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ollie Ahuattce The ADVANCE, August 23, 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:
Alfredo Ortiz, president and CEO of Job
Creators Network, author, and co-host of the
"Main Street Matters" podcast: The lawlessness
of Biden's student loan bailout workarounds.
Biden's student loan forgiveness actions
are not only executive overreach but also
bad policy. They fail to address -- and, in fact,
exacerbate -- the underlying reason for the
college debt crisis: unaccountable colleges
that overcharge students. By transferring col
lege debt from students to taxpayers, Biden
gives colleges a blank check to continue rap
idly raising tuition. ...
Finally, Biden plans to announce another
broad debt forgiveness plan in the coming
months under a different presumed legal au
thority. While the details of his bailout plan
may change, the program will still be execu
tive overreach that violates the Supreme
Court's ruling and Congress' will. His lawless
ness threatens the American institution of di
vided government.
Jason Chaffetz, FOX News (FNC) contribu
tor: Fluid situation: First Republican debate
could bring game-changing moment for par
ty and Trump.
It will be a tricky balance to strike. It won't
be good enough to simply be a pale imitation
of Donald Trump. These candidates need to
show that they, authentically, have the ability
to stand up to the administrative state, push
back against the biased media, dismantle
destructive policies, and do it all without in
flaming the very people whose votes will be
needed to pass those policies. The candidate
who convinces us that can be done could
turn this debate into a watershed event.
Guy Benson, Townhall.corn’s Political Edi
tor: The latest allegation from Hunter Biden's
lawyers is a problem for Garland, DOJ.
Of course, the substance of conservatives'
criticisms against this special counsel appoint
ment overwhelmingly pertains to the track
record of David Weiss. Republicans aren't
objecting to Weiss for the sake of objection.
They're objecting to him specifically for mul
tiple, demonstrable reasons. Elites within the
Democrat/media alliance know this full well,
of course. Their actions and framing of said
actions are intentional. They're not even being
terribly subtle about it. I suppose it's possible
that Weiss truly has been stymied from above,
is angry about how all of this has gone down,
and will use his new status to aggressively pur
sue accountability. But I'm not holding my
breath.
Garrett Ventry, public affairs professional
and former Communications Adviser to the
Senate Judiciary Committee and press aide
for Senator Chuck Grassley: Disgraceful politi
cal theater in Georgia.
While subpoenaing Lindsey Graham to
testify in this investigation, she shared a car
toon mocking him. Prior to the announcement
of the indictment, her campaign launched a
fundraising website, attempting to raise mon
ey from the charges against President Trump.
No defendant could ever expect a fair trial
with a prosecutor like Fani Willis. On top of this,
who can forget the Grand Jury foreperson do
ing media hits with CNN and MSNBC during
the investigation, talking about her dream of
subpoenaing Donald Trump.
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How Eric Adams has
vindicated immigration
restrictionism
The public intellectual Ir
ving Kristol famously said that
the definition of a neoconserva
tive is “a liberal who has been
mugged by reality”
By the same token, the defi
nition of a convert to immigra
tion restrictionism is a big-city
mayor dealing with a surge of
illegal immigration in his city.
In his desperate pleas for
federal help to deal with about
100,000 migrants who have
come to New York City since
the spring of 2022, Mayor Eric
Adams is vindicating the hawk
ish position on immigration
with almost every utterance.
All that it has taken to ex
plode the lazy cliches that have
defined the progressive position
on the issue is a heavy flow of
illegal immigration.
If immigration is an unal
loyed good, this influx should
be a boon to New York City and
its future. Why stop at 100,000
if the city could have 200,000,
or 300,000? If immigration has
no cost, why is New York spend
ing $5 billion this year absorb
ing this flow?
According to Adams, New
York City “is being destroyed by
the migrant crisis.”
There you have it — immi
gration, in and of itself, has the
power to bring a great city to its
knees.
Long gone are the days
when Adams pledged during his
campaign to “lift up immigrants
as high as Lady Liberty lifts her
torch in our harbor, as a beacon
of hope for all who come to our
shores.” Now, he sounds a lot
like Donald Trump, or a late Ro
man emperor getting undone
by an influx of Vandals and
Goths.
New York has been actively
discouraging immigrants, or, to
use the progressive line, “slam
ming the door on new mi
grants.” Flyers distributed by
the city at the border say, “Hous
ing in NYC is very expensive,”
and no one can say that isn’t
truth in advertising. “Please
consider,” the message pleads,
“another city as you make your
decision about where to settle
in the U.S.”
In other words, why not try
Philadelphia?
What Adams is learning is
that the key questions when it
comes to immigration are: how
many, from where, with what
skills, and what will they do
once here.
The fact is — as border ar
eas already realized — low-
skilled migrants with few con
nections in the community
showing up en masse consti
tutes an intolerable fiscal and
social burden.
It is true that there are
unique circumstances at play for
Adams. Asylum seekers can’t
work until their applications
have been considered for six
months; New York City has a
right-to-shelter law that has
added to the expense.
If asylum seekers, many of
whom are making bogus claims,
were instantly handed work per
mits, though, it’d be another in
centive for illegal immigration.
And even places without New
York’s shelter laws are strained
by the arrival of the Biden-era
illegal immigrants and have
been declaring states of emer
gency.
The wave of migrants over
the last couple of years aside,
immigrants to the U.S. are heav
ily reliant on public resources
since they tend to be poor and
have low levels of education. An
analysis of Census Bureau data
by the Center for Immigration
Studies shows that 58% of
Please see Lowry page 8A
GRITTY
Abortion, a
Sickness in Our
National Soul
The resounding
defeat of Issue 1 in a
statewide vote in
Ohio is rightly seen as
a repudiation of pro
life forces and cause
for soul-searching in
the movement.
The initiative,
which would have
raised the threshold
vote for amending the state constitution,
was understood to be about abortion, be
cause a ballot measure is expected in No
vember to amend the state constitution to
secure abortion “rights.”
The measure was defeated 57% to 43%
in a state in which Donald Trump defeated
Joe Biden in 2020, 53.3% to 45.2%.
One year ago, voters in Kansas, a state in
which Trump defeated Biden 56.1% to
41.5%, voted down a ballot measure to
amend the state constitution to ban abor
tion, 59% to 41%.
Unpopularity of the Supreme Court’s
Dobbs decision, overturning Roe v. Wade,
was one of the explanations given for the
underwhelming performance by Republi
cans in the congressional elections in 2022.
Currently, abortion is legal in 26 states
and banned at various levels in the other
states.
Per a USA Today/Suffolk University
poll, of those who say their view on abortion
has changed over the last year, 23% say they
have become more supportive of legal abor
tion and 6% less.
And pro-abortion activists plan more
initiatives in states with abortion bans.
The Dobbs decision wasn’t about the
moral acceptability of abortion. It was about
the Constitution. The decision, written by
Samuel Alito, rejected the premise of Roe v.
Please see Star page 9A
By Star Parker
Sideburns
This and restored our home to its normal
week marks
31 years since
my father
died. I found
myself look
ing at old
photos of him yesterday and thinking
about him — who he was as a person
and what he looked like (his blue
eyes, his nose, his sideburns, etc.)
Memories flooded in.
I can still smell the manly scent
of Old Spice aftershave — the kind
my dad patted on his smooth face
when he got ready to go to work back
in the days of my childhood. That
smell wafted through the back of our
house and signaled to our family that
Daddy was close to walking out the
door for a shift at Air Freight Termi
nal (Robins Air Force Base).
With just a few exceptions, my
father was usually clean shaven,
which may be why I’ve never been a
fan of facial hair on men. Of course,
there were those two or three win
ters when he spent too many days
and nights at the hunting club (deer
hunting and playing poker), failed
to shave for a week, and when he
returned home, he looked more like
Grizzly Adams or a man in the Wit
ness Protection Program than Her
man Lanier. On those occasions, he’d
grab me and rub his prickly beard
against my cheek — it felt like sand
paper and probably left the skin on
my cheek rosy and raw. I celebrated
when he finally shaved that thing ofF
state.
Though I’ve never liked beards,
mustaches or goatees, there is a type
of facial hair that I do admire — side
burns. And yes, my dad had side
burns for most of my formative years,
which is probably why they always
bring a smile to my face when I see
them.
My husband and I were watching
a streaming show on HBO last week
about a family of irreverent evange
lists when I noticed the oldest son,
Jesse Gemstone, had two large, bushy
sideburns framing his face.
“Wow, look at those sideburns,”
I said. “My daddy had sideburns. So
did his friend, Barney Jackson.”
I got lost in thought for a minute
or so.
“Hmmm. I wonder why side
burns haven’t come back into style?”
My husband tried to focus on the
Gemstones, and I kept interrupting
the show with my comments.
But really! Fashion and styles are
cyclical (flare leg pants, high-waist-
ed jeans, Converse high-top tennis
shoes, bangs, chokers, etc.) They are
very trendy, then they fade away for
a while before reappearing a few de
cades later. Isn’t it time for sideburns
to come back?
For my younger readers who may
not know, sideburns (also known as
side whiskers) refer to the facial hair
men grow on the sides of their face
in front of the ears and downward
toward the jawline. Actor Hugh Jack-
man had sideburns in his portrayal of
Wolverine in the X-Men series. John
Travolta had sideburns in the musical
movie, “Grease.”
For my much older readers, let
me remind you that super stud James
Dean wore sideburns in “Rebel
Without a Cause” and Burt Reynolds
often grew his out, too. Country mu
sic’s GOAT (Greatest of All Time)
Johnny Cash had two really nice
specimens on his face (sideburns all
the way down to his chin that seemed
to take on a life of their own), and El
vis Presley sported nice sideburns,
too — they were as iconic as his mu
sic and risque moves.
Speaking of Elvis, when he was
headed to the U.S. Army in 1957,
a lot of female fans didn’t want the
military to shave off his beautiful
sideburns and hair, but Elvis was
okay with it, saying, “There never has
been anyone who could avoid having
his hair cut short in the Army. Even if
they did give me special permission,
I wouldn’t want it.”
The Army shaved every hair on
his head and face off, and women
across America sobbed and took to
their beds.
The heyday of sideburns were
the ’60s (the decade of the hippies)
and ’70s (the decade of funk and
groove), so isn’t it time for them to
come back and be trendy once again?
They frame a man’s face and add a
little style to otherwise blah haircuts.
They are just so casually cool. Most
of all, they remind me of my father.
So will you join me? Will you
help me make sideburns great again,
America? Thank you!
From the Porch
By Amber Nagle