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(51?e Ahuattce The ADVANCE, September 7, 2022/Page 7A
A free press is not a privilege but
organic necessity in a great society.
-Walter Uppmann
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:
Monica Showalter, writer for American
Thinker: Biden's unconstitutional and delu
sional decrees, mandates, and orders.
The American Constitutional Rights Union's
Committee to Support and Defend has cre
ated a hotline where members of our mili
tary can tell their stories. I encourage you to
reach out to 877-730-2278. The stories we've
heard so far are horrific. Is there any wonder
why recruitment and retention in the military
are lacking? I would have never believed
that we would see such hatred towards those
who serve us and support and defend the
Constitution.
Then again, it all makes sense — those
called to defend our Constitution are the big
gest enemies of the leftists in America. Those
of us who love the Constitution and our rule
of law must be the voice for those, such as
the unborn and our military service men and
women. We must protect them from this law
less administration's unconstitutional and de
lusional decrees, mandates, and orders.
Rebecca Downs, Web Editor at Townhall.
com: Very bad news for Stacey Abrams.
Particularly telling for Kemp is that a ma
jority of his donations have come from Geor
gia, while a significant amount of Abrams'
donations are coming from California. Axios
published a helpful chart last week.
That Axios report where the chart is in
cluded noted that "If the trend holds, Abrams
would be the only Georgia gubernatorial
nominee from either party since at least the
1990s to receive a majority of campaign
funds from out of state, according to an Axios
analysis of campaign finance records."
Guy Benson, Townhall.corn's Political Edi
tor, Fox News contributor, and author: Stacey
Abrams: My radical abortion stance is rooted
in free will, given to us by God.
Unless I've missed something, and I doubt
I have on this, Abrams' abortion stance is
the same extremist position that her national
party has nearly universally embraced. Their
view is that there should be zero limitations
on abortion whatsoever, meaning legalized
elective abortion-on-demand, all the way to
the moment of birth, for any reason, financed
by taxpayers. This is an appalling view, and a
deeply unpopular one. Abrams, who has ma
jor ambitions, has adopted this radical line, as
demanded by major donors, hardcore activ
ists, and the deep-pocketed special interest
groups in the abortion lobby. It's grotesque
on the merits, as far as I'm concerned, but it's
particularly odious being wrapped in the ve
neer of religious faith.
Eric Utter, writer for American Thinker: Pe
ter Strzok says Russia might have tried to infil
trate Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence.
But anything is possible. Maybe the DOJ
should send Hunter Biden, Hillary Clinton, and
Eric Swalwell to Mar-a-Lago to help investi
gate. A crack team to get to the bottom of
this Chinese puzzle of deception and intrigue!
We know Hillary and Hunter worked with "for
eign agents," so they know what to look for. As
previously mentioned, it's possible that a for
eign agent infiltrated Strzok's soul. (Possibly his
phone, as well?) And a foreign agent named
Fang Fang apparently infiltrated Swalwell's
pants. But I'm sure none of them shared any
classified information.
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Republicans Can’t Run
and Hide on Abortion
The Republican Party
only had about a half-century
to prepare for the end of Roe v.
Wade yet is still scared and
confused now that the late,
unlamented decision is no
longer with us.
It may be that the media is
exaggerating the extent that
the Dobbs decision has
changed the trajectory of the
midterms, but there is no
doubt that it has energized
Democrats and that pro-lifers
suffered a signal defeat in a
Kansas referendum in early
August.
Some Republicans seem
to think they can run and hide
from the issue, a cowardly tack
that won’t work. To the extent
that Republicans are vague and
non-responsive, Democrats
will eagerly fill in the gaps with
Handmaid’s Tale-level
dystopian accusations of
extremism.
Other Republicans
apparently believe that they
can act as if it is still the pre-
Dobbs world when staking out
maximalist positions — for
instance, bans with no
exceptions for rape or incest
— had no significant downside
because such proposals would
never take effect. No more.
Most places, this is politically
deadly overreach.
The answer here is, to
paraphrase Ronald Reagan,
simple, if not necessarily easy.
Pro-life Republicans should
say that they ultimately seek
sweeping protections for
unborn life but realize that
they have to do much more
public persuasion and, in the
meantime, support a
compromise proposal of some
sort, say a gestational limit of
15 weeks.
For pro-lifers, this falls
painfully short. But it would be
in keeping with the trajectory
of successful past campaigns of
moral and social reform —
settle for progress in the right
direction, occupy politically
defensible ground, and then
advance over time.
Meanwhile, abortion
restrictions are under assault
for allegedly not providing
broad and clear enough
exceptions for the health of the
mother. In a viral video out of
South Carolina last week, a
Republican state representative
said he regretted voting for a
heartbeat bill, banning
abortion after about six weeks,
after he heard an excruciating
story of a 19-year-old denied
care for her miscarriage.
According to Rep. Neal
Collins, a doctor told him the
usual standard of care would
have potentially involved
removing the fetus
immediately. But the heartbeat
bill supposedly prevented that,
and the woman went home to
expel the fetus on her own and
assume enormous health risk.
The South Carolina law,
though, like most such
restrictions around the
country, stipulates that the
prohibition “does not apply to
a physician who performs a
medical procedure that, by any
reasonable medical judgment,
is designed or intended to
prevent the death of the
pregnant woman or to prevent
the serious risk of a substantial
and irreversible impairment of
a major bodily function of the
pregnant woman.”
This should have been
ample warrant for the young
woman to get the appropriate
care (and she did end up
returning to the medical
facility for the requisite
treatment). This looks like a
case of a bad reading of the law
causing unnecessary medical
distress and creating a horror
story with considerable
political resonance.
In a paper on health
exceptions, the pro-life
Charlotte Lozier Institute
notes: “It would be prudent for
state medical boards, state
medical societies, state boards
Please see Lowry page 9A
GRITTY
Government the
Problem, Not
Solution, on
College Costs
No sooner had
President Joe Biden
announced his plan
for student loan debt
forgiveness —
$10,000 for non-Pell
grant recipients and
$20,000 for Pell
Grant recipients —
the president of the
NAACP was
complaining that it should be more than
twice as much. At least $50,000.
Brookings Institution scholar Andre
M. Perry echoed the sentiment.
The plan, according to Perry, “does not
go far enough in addressing the root of the
problem: a postsecondary education
system that has seen tuition rise three-fold
in the last 30 years. That same system will
put future borrowers in peril.”
We have a problem here known
popularly as the chicken and the egg.
Do we need to pump a lot of tax money
into higher education so students can
afford to deal with runaway tuition costs?
Or do we have runaway tuition costs
because we’re pumping billions of taxpayer
funds into higher education?
A picture of the stark reality of way-
out-of-line tuition costs is provided by
blogger/economist Mark Perry where he
shows relative price increases of various
goods and services from 2000 to 2022.
From January 2000 to June 2022 the
overall rate of price increases — the average
of all goods and services — was 74.4%.
But over the same period, the increase
in the costs of college tuition and fees was
178%, and the increase in prices of college
textbooks was 162%. More than twice the
average rate of inflation.
The prices of new cars, household
furnishings and clothing were unchanged
Please see Star page 9A
By Star Parker
Those Terrifying Boogers
From the
time I could
walk to the
time I went
off to college,
I lived in per
petual fear of
something my
Aunt Gloria referred to as a Booger.
The term Booger does not refer
to the nasty dried mucus that lines
the inside of a nostril. No — in this
context, a Booger is a monstrous
imaginary figure. It is a Bugbear, a
Bogeyman, a creature that lurks in
the shadows, hides in closets, under
beds, and every other place where my
childish imagination hid monsters.
My Aunt Gloria and Grand
mother Jarriel had filled my head
with Booger tales, purely designed to
scare me into a state of compliance.
They would warn my cousins and me
not to wander too far away from my
grandmother’s house, adding a string
of intimidating words, “If you wander
too far away, a Booger will get you!”
And I believed them.
I lived my entire childhood being
terrified of Boogers, even though I did
not know what a Booger looked liked,
what a Booger smelled like, where a
Booger lived, or what a Booger ate, al
though my aunts and uncles implied
that they ate unruly children. What I
did know was that they were clever,
unpredictable creatures who at any
point during the day or night, might
sprint out of the woods and grab me,
so I was always on alert — always on
the lookout. I certainly didn’t want to
die at the hands of a Booger!
It probably didn’t help matters
that my cousins and I made up a game
called “The Booger Game.” After the
sun went down, one of us (the desig
nated Booger) would hide in Grand
mother’s dark, rurally-isolated yard,
while we seekers closed our eyes
and counted to fifty. Then, we seek
ers would hold hands in a chain, skip
around the yard, and sing and chant:
There ain’t no Boogers out tonight!
Grandma killed them all last night!
At the point where we would
skip close to the hidden Booger, he
(or she) would leap from the shadows
and chase us around the yard, all the
while screaming like a South Georgia
wild cat and grabbing at us. We raced
for the safety of my grandmother’s
poured concrete steps, hearts pound
ing like African drums in response to
the unadulterated, indescribable fear.
We would play this game for hours,
because interestingly enough, be
ing frightened to the point that we
needed a defibrillator to revive each
other was the greatest fun that any
one could ever imagine.
Why do children love to be
scared here and there? Why did I? I’m
not sure.
I loved Scooby-Doo because
the show made my heart beat a little
faster. Sitting on the edge of my seat, I
watched as the mummy chased Fred,
Daphne, Velma, Shaggy, and Scooby-
Doo through the creepy, old cartoon
house. I slapped my hands togeth
er just under my chin and prayed,
“Please God, let them get away. Just
let them escape.”
Back then, I was a bona fide
scaredy cat — scared of the dark and
scared of my own shadow. Watching
television shows fed my fears with
morsels of mummies, vampires, were
wolves, zombies, and other horrific
creatures. After seeing The Wizard oj
Oz, I was scared of tornadoes, flying
monkeys, crystal balls, and wicked
witches. Rod Serling’s Night Gallery
made me scared of statues that come
to life at night and follow you around
your house. Twilight Zone reruns
made me scared to fly, terrified that a
wild and wooly beast would perch on
the wing of the plane and dismantle
the lift flaps and engines until the air
craft failed and fell from the sky like
a boulder.
Today, my belief that good al
most always triumphs over evil brings
a freedom and fearlessness to my
world, and like butter, my childhood
fears have slowly melted away with
Please see Amber page 10A
: rom the Porch
By Amber Nagle