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The ADVANCE, July 21, 2021 /Page 6A
allie 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:
Todd Starnes, host of Fox News & Com
mentary and author: 'Disney cancels Christ
mas.
Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party, an
extremely popular yuletide tradition, is going
to be rebranded. Instead, the Magic King
dom will host a night time show.
The new "don't call it Christmas" event is
called 'Disney Very Merriest After Hours' - a ge
neric, holiday-themed celebration....
It is not exactly clear what's going to hap
pen during Disney World's After Hours show.
Will there be Christmas trees? What about
wreaths or a Nativity Scene? How about the
beloved candlelight processional?
We simply do not know the extent of the
cultural cleansing of Disney's "holiday" cele
bration, but don't be surprised if it lands some
body on Santa's naughty list.
Oliver L. North, combat-decorated U.S.
Marine, author, and founder and CEO of Fi-
delis Publishing LLC and Fidelis Media LLC: De
stroying our military from within.
When we served in the Marine Corps,
semper fidelis — "always faithful" — was our
motto. To this day, semper fidelis is more than
a slogan. For us, it is a way of life. We were
taught that it meant to always be faithful to
God, country, Corps and each other. Fast for
ward to the present. Our troops are now be
ing asked to be faithful to a leftist belief sys
tem that denies God, tears down our country,
undermines military preparedness and makes
service members distrustful of each other.
Biden and his leftist puppet masters are doing
what no foreign enemy has been able to do:
destroy our military. Sadly, they are being as
sisted by weak generals and admirals playing
politics.
Gamaliel Isaac, writer for American Think
er: The end of Critical Race Theory.
As is well known, revolutions eat their early
supporters. Appeasing the CRT crusaders may
protect the jobs of teachers and staff in the
short term, but in the long term, CRT will de
stroy them. That is because the goal of the
CRT crusaders is equity and achieving equity
requires that the jobs whites have to be trans
ferred to people of color.
As more and more white workers find that
their allegiance to equity and anti-racism is no
protection, the day grows closer to when Criti
cal Race Theory will go the way of the Salem
Witch Trials. The best way to hasten that day
is for maximum publicity to be accorded the
fate of those who appease the CRT revolution
in vain.
Katie Pavlich, Editor of Townhall.com: In
lie-filled speech, Biden again makes false
claims of Jim Crow 2.0.
Biden's speech was meant to pressure
Senate Democrats to eliminate the filibuster
in order to federalize local elections and so
lidify permanent power for the left. Senators
Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have main
tained they will not vote to remove it as a leg
islative tool, which is used by Republicans and
Democrats.
Back in March the Washington Post gave
Biden four Pinocchios for false statements
bout Georgia's election integrity law, which
was recently held up in court. Further, the Su
preme Court just handed Arizona a victory on
their latest efforts to secure local elections.
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Joe Biden’s Afghan
Withdrawal Folly
THE
RICH j
LOWRY
Barely a day passes without
additional news of Taliban
gains in Afghanistan.
Perhaps the Afghan
government and its forces will
prove more resilient than many
expect, but if the country
continues its slide toward chaos
or, worse, the Taliban rapidly
take Kabul, President Joe
Biden’s decision to withdraw a
residual U.S. force will look like
an amateurish, unforced error
by a man who prides himself on
his foreign policy experience
and acumen.
With his top military
leadership opposed and
credible warnings that Kabul
could fall within months after a
withdrawal, Biden went ahead
with it anyway on the basis of
what an aide has called “his
. »
gut.
So far, indications are that
the president would have been
better off heeding his military
advisers than his viscera.
The Afghan war has, of
course, stretched on for two
decades and become a holding
action satisfying to no one. But
the cost to the U.S. of sustaining
3,500 troops in the country
without losing anyone in
combat for more than a year
hasn’t been high compared with
the entirely plausible downside
of Islamist extremists allied
with al-Qaeda sweeping to
power again in Afghanistan.
The desire to pull out of
Afghanistan has been an area of
rare Biden-Trump agreement.
Then-President Donald
Trump’s foolhardy ceasefire
deal with the Taliban in
February 2020 set the predicate
for Biden’s withdrawal. It would
have taken some determination
for Biden to reverse the U.S.
promise in that deal to withdraw
its forces by May 2021, although
the Taliban’s transparent bad
faith provided plenty of
occasion for it.
Biden says not to worry.
The U.S. will continue to
provide “over the horizon”
support, i.e., from a distance,
for the Afghan government.
This is likely a pipe dream,
and nothing about Biden’s
poorly thought-out drawdown
lends any more credibility to it.
The CIA has been
struggling to figure out how to
maintain intelligence-gathering
capabilities in Afghanistan.
There will be no targets to
strike from “over the horizon” if
we don’t have the assets on the
ground to find them.
Ideally, the U.S. would
locate some other base next
door to Afghanistan, but there
are no good options in the
neighborhood.
Conducting operations
from the Persian Gulf eight
hours away isn’t much of a
substitute. In congressional
testimony, Gen. Kenneth
McKenzie, the head of Central
Command, said the long
distance missions would be
“extremely difficult to do,” but
“not impossible.”
The U.S. withdrawal has
had other troubling loose ends.
The contractors who have
worked with the Afghan Air
Force to maintain its planes are
leaving, too, potentially
stripping Afghan forces of air
support.
The fate of the Afghans
who have assisted U.S. forces is
uncertain, although under
political pressure here at home,
Biden has committed to getting
them out.
Biden wants to provide $3
billion in security assistance to
the Afghans, but who will do
the training with that money?
The allies are leaving, with
the administration anxious to
get the Turks to stay to secure
Kabul International Airport,
without which we won’t be able
to maintain our embassy.
As the bad news has piled
up, the Biden administration
has tried to provide reassuring
signals. But are the Afghans,
and the Taliban, not supposed
Please see Lowry page 7A
GRITTY
Bogus Claims From
the Poor People’s
Campaign
The Poor
People’s Campaign
has announced a
“season of
nonviolent, moral
direct action,”
targeting the U.S.
Senate with
disruptive activities
every Monday, July 12
through Aug 2.
According to the campaign’s co-chair,
the Rev. William Barber II, “The Senate
must end the filibuster, protect and expand
voting rights, and pass a minimum wage of
$15 an hour.”
Barber is getting national attention.
Even President Joe Biden recorded a video
expressing his support.
Concern about poverty is something
we all share.
What bothers me is that the factors
driving poverty, according to the research
of my organization and others, are ignored
by the Poor People’s Campaign. And the
issues on which they choose to focus either
have nothing to do with the reality of
poverty or actually make things worse.
It may surprise Barber that the Senate
filibuster is a powerful tool to protect
minority interests.
He is either confused or disingenuous
when he claims abolishing the Senate
filibuster is about protecting “democracy.”
It is not democracy he cares about, but
Democrats, who now control the
government, being able to pass every piece
of far-left, big-government legislation they
want. The only thing that stands in their
way is the 60-vote requirement of the
Senate filibuster.
The history of our American
democracy is that government changes
hands all the time. When Republicans are
running the show, as they will again, Barber
will direct his heavenly prayers to save the
filibuster so that Democrats can prevent
Republicans from doing whatever they
Please see Nitty page 11A
By Star Parker
COMMENTARY
Are the Good
Times Over
for Biden?
By Pat Buchanan
Are the Democrats headed for
their Little Bighorn, with President
Joe Biden as Col. Custer? The wish,
you suggest, is father to the thought.
Yet, consider. On taking office, Biden
held a winning hand. Three vaccines,
with excellent efficacy rates, had
been created and were being
administered at a rate of a million
shots a day. The pandemic was at its
peak but looking certain to turn
down, and it did.
This welcome news lifted
national spirits, and the economy
with it. And the new president was
taking office in a brief era of good
feelings produced by the departure
of the party and president who had
given us the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Thus
did Biden begin his administration
with his approval at a level his
predecessor never reached in any
year of his presidency.
Happy days were here again.
But now the storm clouds are
gathering and rumbling. By last
week, Biden’s disapproval rating had
risen into the 40s, and half the
country believed America was “on
the wrong track.”
Yet it is not what has happened
but what impends that appears
ominous for Biden’s and his party’s
prospects.
With not quite 70% of U.S. adults
having received a vaccination, a new
and more contagious delta variant of
the disease is spreading worldwide,
and an uptick in new U.S. infections
has been reported. In the economy,
with markets at an all-time high, an
old demon has reappeared. Writes
today’s Wall Street Journal:
“Americans should brace
themselves for several years of higher
inflation than they’ve seen in
decades, according to economists
who expect the robust post-pandemic
economic recovery to fuel brisk price
increases ... If the economists prove
correct, Federal Reserve officials
might have to raise (interest) rates
sooner or more than they expect to
keep inflation under control.”
Inflation and rising interest rates to
combat it is usually a near-fatal
cocktail for a party in control of the
White House and Congress in the
year they face the electorate.
In addition to warning lights
flashing in the economy, Biden has
presided over a sudden crisis along
the southern border, where 170,000
illegal migrants are being
apprehended every month.
“Getaways” — border-crossers who
sneak in and evade contact with the
Border Patrol — now number 30,000
a month. Who these people are and
whence they came, we know not.
Former President Donald
Trump’s policies secured the border,
and this new invasion is traceable to
Biden’s trashing of Trump’s policy.
Indeed, Biden’s designation of Vice
President Kamala Harris as point
person on the border crisis, and her
reflexive recoil from the duties of
Please see Guest page 9A