graduate who was killed while serving on the USS John S. McCain, which collided with an oil tanker near Singapore in Southeast Asia on Aug.

21. His loss, and all those that came before him, remind us of the freedom protected by all veterans, past and present, who have served our nation. On behalf of a grateful nation, we offer our heartfelt thanks to all those who have served and are serving in armed forces and to their families who essly support their orts. A special counsel Robert investigation proceeds, one thing is increasingly clear: If there is a serious congressional ort to impeach President Donald Trump after the midterm elections, it will have to be based not on a general sense that doing a bad job, but on something much more like obstruction of justice, abuse of power or subversion of the Constitution itself. For that we have the Framers to thank or blame and one in particular, James Madison.

It was he, the lead architect of the document, who spoke out against a more general proposal for impeachment, which would have made the president removable for reasoning has a lot to tell us about impeachment today and about the logic of the Constitution as a legal document. Let me be clear that setting the exact language for impeachment the preoccupation in the hot summer of Philadelphia in 1787, nor was it I just published a 773-page biography of Madison, and, having worked on the book for seven years, I think the impeachment discussion was an important enough part of his thinking to make it in. Yet the exchange between Madison and his fellow Virginian George Mason is nonetheless highly instructive. To begin with, proposal to allow removal of the president for maladministration crazy. Six of the 13 state constitutions made mal- administration a ground for removing the executive.

And one of those six was Virginia. Mason knew that very well, because he had been the chief designer of the Virginia constitution right after the Revolution, the job Madison was now taking on for the country as a whole. As the end of the convention drew near, Madison was taking pains to placate Mason. The older Virginian had begun the summer as a supporter of the Virginia plan that Madison had designed. But his republican skepticism of national government had been building, and now Mason was threatening not to sign the draft that the convention was going to endorse and send to the states for cation.

As drafted, the proposed constitution provided for impeachment for bribery and treason only. That, as Mason noted, might not be enough. Treason had been narrowly ned, limited to overt acts in aid of a wartime enemy. to subvert the Mason pointed out presciently, might not count as treason under this nition. response to proposal mattered.

He told the delegates that vague a as maladmin- istration be equivalent to tenure during pleasure of the That was apparently enough to persuade Mason to back down. He immediately proposed substituting crimes and for and the proposal passed by a vote of eight states to three. The language came from British practice dating back centuries. Why did intervention work? The answer lies in its observa- tion that the vagueness of would normalize impeachment, and thus ectively give the Senate the power to recall a president. Madison knew Mason was afraid of the power of the Senate, which he feared would become a source of aristocratic rule.

Madison himself was also wary of the Senate as it had come to be composed at the convention, because it empowered small states over large ones. Madison was expressing the worry that too loose an impeachment standard would give a small minority of the population disproportionate power over the presidency. The lessons for today are striking. Impeachment must be treated with high seriousness. It just a recall of a president that Congress like because that would give the Senate too much power over the elected president.

At the same time, genuine presidential wrongdoing including a presidential ort to the in phrase counts as a high crime or misdemeanor meriting removal. judiciousness and caution in constitutional design have stood us in good stead for more than two centuries. His lessons on impeachment should do the same. Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg View columnist. othing can compensate for the eight New York murders Uzbek national Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov perpetrated or the pain and su ering the families will forever endure.

But one positive shift has occurred. The foolish, pointless Diversity Visa, previously unknown to 99 percent of Americans, has been the focus of numerous print and broadcast news stories, getting almost as much attention is the population-busting chain migration that it spawns. summarized, the DV is an annual lottery that, in the name of diversity, brings 50,000 immigrants to the U.S. regardless of whether they can contribute meaningfully to America. The DV is an online program that involves little vetting.

To illustrate how misguided the DV is, think of other situations where lotteries might be used. Only in an alternative universe will you nd them. Employers hire, universities enroll, and motor vehicle departments hand out licenses based on a results. Granting visas to random individuals that lead to a most-coveted reward a green card and eventual U.S. citizenship is peak insanity.

Beyond the fact that the U.S. is already the most diverse country with 43.7 million foreign-born residing here and 65 million speaking a language other than English at home, the DV allows the original visa holder to petition his family, and they in turn bring in their relatives, and on and on the chain goes. In general, the State Department knows next to nothing about DV arrivals or the relatives they ultimately petition. Nevertheless DVs get immediate employment authorization documents and access to social services. The total number of people brought to the U.S.

through the DV since its 1990 creation is imposing. More than 1.1 million original DV holders, the rst completely randomly selected immigrants to arrive, have sponsored 3.8 million others. A Princeton University study found that between 1996 and 2000, the initiating immigrant sponsored about 3.5 relatives. After all the math is calculated, the DV generates many more immigrants than 50,000 per year. Because previ- ous DV lottery winners sponsor their relatives year after year, chain migration means that, the program actually accounts for as many as 165,000 new immigrants annually.

The haphazard format and its role as an immigration-driver should be enough to persuade Congress to end the visa immediately. But once the terrorism risk is factored in, then no intellectual argument can be made to keep the DV going. Chillingly, just four days before the Uber driver Saipov went on his murderous rampage, another Uzbekistan national and DV winner, Abdurasul Hasanovich Juraboev, who previously chopped lettuce in a gyro shop, received a 15-year federal court sentence after pleading guilty to providing material support to ISIS terrorists. Ju- raboev had posted an online threat to kill then-President Barack Obama and, if instructed, to bomb Coney Island. Speaking at a recent Cabinet meeting, President Trump demanded an immediate end to the DV, and a prompt shift toward merit-based immigration.

President Trump cally endorses the RAISE Act that would end the DV, and reduce chain migration. As President Trump said in his uniquely Trump fashion, want lotteries where the wrong people are in the Joe Guzzardi is a Californians for Population Stabilization senior writing fellow. Email Remember the of veterans key in impeachments Why have a citizenship lottery? OUR VIEW PHOTO BY JIM BOWLING HERALD REVIEW Veteran and St. Teresa alumnus Jim Hopkins, facing, is greeted by friend Michael Hart as veteran and St. Teresa alumnus Dennis Reinhart looks on after the 2016 Veterans Day event at St.

Teresa High School. NOAH FELDMAN JOE GUZZARDI The lessons for today are striking. Impeachment must be treated with high seriousness. It just a recall of a president that Congress like because that would give the Senate too much power over the elected president. At the same time, genuine presidential wrongdoing including a presidential ort to the in phrase counts as a high crime or misdemeanor meriting removal.

summarized, the (Diversity Visa) is an annual lottery that, in the name of diversity, brings 50,000 immigrants to the U.S. regardless of whether they can contribute meaningfully to America. The DV is an online program that involves little vetting..