Newspaper Page Text
The ADVANCE, Februory 24,2021/Page 6A
(51?e Ahumtce
A free press is not a privilege but
organic necessity in a great society.
—Walter Lippmann
COMMENTARY
out of
CONTEXT
A compilation of quotations on a variety of
issues by national, state and regional writers,
well-known personalities, just plain everyday
people and from various publications
collected by the editors of THE ADVANCE.
Quotes for our Times:
Dennis Prager, nationally syndicated
radio talk-show host and columnist: Given
how flawed human nature is, America has
been a remarkable moral achievement.
Given human nature, America has
been an extraordinary accomplishment,
However, given the left's largely success
ful elimination of Judeo-Christian and mid
dle-class values -- and the consequent
unleashing of human nature -- that ac
complishment may not survive.
Daniel Davies, writer for American
Thinker: The closing of the American mind.
The university is no longer a place of
liberal education in the best sense of the
term. It will not give all ideas a fair hear
ing, it figuratively burns books, and it
routinely bars speakers. Only those who
advance the radical atheistic left are wel
comed. Worse, universities use all means
necessary to protect and advance leftist
hegemony.
So there you have it. That is the reason
for cancel culture, with its intolerance for
traditional religious moral views. Cancel
culture is at war with the core American
culture of God, family, and community. It
wars with the view that America has a spe
cial mission in God's Providence to be a
City on a Hill. Its acolytes disdain the peo
ple, whom they once called deplorable
and now label as insurrectionists. Cancel
culture's practitioners know better than
the people because they have the "cor
rect" ideology.
Jacob Sullum, political commenta
tor: Biden's 'commonsense' gun controls
make little sense.
As for mass shooters, they typically do
not have criminal or psychiatric records
that would disqualify them from buying
guns, meaning they would pass the back
ground checks Biden wants to expand.
The Parkland shooter, for example, bought
his rifle legally, which makes the invocation
of his crime as a justification for expanded
background checks rather puzzling.
Reagan McCarthy, Web Editor at Town-
hall.com: Symone Sanders Ignores The
Science on Reopening Schools
Symone Sanders, spokeswoman for
Vice President Kamala Harris, joined other
Biden administration officials in dodging
straightforward questions about liberating
schools from coronavirus closures.
Sanders was pressed by CNN's John
Berman about whether or not children
can return to school before all teachers
are vaccinated, as the CDC says is possi
ble. Sanders said that teachers "should be
prioritized," but would not draw a distinc
tion between "prioritizing" educators and
keeping children out of traditional school
ing until each and every teacher has re
ceived the coronavirus vaccine. Sanders
wondered if in-person learning before
teachers receive vaccines is safe, but the
Biden administration's own CDC director
has indicated it is.
Write Us A
Letter
Have you a gripe? How about a compliment
for someone for a job well done? Lef us
know abouf if wifh a leffer fo fhe edifor. We
urge anyone fo wrife us abouf any subject of
general public interest. Please limit all letters to
250 words double spaced.
All letters must by signed, but we may withhold
the writer's name upon request.
Please write to us at The Advance, P.O. Box 669,
Vidalia, GA 30475 or email: theadvancenews@
gmail.com (Subject Line: Letter to the Editor).
Rush Limbaugh
1/12/1951 - 2/17/2021
“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country
from its government.”
- Edward Abbey
FROM RUSH LIMBAUGH
"... My days on earth are numbered; But before I fade
away there is something important I need to say. It may
not be important to anyone else; but it's important to me.
Win, lose or fraud ... President Trump, I just want to say
thank you for the last four years. Thank you for making it
cool to be an American again. Thank you for showing us
that we don’t need to be under China’s thumb anymore
economically, or any other way. Thank you for one of the
strongest economies we’ve ever experienced in my life
time. Thank you for all you have done for the minority
communities, and the outstanding decrease in the unem
ployment rate you had. Thank you for making it feel good
to love our country and to be a proud patriot again. Thank
you for supporting our Nation's flag and the men and
women who fought for the freedom that stands behind
that flag. Thank you for supporting our nation's law en
forcement organizations, and understanding how difficult
their job really is. Thank you for quelling the flood of ille
gal immigration, and bringing to justice the thousands of
criminals that flood brought us. Thank you for giving cor
porations a reason to come back to America to make our
own products and put Americans back to work. Thank
you for bringing our troops home from endless deploy
ments that presented us with little more than body bags;
and for your commitment to strengthen our military.
Thank you for operation warp speed and keeping your
promise to bringing the Covid 19 vaccine to us in less
than a year. Thank you for your never-ending attempts at
bringing peace to the Middle East and your support for
Israel. Thank you for your Tax relief, and thank you for
our energy independence. Most of all though...THANK
YOU for taking a damn rotten job that you never had to
take!! Thank you for caring enough for this country to
want to try and make a difference. Thank you for show
ing America how little Career Politicians actually work for
their constituents; and for showing us how much those
politicians despise you for showing America how easy it
is to build a great nation, rather than rape her to line their
own pockets and stock portfolios. Thank you for allowing
us to experience a President that wasn’t a lifelong politi
cian, but a lifelong American.
THANK YOU MR PRESIDENT... YOU DID YOUR
BEST..."
Biden Is Too Timid on
School Reopening
It’s an old political trick to
make an easily achievable goal
sound vauntingly ambitious in
order to brag about it when it’s
inevitably met.
It takes another level of
chutzpah, though, to set out as
a target something that has
already happened.
The press has portrayed
President Joe Biden’s goal of
reopening the majority of K-12
schools in his first 100 days as
so far-reaching that the timeline
might have to be extended.
Enter White House press
secretary Jen Psaki, who
explained on Tuesday that the
administration defines a school
as open if it holds in-classroom
instruction at least once a week.
By this metric, the goal isn’t
really having more than half of
schools open — it’s having
more than half of schools still
80% closed.
Not only is this a ridiculous
standard, schools have already
cleared the bar. According to
Burbio, which runs a school
opening tracker, about two-
thirds of K-12 students are
attending in-person or hybrid
schools.
This goalpost moving
exemplifies how the Biden team
isn’t pushing nearly hard
enough on school reopening.
The issue has gone from
being something of a red vs.
blue battle line last year to a
cross-partisan area of
consensus. In intellectual and
moral terms, the debate over
reopening schools has been
won, but political progress has
been slow, mainly because
powerful teachers unions are
standing in the way.
If Biden wanted to add a
touch of unity to his governing
agenda, he’d call out the unions
for being an obstacle to
educational and economic
progress at a challenging time
for the country.
The science is clear enough,
if that matters.
Experts at the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention
wrote in the Journal of the
American Medical Association,
“There has been little evidence
that schools have contributed
meaningfully to increased
community transmission.”
This makes the costs of
school closures and remote
learning all the harder to bear.
A McKinsey estimate from
June concluded that students
may have lost three months to a
year of learning, depending on
the exact circumstances. Then,
there are the social costs for
children, among them higher
rates of depression and anxiety.
School closures have pulled
women out of the labor force to
bear the brunt of all the juggling
that has to go on at home.
Nonetheless, teacher
unions have fought reopening
and helped stymie reopening in
cities and blue states. Most
schools in California have been
remote. Elementary schools
reopened in New York, but not
middle schools or high schools.
School districts in the
Washington, D.C., region are
floating a parodic solution to
reopening — have kids return
to the classroom so they can
gather to watch remote teachers
on computer screens.
Somehow private schools
have largely managed to stay
open, in part, because if they
don’t, no one gets paid.
In contrast, public school
teachers are in a position to
make demands even to consider
coming back and doing their
jobs.
After intense lobbying by
the unions, most states have put
teachers near the front of the
line for vaccines (even though
Biden’s CDC director has said
teacher vaccination isn’t
necessary for reopening).
As David Zweig points out
in a piece at Wired, many union
officials still insist that even
vaccination won’t guarantee a
return to the classroom. This
would be like surgeons
demanding to be vaccinated,
then not showing up for
operations anyway.
The Biden team contends
that more spending is necessary
for reopening. Biden is
Please see Lowry page 8A
GRITTY
Republicans
Must Unify
Against the Left
Former President
Donald Trump
captured the core of the
problem in his official
statement following his
acquittal in the Senate
impeachment trial: “It
is a sad commentary on
our times that one
political party in America
is given a free pass to
denigrate the rule of law, defame law
enforcement, cheer mobs, excuse rioters, and
transform justice into a tool of political
vengeance, and persecute, blacklist, cancel
and suppress all people and viewpoints with
whom or which they disagree.”
This is the state of affairs today.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, salivating
over the one article of impeachment hastily
passed by her House against Trump, used
national time and resources to do this for one
reason and one reason only: to personally
damage Trump and create division in the
Republican Party.
It was clear that there was no way Donald
Trump would be convicted in the Senate. But
politics was the point, not the Constitution.
Now that President Trump has been
acquitted, the left-wing media is stepping up
to do its part to fan the flames and assure that
no burning ember that could potentially
damage Republicans is wasted.
Longtime Fox News token lefty Juan
Williams wrote a piece for The Hill newspaper
under the guise of truly caring about the
health of the Republican Party, offering his
heartfelt advice to Republicans to purge the
“kooks” in favor of the conservatives. Or, as he
says, to choose “reality” over delusion.
Williams, saying he’s got Rep. Liz
Cheney’s “back,” defends her against the
pursuit of Republican “kooks” who condemn
her for voting to impeach Trump.
For years, the media has portrayed the
Democratic Party - the party of abortion on
demand, same-sex bathrooms and every failed
socialist idea known to mankind - as the
party of sobriety and sanity, in contrast to
Please see Nitty page 8A
By Star Parker
