Newspaper Page Text
(51?e Ahuattce The ADVANCE, October 4, 2023/Page 7A
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:
"We are devaluing American money so rap
idly that in America today, you can't even
bribe Democrat Senators with cash alone!
You need to bring gold bars to get the job
done, just so that the bribes hold value!"
-Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL)
Rebecca Downs, Web Editor at Town-
hall.com: Bank records show Hunter Biden
received wire from Beijing with Joe Biden's
home as beneficiary.
Information about the wires was re
ceived via financial records of a specific
bank account subpoenaed by House
Oversight Committee Chairman James
Comer (R-KY), the report mentioned, who
has been investigating Biden family corrup
tion since the start of the 118th Congress as
part of keeping to key campaign promises.
The Babylon Bee, "fake news you can
trust": To avoid embarrassing falls, aides will
now transport Biden using presidential hand
truck.
"This baby is made out of the same
heavy-duty material as the space shuttle,"
said Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre as
she introduced the stylish presidential hand
truck, code-named Limp. "It's completely
bulletproof and capable of speeds in ex
cess of 5 miles per hour."
According to sources, Biden is im
pressed by the hand truck's ability to whisk
him away from journalists who keep asking
him annoying questions about his undeni
able corruption.
Byron York, chief political correspondent
for The Washington Examiner. Joe Biden's
intentional crisis.
Now the White House is offering immedi
ate work authorization, not just to migrants
who crossed the land border illegally but to
those who took part in the administration's
secretive flight program. That will surely lure
more to come, whether by foot over the
border or to an undisclosed airport. If you
ever hear an administration official say that
President Biden is trying to get the border
situation under control -- don't believe it.
Chad Wolf, former acting secretary of
the Department of Homeland Security and
executive director and chair of the Center
for Homeland Security & Immigration at the
America First Policy Institute: What Biden's
latest outlandish immigration action tells us
about the next one.
Expect this weaponization of Temporary
Protected Status to continue. The day after
the Venezuela decision, DHS "redesignated"
Afghanistan's Temporary Protected Status.
Although the additional roughly 15,000 ille
gal aliens from Afghanistan that will now be
covered are far lower than Venezuela's, this
is the beginning of a flailing, and failing, ad
ministration's plan to designate new coun
tries for Temporary Protected Status and to
"redesignate" existing countries. Before the
Trump Administration, less than 500,000 ille
gal aliens had Temporary Protected Status.
Under President Biden, the count is at least
1.5 million.
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Joe Biden made the
worst vice-presidential
pick of the last 50 years
THE
RICH
LOWRY
COLUMN
Poor Kamala Harris. The al
leged misogyny that is tearing at
her vice presidency apparently
extends to highly partisan Dem
ocratic leaders such as Jamie
Raskin and Nancy Pelosi.
Both of them caused ripples
when their praise for Harris in
recent TV interviews was nota
bly cool, as if they were at a high-
end fundraising dinner and
hated the escargot but had to try
to convince the hostess that they
really loved it
The Biden campaign report
edly contacted both Raskin and
Pelosi. The Maryland congress
man revised his remarks to say
that Harris is “unquestionably
the best running mate for Presi
dent Biden in 2024,” while the
former House Speaker’s office
pointed to the favorable things
she said about Harris in her ini
tial interview.
What Raskin and Pelosi
clearly know, if they can’t say it
out loud, is that Joe Biden
botched his vice-presidential
pick; it is the worst pick in half a
century and easily one of the
worst in the last 80 years.
As Democrats begin to real
ize Biden’s political weakness,
with Donald Trump barreling
down the pike, Harris is one of
the factors — although not the
main one — keeping them from
doing anything about it.
What if someone did con
vince Biden to step aside for the
good of the party? Well, that
might open the way for Harris
herself to become the nominee.
In other words, out of the pan
and into the fire.
Even if she lost in an open
nominating process, it’d be quite
the spectacle for Democrats to
turn away a potentially “historic”
presidential nominee for some
one else.
So, she’s at least playing a
role in the propping up of what
may prove the weakest incum
bent presidential candidate since
George H.W. Bush.
This isn’t the only downside.
Harris is going to be an issue
next year because everyone real
izes there’s a significant chance
that Biden wouldn’t be able to
serve out a full second term.
Typically, a vice president’s
popularity matters only for his or
her own political ambitions; this
time, it could make a difference
in the presidential race because
her standing is, in a word, abys
mal.
In the new NBC News poll,
the theme of which is that Biden
and Trump are both abidingly
unpopular, Harris is right there
with them. At 31%, her positive
rating is lower than both of
theirs, and her negative rating,
51%, is higher than Biden’s.
The bar Biden needed to
clear in his vice-presidential pick
wasn’t high. He either needed a
political nonentity or a popular
entity who ideally had some gov
erning credibility; instead, he
went with the unpopular nonen
tity.
How does this rank with
prior bad choices? As it happens
(funny how this works), the
most maligned recent picks are
all Republicans.
Let’s run through them.
Sarah Palin was not suited to be
president of the United States
but was a Hail Mary in a basically
unwinnable race, so we should
discount that pick for inconse
quence. Dick Cheney was a gov
erning choice who, despite all
the obloquy heaped on him, per
formed admirably. Dan Quayle’s
reputation was destroyed by the
press, but he didn’t play into
George H.W. Bush’s fate one way
or the other.
I think to find a worse ma
jor-party pick — and actual vice
president — you have to go back
to Spiro Agnew. At least, as far as
we know, Harris hasn’t been tak
ing kickbacks that will force her
to resign — in fact, she may be
Please see Lowry page 19A
GRITTY
Our New Black
Republican
Leaders
Recently I wrote
about Mesha Mainor,
who represents a
deep blue district in
Atlanta in the
Georgia state
legislature,
announcing that she
is switching parties
and becoming a
Republican.
Mainor specifically noted her
frustration with the Democratic Party in its
opposition to improving education
through parental choice and ongoing
Democratic weakness in building strong
law enforcement.
I cannot claim a new wave of Black
Democrats like Mainor becoming
Republicans. But there is certainly a trend.
We now have a meaningful new
announcement from Dallas Mayor Eric
Johnson that he is switching parties and
becoming a Republican.
Johnson was elected mayor in Dallas in
2019 and recently won reelection, running
unopposed and capturing 98.7% of the
vote.
He is enormously popular because his
leadership has been enormously successful.
In a column in The Wall Street Journal,
in which Johnson discusses his party
change, he ticks off the success he has had
in reducing violent crime and in creating a
business-friendly Dallas with tax cuts and a
family-friendly environment through
infrastructure.
In a recent Gallup poll, which Johnson
cites, Dallas was rated by those polled as
the safest city in the country in which to
live or visit. Seventy-four percent rated
Dallas safe.
It’s said that there are two kinds of
people: those who want to be someone
and those that want to do something.
Politics too often attracts the former.
Please see Star page 9A
By Star Parker
The Wasps
Weeks
later, my
86-year-old
mother and I
are still talk
ing about
it — the day she and I drove up to
Bonaire to do a little banking. That’s
where we lived for over four decades,
and Mom and I decided while we
were in town, we’d visit our old house
and take a walk down memory lane.
While we were there, we stepped
out into the backyard, and I turned
my attention to a metal bird feeder
hanging from a sturdy branch of a
Japanese magnolia tree.
“Hey Mom,” I said pointing to the
bird feeder. “That’s a squirrel proof
bird feeder, and you’ve been battling
the squirrels lately. Why don’t we take
this back to Toombs County with us
and put it in your yard?”
Mom agreed, and I unhooked
the feeder from the limb. I opened
the hatchback of the car and set the
metal contraption in the back.
As we backed out of the drive
way, we heard a familiar buzzing
and thumping. I glanced over at my
mother and saw it flying toward the
top of the passenger side window.
“Oh, watch out! There’s a wasp!”
I shouted in her direction.
In a little bit of a panicked mo
tion, Mom leaned toward me, rolled
the window down, and we thought
we saw the wasp fly out. Whew!
We Southerners know the instant
terror seeing or hearing a stinging
insect in our vicinity can instill. The
last time I was stung was about two
years ago, when I blindly reached un
derneath a board on our back deck,
and one stung my hand. It lit me up
something fierce. A year before that,
the dog and I accidentally stepped
on a yellow jacket nest in the woods.
That kind of shock and awe stays with
you. You never forget.
So having averted a crisis, Mom
and I both breathed a collective sigh
of relief and continued on our jour
ney. A few minutes later, we merged
onto 1-16, and I heard that frighten
ing buzzing sound again.
“There he is again!” I yelled. “I
thought he flew out, but there he is!”
Once again, our unexpected visi
tor turned our peaceful drive into a
mad frenzy. Mom’s eyes widened in
terror as it flew right next to her face.
With adrenaline coursing through
her veins, she flailed her arms in an
attempt to ward off his advances. She
finally pushed the button to lower
her window, and this time, I was sure
I saw the wasp get sucked out of the
car into the airstream.
“Lordy, Lordy!” Mom said, our
blood pressures coming back down
to normal levels.
Twenty minutes down the road,
and guess what? There was another
winged intruder, but this time, it was
next to my head on the driver’s side.
“What the ... ?” I lowered my
window, and it flew out as we drove
70 mph down the road.
“What are the odds that there
would be two wasps in this car with
us?” I asked.
As we passed the Soperton exit,
yet another wasp made yet another
appearance on Mom’s side. This one
was a bit agitated and aggressive, and
Mom yelled, “Pull over! Pull over!”
I jerked the car into the emer
gency lane and slowed to a stop, and
after what seemed like an eternity,
she finally managed to get him out of
the car.
As I merged back onto the in
terstate, I looked into the rearview
mirror and saw another wasp flying
around. That’s when it clicked, and
suddenly, I had one of those “light
bulb moments.”
“Oh my God! Oh my God!” I
yelled.
“What? What? What?” Mom
yelled back in response.
“Mom, that bird feeder is full of
wasps, and it is in the back of the car
with us! They’re coming from the
feeder! We’re in a car full of wasps!”
For the next several seconds,
there were more cuss words flying
around in the car than wasps, as Mom
and I both spewed expletives and
Please see Amber page 9A
From the Porch
By Amber Nagle