The times. (Gainesville, Ga.) 1972-current, December 18, 2018, Image 4

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The times., December 18, 2018, Image 4

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Newspaper Page Text4A OPINION Sttnes gainesvilletimes.com Tuesday, December 18, 2018 Shannon Casas Editor in Chief | 770-718-3417 | scasas@gainesvilletimes.com Submit a letter: letters@gainesvilletimes.com The First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. LITERS Committing to justice for Khashoggi If there is a single thing that makes America great, it is a commitment to justice, within our borders and without. History shows the nation stumbled many times in this regard, but we have always righted our selves and attempted to do the moral thing or cor rect a past injustice as best we could after the fact — even if it took a hundred years or more. Today, we are faced with a supreme test: Does America practice what it preaches? To illustrate the connection between the United States and Turkey, consider this hypothetical situ ation: Your daughter is a sales representative who visits a local factory for a meeting with the owner. She is never seen nor heard from again. Her car is found in a nearby lake. The sheriff says he has seen nothing that indicates foul play, and men tions that the factory owner is a hunting buddy and comes from a fine, respected family, and he adds that three of his own relatives work at the factory. But irrefutable evidence from a private inves tigator implicates the factory owner: security camera footage, phone signal locator, eyewitness testimony and text message records. The sheriff says that there is not much he can do: his friend has “lawyered up.” The mayor calls you and commiserates, then requests you think about the hundreds of jobs that hang in the balance if you allow a missing persons report to spiral into a witch hunt. At this point, would you say to the sheriff: You are right, sir, I understand the importance of those jobs, let’s just wait and see if my daughter doesn’t return on her own, or maybe the owner will remember some detail that will help explain her disappearance. Or, would you contact the governor and say: This crime will not stand? Citizens need to relay a message to the Saudi leader, King Salman, the United States will not allow the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi to stand; Prince Mohammed bin Salman must step down. America has closed its door to him. Anthony C. Murphy Lula To submit letters: Send by email to letters@ gainesvilletimes.com (no attached files) or use the contact form at gainesvilletimes. com. Include name, hometown and phone number; letters never appear anonymously. Letters are limited to one per writer in a month’s time on topics of public interest and may be edited for content and length (limit of 500 words). Letters may be rejected from readers with no ties to Northeast Georgia or that address personal, business or legal disputes. Letters not the work of the author listed or with material not properly attributed will be rejected. Submitted items may be published in print, electronic or other forms. Letters and other commentary express the opinions of the authors and not of The Times. Your government officials U.S. government President Donald Thimp, The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20500, 202-456-1111,202-456-1414, fax, 202-456- 2461; www.whitehouse.gov Sen. Johnny Isakson, 131 Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, DC 20510,202-224- 3643, fax, 202-228-0724; One Overton Park, 3625 Cumberland Blvd., Suite 970, Atlanta 30339, 770-661-0999, fax, 770-661-0768; isakson.senate.gov Sen. David Perdue, 383 Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, DC 20510,202-224- 3521, fax 202-228-1031; 3280 Peachtree Road NE Suite 2640, Atlanta 30303, 404-865-0087, fax 404-865-0311; perdue.senate.gov. U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, 1504 Longworth House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515, 202- 225-9893; 210 Washington St. NW, Suite 202, Gainesville 30501,770-297-3388; dougcollins. house.gov U.S. Rep Rob Woodall, 1725 Longworth House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515, 202- 225-4272, fax 202-225-4696; 75 Langley Drive, Lawrenceville 30045, 770-232-3005, fax 770- 232-2909; woodall.house.gov Georgia state government Gov. Nathan Deal, 203 State Capitol, Atlanta 30334; 404-656-1776; www.gov.georgia.gov Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, 240 State Capitol, Atlanta 30334, 404-656-5030; www.ltgov.ga.gov Secretary of State Rrian Kemp, 214 State Capitol, Atlanta 30334, 404-656-2881, fax 404-656-0513; www.sos.state.ga.us; Elections Division, 2 MLK, Jr. Drive SE, Suite 1104, West Tower, Atlanta 30334-1530,404-656-2871, fax, 404-651 -9531 Attorney General Chris Carr, 40 Capitol Square SW, Atlanta 30303; 404-656-3300; law.ga.gov School Superintendent Richard Woods, 205 Jesse Hill Jr. Drive SE, Atlanta 30334; 404-656-2800; www.doe.k12.ga.us; askdoe@gadoe.org Labor Commissioner Mark Butler, 148 Andrew Young International Blvd. NE, Suite 642, Atlanta 30303-1751; 404-656-3045, 877-709-8185; www.dol.state.ga.us Insurance Commissioner Ralph Hudgens, 2 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, Suite 704, West Tower, Atlanta 30334; 404-656-2070; oci.georgia.gov; inscomm@mail.oci.state.ga.us Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black, 19 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, Room 226, Atlanta 30334; 404-656-3600, 800-282-5852; agr.state.ga.us; info@agr.state.ga.us Democrats can win in the long run by grv BY RAMESH PONNURU Bloomberg News Our arguments over a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border encapsulate much of what’s wrong with American politics. The wall has become a much larger issue than it deserves to be, and the par ties have been unable to make a deal over it that ought to be easy to make. The debate is overwrought on both sides. It was a mistake for immigration hawks to become as fixated as they have on building a wall on the southern border. Even if it is completely success ful in stopping illegal border-crossings, it won’t stop people from coming here legally and then overstaying their visas. Estimates of the fraction of illegal immi grants who get here that way range from two-fifths to two-thirds. Requiring employers to use E-Verify to make sure that all new hires are legally allowed to work in the U.S., on the other hand, would reduce the incen tive for both illegal border crossings and illegal overstays. The rationale for a wall would shrink. But while the wall seems like a foolish priority, President Donald Trump has made it one of his most politically impor tant initiatives. He has talked about it so much that his re-election really may depend on showing some results. Those congressional Republicans who roll their eyes about the wall may be underesti mating how much it now matters to their mg Trump party. Whether they like it or not, their political fortunes in 2020 are closely tied to his. Given its political importance to them, you’d think that Republicans would be eager to get a bill passed that funds con struction of the wall. The obvious path for passing a bill is not, as the president has once again suggested, shutting down the government until Democrats give it to him. It’s cutting a deal with the Demo crats that achieves important priorities of theirs and funds the wall. Could the Democrats accept such a deal? Their arguments against a wall are not strong. The chief liberal objec tions, as far as I can tell, are that the wall would be ugly symbolism and wasteful spending. That second point represents a concern about the budget so selective as to raise doubts about whether it is truly motivating much of the opposition. Democrats have much stronger inter ests in other aspects of immigration policy than in blocking the wall. Getting permanent legal status for illegal immi grants who came here as children, for example, ought to be higher on any ratio nal list of priorities. Trump has no objec tion to giving them that status: He claims to be for it himself. So you can see the outline of a deal that combines wall funding and legal status for this particularly sympathetic subset of illegal immigrants. Each party would have gotten something that mat ters a lot to it — the legal status for the his wall Democrats, the wall funding for the Republicans — while doing no damage to any of its important policy interests. Democrats would have to swallow let ting Trump have a political victory, but they would have one of their own as well and would continue to have many other cudgels with which to hit him in 2020. This deal made so much sense that Senate Democrats actually offered it to Trump at the start of the year. Trump turned it down, making additional demands — most ambitiously, for a cut in legal immigration, too — that had no chance of winning majorities in Congress. Once again, the man who boasted endlessly of his deal-making ability proved incapable of applying it in Washington. As it becomes clearer that the only way for Trump to make any progress on his wall is by giving the Democrats some thing, and as the re-election campaign gets closer, Trump may find himself more willing to make concessions. The Democrats will then be well-placed to make big asks of him. But the nation’s capital has been out of the habit of legislative horse-trading for so long that even this small deal will probably prove impossible. Ramesh Ponnuru is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is a senior editor at National Review, visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and contributor to CBS News. \ IRE l2 tVv MV OF \mm, m m\i RUSSIANS SINGING m$> MWING ) %FF RESIGNING , |>9\EG SUING I iMVtRS BILLING ' 9WS RkGF'TTOlN , "W-TC w,ING KIES/ 4- m Returns •$ girlfriends 7 suwt So MNDCOFFS \NNrtlNG tOR IWR. ISfci'U DAN WASSERMAN I Tribune News Service Oscars is a thankless gig Hosting the BY CARLA HALL Los Angeles Times How can it be that no one (besides Whoopi Goldberg) wants to host the Oscars? Are other comics worried that internet users will unearth some cyber trove of homophobic, sexist or racist remarks and stand-up routines in their pasts? Just days after the announcement that Kevin Hart would host, the comic bowed out when years-old homophobic tweets and footage of his onstage ruminations on why he hoped his son wouldn’t be gay resurfaced on social media. (As he stepped down, he apologized on Twit ter for “my insensitive words from my past.”) Is that why we’re in danger of having the new hashtag #OscarsSoHostless? You would think it’s not unreasonable to set the bar for hosting at not being homophobic, racist or sexist. Can no one clear that bar? I didn’t even mention tasteless. That would be allowable. Not that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences would dare to hire that woman with the whiny voice who emceed the White House Correspon dents’ Dinner last spring and almost made Sarah Huckabee Sanders cry. (Now that would get the evening off to a fun start, watching her eviscerate every A-list star sitting in the audience.) The academy’s board of governors is even considering just having a group of celebrities host the event. Really? Have they erased from their memory banks the grisly Anne Hathaway-James Franco hosting duet of 2011 that was so sav agely panned, it arguably set back their careers a couple of years? The reason no one wants the job is that it’s a thankless task — damned if you’re funny and irreverent, damned if you’re not. You irritate the celebrities in the audience if you go after them; you irritate the viewers at home if you don’t. It’s a ton of work, and as two-time host Jimmy Kimmel groused, he got paid only $15,000. (Not that he needs the money. Plus, there’s an army of veteran joke- writers working on the show constantly.) Meanwhile, you’re hosting a show that is, generally, going down in the ratings — so you’ll be blamed either for its further decline or for not bringing the ratings up more. But look, it’s not like the show is in dan ger of being canceled. A huge number of people tune in, all fantasizing about their own imaginary Oscar acceptance speech. (Oh, wait — is that just me?) So the Academy shouldn’t punt on picking a host by letting a bunch of actors pretend that all you need to host the show is a really good dress or tux. So how do you fill an opening that’s just about as coveted as the one for White House chief of staff? Maybe by think ing outside Hollywood. Why not offer it to John Kelly? (Hey, it couldn’t be any worse than being President Trump’s chief of staff.) Or Nikki Haley. (She killed at the Gridiron in D.C. a few years ago.) Seriously, what about John Mulaney, the comic, actor and voice of the superhero Spider-Ham in the animated “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse”? Talk show host Jimmy Fallon suggested as much when Mulaney was on his show this week. Mulaney is funny, charming and a hit on college campuses — proof that whiny comedians complaining about college campuses being too sensitive and politically correct are just relying on stock politically incorrect humor. Or let Whoopi do it if she wants to! One last note to the academy: What ever you do, do not pick Cardi B. The Oscars doesn’t need any shoe-throwing. She Stines EDITORIAL BOARD Founded Jan. 26,1947 345 Green St., Gainesville, GA 30501 gainesvilletimes.com General Manager Norman Baggs Editor in Chief Shannon Casas Community member Brent Hoffman