Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch shopped for a soft interview to preemptively rebut former FBI Director James Comey's upcoming book. When "Deep State" swamp rats fight, a lot is confirmed about what we know regarding the corruption at the political top of the FBI and DOJ. 

On Monday, Mrs. Lynch found the softest of softball pitchers, Lester Holt of PMS-NBC lineage. Astoundingly, he did not ask on his evening news segment why she asked Comey to call the Clinton investigation "a matter" instead of an investigation. It was like having an interview with Bill Cosby and not broadcasting questions on the rape allegations. No wonder we don't trust the mainstream media.　

The interview in Lynch's apartment was so chummy that she and Holt were just about to pull out their high school yearbooks, do each other’s hair and talk about boys.　

The media has tried to put in the past all the political weaponization of our government against its opponents for the last eight years, so that it finally becomes a question on "Jeopardy!".　　

Loretta Lynch thought Hillary would be elected and she could retire to some job teaching one college class for $350k a year while simultaneously complaining  about the cost of higher education. Or she could just be revered by the left,  showing up at baseball games and ceremoniously throwing out the Second Amendment. Trump has upset the D.C. applecart.　

Once Special Counsel Mueller finishes hiring Clinton Foundation cronies and Democratic donor staff attorneys to investigate Trump on "collusion," Mueller might have to go look at the real crimes. Yes, the media and the "swamp" set off all of these false narratives to destroy the president. But as I have said from the beginning in my columns, it might disappoint them just which president they end up getting.　

It comes down to two things. Why didn’t Lynch indict Hillary Clinton for using her fake Russian dossier to obtain a FISA Court warrant to investigate the Trump campaign? And why did Lynch secretly meet with Bill Clinton when both their jets were on the tarmac in Phoenix? (And why did she have a private jet?)  Bill Clinton is always up to trouble when he gets on a jet with a woman. Maybe the two joined the Sea Level Club?　

Or maybe they really did have a private conversation for almost an hour "about their grandkids," because her husband showed up. We know 70-plus-year-old Clinton, with heart issues, loves playing golf in Phoenix in 107 degree temperatures; he "just happened" to be there.　

The Clintons have skirted capture since their days in Arkansas. They are the Bonnie and Clyde of politics and, like those old criminal bank robbers, when you stick up so many banks in broad daylight for that long, folks start pulling for you. 

Hillary also had U.S. state secrets on her private server.  She destroyed 33,000 emails, bleach-bitted her emails, and smashed cell phones. No feds knocked down her doors like they did Michael Cohen's for paying a porn star not to talk. To sum up, take top secret government emails and destroy evidence under subpoena — no problem. Enter into a binding legal contract with a porn star to be quiet and the FBI Gestapo ignores attorney client privilege and kicks down your door.　　

The real secret here that no one will talk about is that a Washington D.C. Grand Jury, in a city that voted 95% for Hillary Clinton, will indict any and all Republicans whom ambitious prosecutors bring before them. A member of that Grand Jury said, "The Grand Jury room looks like a Bernie Sanders rally," and went on to say that Trump could never get a fair shake.　

Even the left has to realize and fear that with all the layered and vague laws in this country, anyone's life can be ruined at any time with an indictment. It was reported that just to get a call from the feds in an investigation costs you $50k in attorney's fees. It cost Michael Flynn his house, so he was forced to cop a procedural plea.　

The left’s goal is right out of Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals": disrupt and resist. They might even force Jefferson Beauregard Sessions out of office by  calling him a Confederate statue and removing him in the dark of night. Or maybe Trump will remove him anyway, since Sessions OKed the raid on attorney Michael Cohen.  Trump has fired so many that being in his cabinet is like being a wife of King Henry VIII.　

But maybe all this firing is good; we either elected as President the boss of "The Apprentice," or we did not.

Ron Hart is a libertarian op-ed humorist and award-winning author. Contact him at Ron@RonaldHart.com or @RonaldHart on Twitter.

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Write a letter to the editor.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Loretta Lynch Testifies Before NBC’s Lester Holt

“Attorney-client privilege is dead!” President Donald Trump tweeted this week after the office of his attorney Michael Cohen was raided by the FBI.

The attorney-client privilege protects most communications between a client and attorney, permitting those communications to be kept confidential and certainly not accessible to law enforcement or prosecutors.

To avail oneself of the privilege, the client and attorney must have a relationship with regard to a specific matter. A client cannot claim to a have an attorney for “all matters.” If an attorney is hired for a bankruptcy, the client’s conversations about tax evasion may not be protected.

The attorney-client privilege insures that a client can speak candidly with his lawyer, providing information necessary to develop an effective legal strategy for a specific matter.

President Trump has said that he did not know what Cohen was doing with respect to the alleged payments to Stormy Daniels — payments that appear to be the focus of the search on Cohen’s office, home and hotel room. He has said he was unaware of the payments and did not know why the payments were made.

The president’s announcement of the death of the attorney-client privilege is a bit premature. The only way that Trump can invoke the attorney-client privilege is if he retained Cohen for the specific purpose of negotiating with, or paying-off, Stormy Daniels.

During the raid of Cohen’s office, according to the New York Times, the FBI took computers, cell phones, business records and other documents related to the Daniels payment, and a $150,000 payment made by the National Enquirer, to Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who says she also had an affair with Trump.

In addition, Cohen is known to tape and store telephone conversations, reported the Washington Post. Those tapes may now be in the possession of the FBI.

If those communications show that President Trump knew about hush money paid to the women and conspired to deliver it, that could be construed as evidence of facilitating unreported contributions to his campaign — a felony.

Even if Trump has an attorney-client relationship with Cohen there are exceptions to the privilege.

The crime-fraud exception provides that communications with an attorney made in furtherance of criminal activity are not protected. You can tell your attorney about your own criminal conduct and that will be privileged. But you can’t use communications with your attorney to help you commit ongoing or future criminal acts.

If paying hush money to Daniels or McDougal is a crime and that crime was committed by Cohen with the president’s consent, the privileged is waived.

The larger issue is that the United State Attorney for the Southern District of New York was able to get a search warrant. In order to get a search warrant the U.S. Attorney must apply to a federal judge or magistrate. The application for a search warrant would be filed with an affidavit of probable cause. That affidavit must contain sufficient information to convince the judge to approve the warrant.

There is no question that it is unusual for a U.S. Attorney to seek documents from a lawyer that may contain information relating to a client. The DOJ does not take that responsibility lightly. A U.S. Attorney needs the approval of a supervisor before seeking a search warrant for such sensitive material.

Since the potential client in this case is the President of the United States the review went all the way to the top — sort of. Attorney General Jeff Sessions had recused himself from the special counsel probe of Russia meddling in the 2016 election. The second in command at the DOJ, Deputy Attorney Rod Rosenstein, approved the search warrant.

Latrice Bridges Copeland, a law professor at Penn State University told the Washington Post, “This is a big deal.” Bridges Copeland believes that the approval of the search warrant signals that the attorney and client — in this case Cohen and Trump — may have been working together in furtherance of a crime. “It’s not easy to make that showing to the court and get a search warrant on and attorney.”

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter @MatthewTMangino.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: No Mr. President, the attorney-client privilege is not dead

Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch shopped for a soft interview to preemptively rebut former FBI Director James Comey's upcoming book. When "Deep State" swamp rats fight, a lot is confirmed about what we know regarding the corruption at the political top of the FBI and DOJ. 

On Monday, Mrs. Lynch found the softest of softball pitchers, Lester Holt of PMS-NBC lineage. Astoundingly, he did not ask on his evening news segment why she asked Comey to call the Clinton investigation "a matter" instead of an investigation. It was like having an interview with Bill Cosby and not broadcasting questions on the rape allegations. No wonder we don't trust the mainstream media.　

The interview in Lynch's apartment was so chummy that she and Holt were just about to pull out their high school yearbooks, do each other’s hair and talk about boys.　

The media has tried to put in the past all the political weaponization of our government against its opponents for the last eight years, so that it finally becomes a question on "Jeopardy!".　　

Loretta Lynch thought Hillary would be elected and she could retire to some job teaching one college class for $350k a year while simultaneously complaining  about the cost of higher education. Or she could just be revered by the left,  showing up at baseball games and ceremoniously throwing out the Second Amendment. Trump has upset the D.C. applecart.　

Once Special Counsel Mueller finishes hiring Clinton Foundation cronies and Democratic donor staff attorneys to investigate Trump on "collusion," Mueller might have to go look at the real crimes. Yes, the media and the "swamp" set off all of these false narratives to destroy the president. But as I have said from the beginning in my columns, it might disappoint them just which president they end up getting.　

It comes down to two things. Why didn’t Lynch indict Hillary Clinton for using her fake Russian dossier to obtain a FISA Court warrant to investigate the Trump campaign? And why did Lynch secretly meet with Bill Clinton when both their jets were on the tarmac in Phoenix? (And why did she have a private jet?)  Bill Clinton is always up to trouble when he gets on a jet with a woman. Maybe the two joined the Sea Level Club?　

Or maybe they really did have a private conversation for almost an hour "about their grandkids," because her husband showed up. We know 70-plus-year-old Clinton, with heart issues, loves playing golf in Phoenix in 107 degree temperatures; he "just happened" to be there.　

The Clintons have skirted capture since their days in Arkansas. They are the Bonnie and Clyde of politics and, like those old criminal bank robbers, when you stick up so many banks in broad daylight for that long, folks start pulling for you. 

Hillary also had U.S. state secrets on her private server.  She destroyed 33,000 emails, bleach-bitted her emails, and smashed cell phones. No feds knocked down her doors like they did Michael Cohen's for paying a porn star not to talk. To sum up, take top secret government emails and destroy evidence under subpoena — no problem. Enter into a binding legal contract with a porn star to be quiet and the FBI Gestapo ignores attorney client privilege and kicks down your door.　　

The real secret here that no one will talk about is that a Washington D.C. Grand Jury, in a city that voted 95% for Hillary Clinton, will indict any and all Republicans whom ambitious prosecutors bring before them. A member of that Grand Jury said, "The Grand Jury room looks like a Bernie Sanders rally," and went on to say that Trump could never get a fair shake.　

Even the left has to realize and fear that with all the layered and vague laws in this country, anyone's life can be ruined at any time with an indictment. It was reported that just to get a call from the feds in an investigation costs you $50k in attorney's fees. It cost Michael Flynn his house, so he was forced to cop a procedural plea.　

The left’s goal is right out of Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals": disrupt and resist. They might even force Jefferson Beauregard Sessions out of office by  calling him a Confederate statue and removing him in the dark of night. Or maybe Trump will remove him anyway, since Sessions OKed the raid on attorney Michael Cohen.  Trump has fired so many that being in his cabinet is like being a wife of King Henry VIII.　

But maybe all this firing is good; we either elected as President the boss of "The Apprentice," or we did not.

Ron Hart is a libertarian op-ed humorist and award-winning author. Contact him at Ron@RonaldHart.com or @RonaldHart on Twitter.

What's your view?

Write a letter to the editor.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Loretta Lynch Testifies Before NBC’s Lester Holt

On April 12, Canton, Ohio’s Jewish community will observe “Yom Hashoah,” also known as “Holocaust Remembrance Day.”

The guest speaker will be Erika Gold, a Holocaust survivor who grew up in Hungary.

We need such days of remembrance because to forget would be a desecration to the dead and a disservice to the living.

But it can be easy to forget the Holocaust didn’t start with concentration camps. After World War I, the British and French were so determined to punish Germany, it gave Adolf Hitler a toehold to exploit Germans’ grievances of economic devastation and degradation.

Hitler fed their feelings of victimhood and gave them someone to blame, namely their Jewish neighbors, the world’s go-to scapegoat for millennia.

He did it all through the media. Placing people on a steady diet of misinformation, prejudice, fear-mongering and propaganda is the perfect means by which you can strip them of their desire for freedom in exchange for a promise of safety, security and restored pride.

It wasn’t a formula the Nazis happened to stumble upon. It was a deliberate, organized campaign of lies and misinformation that promised a return to Germany’s glory days.

Despotism 101

Taking control of what the public sees, hears and reads while dismantling a free press is Despotism 101.

Radio addresses, movies, posters, newspapers and exciting rallies, all aimed at dehumanizing Jews, Roma and gays; all designed to convince ordinary Germans to support one of the most heinous acts in human history.

The Nazis also had a diabolically brilliant sense of the theatrical, as evidenced by their uniforms, their art, their parades and “Kristallnacht,” the first of many public attacks that destroyed Jewish-owned businesses and synagogues and resulted in several deaths.

The government was able to convince Germans the whole world was against them, that any critics within were traitors, that the minorities and disabled among them were a burden and a threat to the common good, so by the time the camps opened, people who ordinarily wouldn’t have dreamed of killing another person were acclimated to the idea that genocide was necessary if Germany was to recover its purity and power.

Today, journalists around the world are being jailed, shot, poisoned and tortured for telling the truth.

We see strongmen and dictatorial governments, from the Philippines to Syria, to Venezuela, declaring war on “fake news,” meaning information that does not enable their corruption and injustice.

We see TV stations, newspapers and the internet shut down, even in so-called democratic countries.

Living witnesses

Here in our own country, we are seeing a demonizing of the media that goes beyond the criticism that is normal, expected, and yes, even justified in some cases.

But there’s a reason why freedom of the press is enshrined in the First Amendment and not the Seventh or the 10th.

Before now, even the most antagonistic politician would have been aghast at the idea of censorship. What might be worse, some outlets are allowing themselves to be co-opted in exchange for access and influence.

Events like Yom Hashoah remind us to stay vigilant and protective of our rights. They’re not meant merely to rehash some long-ago incidents — that weren’t all that long ago. Some of the people who lived to tell are still among us.

Such days are meant to honor those who resisted the path of acquiescence, who understood that it is truth — not work — that makes us free. Those who would be the first ones to warn us that a press that is unable to do its job is the first unraveling thread of a democracy.

Reach Charita M. Goshay at 330-580-8313 or charita.goshay@cantonrep.com.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: It didn’t begin with Auschwitz

On April 12, Canton, Ohio’s Jewish community will observe “Yom Hashoah,” also known as “Holocaust Remembrance Day.”

The guest speaker will be Erika Gold, a Holocaust survivor who grew up in Hungary.

We need such days of remembrance because to forget would be a desecration to the dead and a disservice to the living.

But it can be easy to forget the Holocaust didn’t start with concentration camps. After World War I, the British and French were so determined to punish Germany, it gave Adolf Hitler a toehold to exploit Germans’ grievances of economic devastation and degradation.

Hitler fed their feelings of victimhood and gave them someone to blame, namely their Jewish neighbors, the world’s go-to scapegoat for millennia.

He did it all through the media. Placing people on a steady diet of misinformation, prejudice, fear-mongering and propaganda is the perfect means by which you can strip them of their desire for freedom in exchange for a promise of safety, security and restored pride.

It wasn’t a formula the Nazis happened to stumble upon. It was a deliberate, organized campaign of lies and misinformation that promised a return to Germany’s glory days.

Despotism 101

Taking control of what the public sees, hears and reads while dismantling a free press is Despotism 101.

Radio addresses, movies, posters, newspapers and exciting rallies, all aimed at dehumanizing Jews, Roma and gays; all designed to convince ordinary Germans to support one of the most heinous acts in human history.

The Nazis also had a diabolically brilliant sense of the theatrical, as evidenced by their uniforms, their art, their parades and “Kristallnacht,” the first of many public attacks that destroyed Jewish-owned businesses and synagogues and resulted in several deaths.

The government was able to convince Germans the whole world was against them, that any critics within were traitors, that the minorities and disabled among them were a burden and a threat to the common good, so by the time the camps opened, people who ordinarily wouldn’t have dreamed of killing another person were acclimated to the idea that genocide was necessary if Germany was to recover its purity and power.

Today, journalists around the world are being jailed, shot, poisoned and tortured for telling the truth.

We see strongmen and dictatorial governments, from the Philippines to Syria, to Venezuela, declaring war on “fake news,” meaning information that does not enable their corruption and injustice.

We see TV stations, newspapers and the internet shut down, even in so-called democratic countries.

Living witnesses

Here in our own country, we are seeing a demonizing of the media that goes beyond the criticism that is normal, expected, and yes, even justified in some cases.

But there’s a reason why freedom of the press is enshrined in the First Amendment and not the Seventh or the 10th.

Before now, even the most antagonistic politician would have been aghast at the idea of censorship. What might be worse, some outlets are allowing themselves to be co-opted in exchange for access and influence.

Events like Yom Hashoah remind us to stay vigilant and protective of our rights. They’re not meant merely to rehash some long-ago incidents — that weren’t all that long ago. Some of the people who lived to tell are still among us.

Such days are meant to honor those who resisted the path of acquiescence, who understood that it is truth — not work — that makes us free. Those who would be the first ones to warn us that a press that is unable to do its job is the first unraveling thread of a democracy.

Reach Charita M. Goshay at 330-580-8313 or charita.goshay@cantonrep.com.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: It didn’t begin with Auschwitz

Tiger Woods, who become his own cautionary tale, makes his biggest pitch for a redemptive comeback this week. And what better place to stage his comeback than The Masters Tournament? 

The members of the venerable Augusta National Golf Club have been nothing but supportive of Tiger over the years.  They even installed his own drinking fountain in 2010. 

It has been a tough decade for Tiger so far. You will remember that his wife, Elin, wanted to divorce him, citing irreconcilable waitresses. But she dropped the plan when she read her pre-nup; she just wanted Tiger to get his philandering under control and abide by the rules of golf, including the 14-club hostess limit. Then they settled, finally divorcing with one of the few non-disclosure agreements that worked. 

Then Tiger hurt his back (I think by picking up too many pancake waitresses). He went to sex rehab, drug rehab and drunk camp. He’s been to Betty Ford so many times the cafeteria named a sandwich after him. He started dating Lindsey Vonn, so I guess he went back to Hattiesburg, Mississippi and got his sex rehab treatments reversed. 

When Tiger staged his first comeback, he played terribly. He seemed unable to drive a golf ball or a car. Harrison Ford hit more fairways with his plane than Tiger did during that year. Adolf Hitler spent less time in a bunker in 1945 than Tiger did in 2016. 

Why would Tiger not want to return to playing on the PGA Tour? It’s a great life: You make the money of a Republican, have as much sex as a Democrat, and fly around in $60 million private Gulfstream jets like our FBI Director. 

He got his DUI while he was on pain meds. The charge was dismissed because he said he was just swerving to miss a tree. It turned out the "tree" was the air freshener hanging on his rear-view mirror, but it held up in Florida. 

Will he ever command the moral high ground it takes to hawk Buicks or AT&T? Most of his sponsors dropped him. The one that stayed with him the longest during that time was Lasik Eye Clinics — until ugly pancake waitress mistresses started to show up. I’m always shocked that gullible consumers think Tiger would ever drive a Buick or risk missing a booty call due to spotty AT&T cell coverage. 

It is always dangerous to put yourself out there as a role model. Charles Barkley,

whom I really like, probably said it best in his own Nike commercial: "I’m not your role model." With all the sexual harassment and non-consensual affairs by celebs, we are starting to look back on Tiger’s dalliances as a kinder, gentler time. 

Stars often have no real friends who will risk that friendship to tell them when they are off track, and Tiger was one of them. And that is the problem with big celebs. It happened to Elvis. When he started gaining weight and doing karate kicks on stage in that white jump suit and cape, a true friend would have arranged an intervention on The King right then. 

In addition to the quantity, the quality of women Tiger trafficked in should have been cause for alarm. Most of the ones I saw looked a little like truck stop strippers and a whole lot like Dog the Bounty Hunter. I bet a few of them were lying. When asked who was sexually inappropriate with them, they named either Tiger or whoever was willing to settle.

When back surgery sidelined him from having sex, he got a consolatory call from Bill Clinton just to remind him that he’d be missed and that chasing women is a sport bigger than any one player. 

To his credit, Tiger handled it all with class. He didn’t go crying to Oprah or Dr. Phil. He never dated a Kardashian. He admitted his mistakes, and this time he seemed sincere. There are no winners when our sports heroes whimper. I cannot imagine Babe Ruth, Wilt Chamberlain or Mickey Mantle doing interviews in a Dr. Phil-style, group therapy "mea culpa," like Tiger has been advised to do. And, of course, Donald Trump never "culpas." 

Unless someone is physically hurt, when women who had consensual sex come out of the woodwork later for money or notoriety these famous men need to adopt the Trump Doctrine: Wait one news cycle and do something else imprudent to make them forget it.

Ron Hart is a libertarian op-ed humorist and award-winning author. Contact him at Ron@RonaldHart.com or @RonaldHart on Twitter.

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This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Tiger: Finding His Way Out of the Woods

It’s funny how five decades have whitewashed the memory of the man who was gunned down outside his hotel room in Memphis, Tennessee, 50 years ago this week.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was in Memphis to rally for sanitation workers who were on strike.

Somehow in 2018, people see Malcolm X as a troublemaker and King as a halo-wearing bridge builder who led the civil rights movement with a sweet smile stretched across his face. King was fighting on the side of the angels, but he was anything but a meek and mild character that people tend to remembered today.

Yes, King had a dream and he had been to the mountaintop. His speeches that have become the headlines of the movement he led have an overwhelmingly positive message of hope.

But don’t think for a moment that the man who has a beautiful monument erected in his honor in Washington D.C. was always as widely beloved.

Just five years before his assassination, King was jailed in Birmingham, Alabama, for violating the city’s rules on mass demonstrations. Of course, the people rallied to his rescue, right? He was the good guy, after all.

Not exactly.

Eight Birmingham pastors bought an ad in the Birmingham News attacking King for the timing of his protests. It just wasn’t a good time for a rally like this.

He was called an outside agitator. They didn’t like King’s methods.

Of course King realized that a protest that was well-received by those against whom you are protesting isn’t a protest at all.

King wrote a letter from his cell in Birmingham expressing his thoughts on the attacks from his fellow pastors.

It said in part, “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed,” King wrote. “Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was ‘well timed’ in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word ‘Wait!’ It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity.”

The best way to kill any movement is to agree with it but delay acting on it. Another crisis will come and the headlines will be washed away by water flowing under the bridge. That is why people always caution those who support gun control that you shouldn’t politicize a mass shooting to push for common sense regulations that might prevent a future mass murder. Those pushing that message always appear to agree that “something” should be done “sometime,” but that time is never now.

King dealt with people who tried to kill his movement with kindness as well. They claimed to be on his side but they just thought he should bide his time and not rush change.

King was not willing to wait for a time when those in power would act on their own.

“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice,” King wrote. “Who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’”

It was true 50 years ago, and it is true today. If you wait for those in power to act on their own time tomorrow will never come. King knew that you had to speak truth to power.

It landed him in jail. It put him in the jaws of attack dogs and at the end of a firehose. It finally cost him his life.

But his actions moved the civil rights movement further than waiting for the right time ever could have.

Kent Bush is publisher of the Shawnee (Oklahoma) News-Star and can be reached at kent.bush@news-star.com.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: MLK Jr. knew there was never a good time for a protest

Spring officially arrived when the Vernal Equinox took place on March 20. Have you been out weeding and planting in your garden?

My azaleas bloomed and looked just magnificent. I am going to look into the new encore azaleas that bloom more than once a year.

Azaleas are hearty enough that they do fine at my house, some other plants don't. I just planted some canna lily bulbs, which I hope will bloom this season. My hibiscus plants look wan, I hope they will bloom. Beautiful flowers require fertilizer and good soil, both can be purchased at a nursery.

Most flowering plants, petunias, poppies, begonias, roses and so on, need to be "deadheaded." Deadheading is the process of cutting or pinching off the dead flower just above a nice, green leaf, so that the plant doesn't begin to make seeds. Once the plant makes seeds, the blooms will stop. By deadheading a plant you will prolong the flowering process and have beautiful flowers to make your garden gorgeous.

Do you love vegetables? We can grow many vegetables in our area. If you don't want to plant them in the ground, plant them in pots and containers. Plants in containers can be easier to weed, fertilize and pick when ripe.

Tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, snap beans, carrots, radishes, different varieties of squash, chard, lettuce, cilantro, bell peppers, onions, egg plant and many others will do very well in containers.

Make sure your pot or container is large enough for soil and your plants, and allows for drainage.

Make sure that there are holes in the bottom of your pots. Put a coffee filter or piece of screen over the drainage holes in your pot to keep in your soil. Add some small gravel to help with drainage, then fill with good potting soil and plant your seeds or plants adding more soil if necessary.

You want your soil to be about an inch from the top of your container and cover the roots. Make sure you buy a quality potting soil such as Miracle-Gro.

Keep the plants watered, as containers dry out more quickly than plants in the ground. Don't over water. Fertilization is also required. Use the correct fertilizer, or ask at the garden nursery if you are unsure what to use.

Enjoy your home-grown vegetables.

Janice Lynn Crose, a former accountant, lives in Crestview with her husband, Jim; her two rescue collies, Shane and Jasmine; and two cats, Kathryn and Prince Valiant.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Container gardening is an easier way to grow plants

It’s a proven, scientific fact: Teenagers are fickle.

OK, not really, but it seems so, doesn’t it?

Each of us growing up had those moments in our youth when we thought a certain celebrity, song or fashion fad was the coolest thing in the world, only to look back now in amusement and embarrassment. Today, social media companies endlessly assess teenagers, who are always a step ahead, constantly turning the “next big thing” into roadkill.

Babies who grew up teething on their parents’ smartphones are now Teenage Online Ninjas, using apps no one over 25 has heard of, and by the time adults catch on, they’ve long moved on.

So, it’s not entirely surprising some adults are dismissing protests over gun violence as just another kid-mania moment that soon will run its course. After all, how can the same creatures who can’t remember to close the refrigerator door or rinse off a dish, possess the capacity to create and sustain such a profound movement?

But what if they can? What if they do?

What if it’s teenagers who pull off what no one else has been able — or courageous enough — to accomplish?

What if America as we know it is undergoing historic change right before our eyes?

The problem is our own. Adults are taken aback because we have this lazy assumption all teenagers are moody, monosyllabic, self-obsessed Tide Pod connoisseurs who couldn’t identify their congressperson in a police lineup.

Well, neither can a lot of adults.

A radical mission

As a result, our national discourse is strewn with the scorched and charred Twitter feeds of defensive and cranky grownups who try to joust with adolescents whose first language is “text.”

Maybe we failed to see this moment coming because the people who change the world are never the ones we expect.

Easter reminds us that a ragtag group of men and women who had no power, who flouted religious tradition and convention through their very existence, turned the world upside down by having the audacity to believe God might drape himself in flesh and dwell among us.

It’s never the people you think. According to the gospels, Jesus’ incarnation didn’t manifest through royalty or a priestly family, but through a teenage girl and a stepfather who couldn’t even afford a decent room for his birth.

When they weren’t bickering among themselves and jockeying for position, Jesus’ disciples embraced and shared a radical mission: to follow the one who, as a precocious 12-year-old, declared his own divinity while out-teaching Jewish scholars — and giving his parents fits in the process.

Because they went from hiding and denying they ever knew him, to embracing imprisonment and a martyr’s death, those same flawed, ordinary men changed the world.

Five smooth stones

Meanwhile, if you’re an American teenager who has seen blood gushing from a classmate’s gaping gunshot wound, there’s nothing left to fear from those who tell you to be patient, that you don’t understand how change is made.

Adults who claim a God-given right to own assault weapons, who are skeptical that teenagers are smart enough or articulate enough to effect change, will henceforth have to ignore the story of David, a skinny teenager, and the Philistine Goliath, whom no one thought could be defeated.

Offended by Goliath’s bullying and blasphemy and probably not knowing enough to be scared, David ignored the “experts” who declared that nothing could be done.

Goliath went down like a sack of wheat, and in a way that no one saw coming.

According to an apocryphal legend, it’s said that David had five smooth stones because Goliath had four sons.

Only a kid could have that kind of swagger.

If you don’t see an analogy to what’s happening right now, it might not be a bad idea to glance down at your name tag, just to make sure it doesn’t say “Hello. I’m Goliath.”

Reach Charita M. Goshay at 330-580-8313 or charita.goshay@cantonrep.com.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Agents of change never ones you expect

Unnerving gyrations continue at the top of United States foreign policy officialdom. The abrupt firing of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson via twitter has now been followed by similar dismissal of national security adviser H.R. McMaster. Nomination of CIA director Mike Pompeo to fill that distinctive slot opens up another top job.

Deputy CIA director Gina Haspel has been nominated to succeed Pompeo at the agency. Reports she was involved in torture of accused terrorists guarantees lively confirmation hearings. Hard-liner John Bolton has been tapped as national security adviser.

The media have more fodder for the round-the-clock anxious anticipation, soap opera speculation, righteous outrage and partisan praise that today substitute for serious news. Let the talking heads begin.

Meanwhile, serious analysis and understanding of these developments begins with consideration of the nature of the jobs, their origins and status. The post of secretary of state is the most senior cabinet position, the third highest executive post in our federal government after the president and vice president.

Tillerson’s tenure has been brief but that is not unprecedented. Alexander Haig had a similar short stay as secretary of state at the start of the Reagan administration. General Haig, who earned a reputation as a calm steady hand at the helm during the disaster of Watergate, nevertheless was himself a source of conflict and turmoil once he achieved a top cabinet position.

Haig repeatedly threatened to resign when he did not get his way. President Ronald Reagan quickly tired of this melodrama, and finally surprised the secretary by accepting his resignation.

As this implies, the ability to get along with the president is crucial to the survival and effectiveness of any secretary of state. General George C. Marshall and Dean Acheson in the Truman administration, Henry Kissinger in the Nixon and Ford administrations, and James Baker in the George H.W. Bush administration all demonstrated this capacity. Baker had the advantage of long-term close friendship with President Bush, along with shared impressive executive abilities. Generally, informed analysts rank each as a strong secretary.

Secretary of State John Foster Dulles under Eisenhower, Dean Rusk under Kennedy and Johnson, and George Shultz under Reagan had lengthy tenures. Rusk is the longest serving since World War II.

President Harry S. Truman created the Central Intelligence Group in 1946, succeeded by the Central Intelligence Agency the following year. The first four directors were all senior military officers: Rear Admiral Sidney W. Souers, General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, Vice Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter, and General Walter Bedell Smith. Keep that in mind when hearing misleading media reports that military officers have unprecedented power in the current administration.

The CIA grew directly from the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the intelligence arm during World War II. Previous lack of a formal U.S. intelligence service gave Britain an opening for influence, fully exploited then and now.

Independence of mind is essential in this shadow world. In the fall of 1962, civilian CIA Director John McCone refused to join Kennedy White House consensus the Soviets would not place long-range missiles in Cuba. He insisted on resuming U-2 flights, which led to discovery of Moscow’s duplicity — just in time.

The role of national security adviser depends entirely on the president in office. Eisenhower had the most formal approach to foreign policy, Kennedy the most informal. 

Arthur I. Cyr is a Clausen Distinguished Professor at Carthage College and author of "After the Cold War."

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Turmoil at the top in U.S. foreign policy