Newspaper Page Text
(51?e Ahuattce The ADVANCE, Morch 29, 2023/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:
"No society ever thrived because it had a
large and growing class of parasites living
off those who produce."
--Thomas Sowell
Lisa McClain, Republican, represents
Michigan's 9th Congressional District: Con
gress is analyzing best ways to stop national
security threats posed by China.
Deterrence also means decreasing
America's reliance on Chinese manufactur
ing and investing more in American-made
production, During his testimony before the
select committee, Alliance for American
Manufacturing President Scott Paul de
scribed the growing trade deficit between
the U.S. and China, which has "displaced"
an estimated "3.7 million American jobs, in
cluding 2.8 million in manufacturing."
Liz Peek, Fox News contributor and po
litical commentator: Economy is in the tank,
banks are reeling, inflation is sky-high and
there's more Biden isn't telling you.
It did not have to be this way. Do not for
get who brought us to this sorry state. Do not
be fooled. There is one and only one reason
that Americans are struggling, that we are
heading into a recession, and our banks are
on thin ice.
President Biden, Democrats in Congress,
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Fed
Chair Jay Powell have orchestrated a reck
less trashing of our economy. In a shameless
bid to buy votes, Biden and the Democrat
majority in Congress spent trillions of un
needed dollars, mainly aimed at politically
favored groups like the teachers' unions
and the climate lobby, driving the economy
into warp speed and igniting inflation.
Katie Pavlich, Editor of Townhall.com:
New report shows extensive Biden Admin
collusion to classify parents as terrorists.
"Internal Executive Branch documents in
dicate that the Biden Administration's use of
federal law-enforcement and counterterror
ism resources is an example of government
weaponization against American parents. If
the Justice Department performed any due
diligence prior to the issuance of the Attor
ney General's memorandum, it would have
understood clearly and forcefully that fed
eral intervention was unwarranted. Because
that due diligence did not occur—and the
Administration acted out of political motiva
tions rather than for law-enforcement rea
sons—parents around the country had FBI
"assessments" opened into them," the report
states.
Tim Graham, executive editor of News-
Busters and director of media analysis for the
Media Research Center: More screaming in
the White House briefing room.
This White House has been extremely lim
ited in granting access to President Biden,
who prefers interviews with former Obama
aide Kal Penn and actress Drew Barrymore.
Karine Jean-Pierre is really in no place to
lecture that the American people deserve a
better press corps when their goal is for the
president to avoid it as much as possible.
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Alvin Bragg prepares
to cross the Rubicon
RICH 1
LOWRY
COLUMN |
How much does a mug
shot mean to you?
To Alvin Bragg, it appar
ently means quite a lot.
All signs point to Bragg, the
progressive prosecutor in Man
hattan, indicting Donald
Trump for his 2016 hush-
money payment to Stormy
Daniels.
The old Karl Marx line is
that history repeats itself first as
tragedy, then as farce. This his
toric first-ever indictment of a
former president of the United
States would skip straight to
farce.
First, there’s the tawdry and
relatively trivial subject matter.
Trump stands accused by his
critics on the left of fomenting
an insurrection to overthrow
the Constitution and the crimi
nal offense they are going to get
him on stems from a dalliance
with a porn star in 2006.
Then, more importantly,
there’s the question of the mer
its. Unless Bragg has something
unexpected on Trump, this ap
pears to be a prosecution in
search of a legal theory.
Everything indicates that
Bragg is more interested in sub
jecting Trump to the humilia
tions attendant to getting
charged (turning himself in,
getting fingerprinted and pho
tographed) and the grinding
distraction of defending him
self against a criminal charge
than the cogency of the case it
self.
As The New York Times put
it last week, the Bragg case
“hinges on an untested and
therefore risky legal theory in
volving a complex interplay of
laws, all amounting to a low-
level felony.”
In other words, exactly
what you want to indict a for
mer president on.
The difficulty in making a
case against Trump owes to the
fact that hush payments are
sleazy but legal. So, the Bragg
case involves the bookkeeping
around the payment.
There’s a reason why
Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus
Vance, passed on the Stormy
Daniels matter. It looked like
Bragg was going to pick up a
broader business case against
Trump instead. When the dis
trict attorney dropped that, his
progressive supporters were
outraged. Now, lo and behold,
he has brought things full circle
back to Daniels.
As president, Trump in
veighed against his political en
emies and demanded that they
be arrested. This was shameful
and disturbing stuff, although,
obviously, there were no ar
rests.
Alvin Bragg is apparently
about to do what Trump fanta
sized about, and what the entire
left-of-center universe charac
terized as an abuse of power
when the Republican merely
mused about it.
The prospective Bragg
prosecution is no different from
what would happen if Sheriff
Joe were still in office and
somehow found a way to get an
attenuated legal hook into Joe
Biden. How would Democrats
feel about that?
An argument in favor of
Bragg’s prospective move
against Trump is that Trump is
unique, and uniquely vulnera
ble to legal charges. There is
something to that, but both Bill
and Hillary Clinton could have
been prosecuted and they
weren’t. Same with Richard
Nixon after a Gerald Ford par
don that is now considered
statesmanlike and correct by
nearly everyone.
No Democrat should be
sure that Biden isn’t implicated
in the flow of sketchy money
into his family, and we already
know he violated the law in his
handling of classified docu
ments.
It’s not that presidents and
Please see Lowry page 10A
GRITTY
Biden’s Job Is
Running US,
Not Israel
Widely reported
in the press is that
President Joe Biden
called Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu to ex
press his concern
about judicial re
forms that are cur
rently being consid
ered in Israel.
We must wonder why Biden, who de
monstrably cannot run our own country,
feels behooved to tell others, particularly
one as successful as Israel, how to run
theirs.
Looking into Biden’s own backyard,
per latest Gallup polling, a paltry 20% of
Americans say they are satisfied with the
direction of their country.
The White House reported that Biden
told the Israeli prime minister that “dem
ocratic values” are “a hallmark of the U.S.-
Israel relationship, that democratic soci
eties are strengthened by genuine checks
and balances, and that fundamental
changes should be pursued with the
broadest possible base of popular sup
port.”
But Israel is governed under a parlia
mentary system that ties the government,
on a day-to-day basis, to popular senti
ment more closely than our own system.
On any given day, in Israel’s parlia
mentary system, a vote of no-confidence
can bring down the government.
And, indeed, as a result of a deeply
divided electorate, Israel has had five elec
tions within four years. As the only de
mocracy in their part of the world, it
doesn’t seem like democracy and elec
tions are subjects on which Israel needs
tutorials from Biden.
Really what is going on is not a prob
lem with democracy but a problem with
Please see Star page 10A
By Star Parker
Cast Iron
I took a
break from
the bustling
Jarriel Family
Reunion this
past weekend
and gazed
down the dirt road at the small, yel
low farmhouse where my grandpar
ents — Hub and Onajarriel — raised
their nine children during and after
the Great Depression. My Aunt Glo
ria also made the house her home for
many years until she passed away last
September.
The house was once filled with
the voices of great storytellers and
the sounds of laughter — big belly
laughs that I miss so much. There was
a time when the smell of delicious
foods cooking on the stovetop and
in the oven wafted out of the kitchen
and onto the porch with its terra cotta
pots filled with African violets and
Christmas cacti and its loud, slam
ming screen door. In addition to pe
can trees, tobacco fields and rows and
rows of Vidalia onions, the house was
once surrounded by dozens of cous
ins chasing each other, biscuit-loving
cats, stinky dogs, pastel petunias and
the pinkest azaleas I’d ever seen in
my life. The dirt road in front (named
for my papa) was a playground for us
children — where we patted out frog
houses and crafted castles with our
dirty little hands. We dug out deep
trenches around the fortresses and
filled the moats with water from the
well, then stood back and admired
our building skills.
But on Saturday, as I looked
down the road at the empty farm
house, it filled me with a heavy sad
ness.
“Do you want to walk down there
and walk through it?” my husband,
Gene, asked.
“I don’t think so,” I said.
All day, I watched my cousins
from far away places march down
Uncle Wallace’s driveway toward our
family’s ancestral home place, then
return a few minutes later with arm
fuls of keepsakes and mementos from
the rooms of the house. Around 4
p.m., my sister approached me.
“Come on,” she commanded.
“Let’s take a break from the reunion,
go down there, and pick out some
thing for ourselves.”
I followed her like a soldier. Au
drey, Gene and I entered the combi
nation to the lock on the door and
entered the living room. A vision of
my Aunt Gloria greeted me — her
legs folded underneath her as she
sat in her favorite spot. I had seen
her the week before she died in that
same chair, as my sister presented her
with a handmade dog quilt. She was
weak and frail that afternoon, but she
smiled and scanned each square of
the bed covering, eventually pointing
to a color combination that she said
was her favorite.
I opened the door to the front
bedroom, walked in, and surveyed
the bare walls.
“I haven’t been in this room since
the week Uncle Robert [Louis Jar
riel] died in 1993,” I said out loud.
“He was lying here, and I stood next
to him, and though he was in so much
pain from the cancer, he took the time
and energy to tell me the best way to
get to Orlando.”
The three of us finally made our
way to the kitchen — the heart of the
house. In my mind’s eye, I could see
my grandmother’s image shuffling
around the space with a bib apron
that protected her clothing from
spills. I could hear her voice telling
us to sit down and eat something.
In that kitchen, feeding us was Ona’s
way of showing kindness and love —
so much love. There were always pots
and pans on the stovetop filled with
piping hot peas, beans, com, okra,
rice, potatoes, dumplings, and other
freshly made Southern delicacies —
most of which were seasoned with
meat drippings.
And there was always a deep
black cast iron skillet resting nearby
— on standby to cook cornbread.
Like other Southern chefs,
Grandmother often baked her corn-
bread in the oven in a large, deep
skillet, but she also made a round,
stovetop version of cornbread some
times. The stovetop cornbread was
thin, crispy and delicious. The edges
looked like lace.
Of course, she used the skillets to
Please see Amber page 10A
From the Porch
By Amber Nagle