Newspaper Page Text
The ADVANCE, November 30, 2022/Page 6A
Stye Aiiuancg
OPINIONS
“I honor the man who is willing to sink
Half his repute for the freedom to think,
And when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak,
Will risk t’other half for the freedom to speak.”
-James Russell Lowell
editorials
The Left's Cynical
'Speech Is Violence’ Ploy
By Ben Shapiro
This week, an
other evil mass
shooter unleashed
horror at a gay club
in Colorado Springs,
killing 5 and wound
ing another 25. The
shooter — whose
name I refuse to
mention in order to
disincentivize future
shooters, who seek
notoriety — was clearly mentally ill: Just
last year, the shooter reportedly threat
ened his mother with a bomb, resulting in
his arrest. Yet Colorado’s red flag law,
which could have deprived him of legal ac
cess to weaponry, was not invoked by ei
ther police or relatives. The Colorado
Springs massacre, then, is yet another ex
ample of a perpetrator with more red flags
than a bullfighting convention, and no one
in authority willing to take action to do
anything about him.
Yet the national conversation, as it so
often does, has now been directed away
from the question at hand — how to pre
vent mass shootings — and toward
broader politics. Instead of seeking meth
odologies that might be effective in find
ing and stopping deranged individuals
seeking murder without curbing rights
and liberties for hundreds of millions of
people, our political and media leaders
have decided to blame Americans who op
pose same-sex marriage, drag queen story
hour and “family-friendly” drag shows.
Disagreement with the radical Leftist so
cial agenda amounts to incitement to vio
lence, they argue.
Thus, NBC News senior reporter
Brandy Zadrozny said, “There is a pipe
line. It starts from some smaller accounts
online like Libs Of Tiktok, it moves to the
right wing blogosphere, and then it ends
up on Tucker Carlson or ends up out of a
right-wing politician’s mouth, and it is a
really dangerous cycle that does have real-
world consequences.” Michelle Goldberg
of The New York Times wrote, “It seems
hard to separate (these murders) from a
nationwide campaign of anti-LGBTQ^ in
citement... They’ve been screaming that
drag events... are part of a monstrous plot
Please see Shapiro page 9A
Election Analysis and
Runoff Prediction
By Bill Crane
A look at the county by county vote
is pretty telling. Governor Kemp in pre
election polling and during early voting
and Election Day, captured a majority of
independent and swing voters, as well as
roughly 95 percent of self-identified GOP
voters (heading into the Election). Walker
was polling with that same audience (GOP
voters) between 80-85 percent.
Governor Kemp received almost
30,000 more votes than Herschel, and
Senator Warnock out-polled Ms. Abrams
by 130,000 votes. The top Democratic vote
getter, after Senator Warnock, was their AG
nominee, Jen Jordan, followed by their LG
nominee, Charlie Bailey and then Stacey
Abrams.
I forecast that the Governor would win
by a 10 percent margin. The actual number
was 8, and I forecast a U.S. Senate runoff
unless the Governor won by 11-12 percent,
and IF the Libertarian held the 2 percent or
better he was consistently polling. Chase
Oliver, the Libertarian nominee, pulled
2.07 percent. Their gubernatorial nominee,
Shane Hazel, pulled .07 percent.
In close Senate contests since 1992,
every time the Libertarian has pulled 2 per
cent or more, a runoff has resulted.
Coverdell/Fowler, 1992, Winner
Coverdell (R)
Chambliss/Martin, 2008, Winner
Chambliss (R)
In the 2020 U.S. Senate Runoffs, there
were two months between the General
and the January 2021 runoff. President
Trump was focused on the "Stop the Steal,"
and convinced many GOP voters that the
system was rigged, that their votes would
not matter, and he ran ads ON RUNOFF
ELECTION DAY telling voters to call their
Congress member to protest certification of
the Electoral College results of the follow
ing day, January 6, 2021.
There were 400,000 fewer GOP voters
in the runoff than in the General. The two
Democratic candidates, who both finished
second on Election Day, won their races.
Forecast for this contest — IF TRUMP
stays out of Georgia, Herschel wins by 3
percent.
Bill Crane, Principal CSI Crane, LLC
Arts & Professional Building
165 DeKaib Industrial Way, Suite D. Decatur, GA
30030
ICYMI: Warnock Steered
$16Million to Project That
Benefited Co-Owner of Church’s
Controversial Apartment Complex
On Tuesday, Novem
ber 22, 2022, Team Her
schel released the following
statement highlighting an
article from The Washington
Free Beacon titled "Warnock
Steered $16 Million to Proj
ect That Benefited Co-Own
er of Church’s Controversial
Apartment Complex."
Georgia Democratic
senator Raphael Warnock
steered $16.4 million in fed
eral earmarks to a project
that benefited the co-owner
of his controversial low-
income apartment complex.
"The funding was in
tended to construct a trail
connecting a residential and
commercial complex known
as "Pittsburgh Yards" with
other portions of Atlanta's
BeltLine. The developer of
Pittsburgh Yards is Colum
bia Ventures, part of the Co
lumbia group of companies
that co-owns and operates
a low-income housing com
plex with Warnock's church.
"The funding raises
questions about whether
Warnock's business rela
tionship with Columbia had
any bearing on his funding
decision. Warnock did not
respond to a request for
comment.
"Warnock's Ebenezer
Baptist Church, where he
serves as senior pastor and
CEO, in 2005 'formed a
partnership with Columbia
Residential to rehabilitate
[a] dilapidated high-rise'
and turned the building into
low-income apartments.
Ebenezer and Columbia
are co-owners of the busi
ness through a joint venture,
with Ebenezer owning 99
percent and Columbia own
ing the remaining 1 percent,
according to a state grant ap
plication filed by the entities
in August.
"Last November, War
nock and Sen. Jon Ossoff
(D., Ga.) announced that
they had helped secure the
funding for the trail proj
ect, which would 'construct
approximately two miles of
Please see Warnock page
9A
JOEBIDEN THEN, RI0HT A FEDERAL
PROMISED TO AFTER JUDGE RULES
FORGIVE OUR DEMOCRATS IT UNCON-
STUDENT LOANS! 60TOUR STITUTIONAL!
NQ,YOU
FINALLY
GOT AN
EDUCATION?
Can our Democracy outlast us?
This is kind
of a bummer
way to start
your day, but it
is worth reflec
tion: “Remem
ber, democracy
never lasts long.
It soon wastes,
exhausts, and
murders itself.
There never
was a democracy yet that did not
commit suicide.”
Who said that? Karl Marx? Aya
tollah Khomeini? Vladimir Putin?
Wrong, wrong and wrong. It was John
Adams, second president of the
United States. He also added, “Indi
viduals have conquered themselves.
Nations and large bodies of men,
never.” Could he have been talking
about us?
I posit that the biggest threat to
our future comes not from China or
Russia or North Korea. It comes from
within. It comes from people who
somehow find nothing wrong with a
bunch of goons wreaking havoc on
the United States Capitol because
they didn’t like the results of a presi
dential election. They call themselves
“patriots.” They are no more patriotic
than grape nut cereal contains grapes.
It comes from people obsessed
with a past that is over and done with
and who are not content to look at the
progress that we have made since
then. Call them the Woke generation.
They forget they live in a country that
freely allows them to disrespect it. Try
that in Russia.
It comes from people who feel the
need to hyphenate their origin as
though they aren’t really committed
Americans, they are hyphenated
Americans. (As an aside: I have a
white acquaintance that grew up in
South Africa. Does she qualify as an
African-American?)
It comes from universities that
make it as difficult as possible for con
servative viewpoints to be expressed
while they make it easy for liberal ex
pressions.
It comes from biased media that
pander to a particular political phi
losophy and then claim to be fair and
balanced. (Watch Fox’s Tucker Carl
son and any talking head on MSNBC
report the same story.) They make it
hard for any media to be trusted to
report a story accurately. Where are
Chet Huntley and David Brinkley
when we need them?
I am a tiny tadpole in the large
media stream, but I value my integrity
too much to say there can only be one
side to an issue. As a reader correctly
discerned last week, I am neither to
the left nor right on the political spec
trum but smack in the middle. Smart
reader.
Before you become totally
bummed out, let me give you some
important perspective. It seems we
have always been like this, going back
to our beginnings as a nation.
If you have read any history at all,
you know that our Founding Fathers
were petty, spiteful and a sometimes
dishonorable lot who created a nation
every bit as prone to violence as is to
day’s. The more I read of our early
days, the more amazed I am we have
By Dick Yarbrough
made it this far.
For example, Secretary of State
Thomas Jefferson hated Secretary of
the Treasury Alexander Hamilton and
the feeling was mutual. John Adams
didn’t like Jefferson or Hamilton. I am
amused when I hear all the talk about
“fake news” today. Both Jefferson and
Hamilton funded newspapers for the
expressed purpose of slanting public
opinion in their favor.
Pres. John Adams pushed the pas
sage of the Sedition Act of 1798,
which criminalized making state
ments that were critical of the federal
government. And lest we forget, Vice
President Aaron Burr killed Hamilton
in a duel, which makes former Vice
President Dick Cheney shooting a
hunting buddy in the tush not so big a
deal.
Somehow we have managed to
make our democracy function for a
little more than two centuries, but as
John Adams himself noted, we are not
a sure thing. The biggest difference
between then and now is that misin
formation and political demagoguery
are disseminated with an immediacy
not available in days of yore. Can you
imagine Thomas Jefferson and Alex
ander Hamilton on Twitter?
If you take John Adams and his
views on democracy literally, the day
may be coming when we will self-de
struct. But it doesn’t necessarily have
to be. Let us pledge ourselves not to
waste, exhaust and murder our pre
cious freedoms through complacency,
apathy or narrow-minded self-inter
est. Philosopher George Santayana
said, “Those who cannot learn from
history are doomed to repeat it.” May
it not be on our watch.
And as bad as things may seem to
be, just remember what Winston
Churchill said, “Democracy is the
worst form of government - except
for all the others that have been tried.”
I agree. And I hope John Adams
would, too.
You can reach Dick Yarbrough at
dick@dickyarbrough.com; at P.O. Box
725373, Atlanta, Georgia 31139 or on
Facebook at www.facebook.com/
dickyarb.
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