About The Advance. (Vidalia, Ga.) 2003-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 24, 2021)
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
