Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Friday, October 7, 2016
Perfect Pence
The Mike Pence-Tim Kaine bout Tuesday night wasn’t the main event of 2016.
The Leviathan’s Failure
The liberal vision of America, as it ever more rapidly replaces the church and local community with the federal government as chief conveyor of charity and aid, is a leviathan that allegedly cares for all. From the leviathan, all will find comfort, health care and work. The leviathan will ensure “fair” wages. The leviathan will ensure your sex change operation is paid for. The leviathan will even ensure men have insurance to coverage their pregnancies. All the leviathan asks of you is more money. It is always more money. When other people’s money runs out, the leviathan comes for you. The leviathan, however, always fails to deliver. While consuming ever-increasing resources, the leviathan fails to educate your children, fails to keep you safe, fails to deliver your mail on time, fails to fix your roads, and fails to deliver your healthcare.
The New Non-Working Class
One out of 6 prime-working-age adult males in the United States is not temporarily unemployed, or “between jobs,” or “looking for work.” No, a huge cohort of men in America is now neither employed nor looking for work. They are just skating by on a combination of girlfriends, wives, mothers and government benefits. Their status, argues Nicholas Eberstadt in “Men Without Work,” is a “quiet catastrophe.” Until relatively recently, choosing not to work was a luxury only the wealthy could afford.
Mangling Trump Talk on Veterans
Staff Sgt. Chad Robichaux is a Marine who developed post-traumatic stress disorder in the aftermath of eight tours in Afghanistan. After years of suffering, he now runs a counseling program dedicated to helping veterans avoid suicide, divorce and other attendant problems. He knows from his own experience that a faith-based approach works. Our government — allergic to faith-based programs — isn’t really interested, especially under President Barack Obama. So when Donald Trump came to a meeting of the Retired American Warriors PAC on Oct. 3, Robichaux asked a question: “Spiritual fitness works on these types of problems. The government is not taking advantage of these programs and services. So my question for you is, when you become president, will you support and fund a more holistic approach to solve the problems and issues of veteran suicide, PTSD, TBI and other related military mental and behavioral health issues?”
Gore’s Support Not Exactly a Game-Changer for Hillary
The Hillary Clinton campaign is deploying former Vice President Al Gore to rev up the youth vote, the Washington Post reported this week. Stop laughing. The announcement elicited a lot of mockery from various corners of the right. Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) scoffed on Twitter that he heard Gore is hosting a Clinton campaign event for millennials “sponsored by Alta Vista & featuring Ace of Base. It’s gonna be the bomb...” For those of you too young or too old to remember, those used to be things.
Christian Radio Banned on School Bus
The music of Third Day, Chris Tomlin, Toby Mac and other popular Christian artists is no longer welcome on public school buses in Siloam Springs, Arkansas. The school district recently directed a bus driver to refrain from playing a Christian radio station while transporting children, television station KFSM first reported. The edict was handed down after a complaint was filed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Wisconsin-based assortment of perpetually offended atheists, agnostics, free-thinkers and other radical rabble rousers. The FFRF alleges it was contacted by a parent who objected to his child listening to contemporary Christian music on Bus 24. The driver had been listening to radio station KLRC, owned by John Brown University.
The Stillborn Legacy of Barack Obama
Only amid the most bizarre, most tawdry, most addictive election campaign in memory could the real story of 2016 be so effectively obliterated, namely, that with just four months left in the Obama presidency, its two central pillars are collapsing before our eyes: domestically, its radical reform of American health care, aka Obamacare; and abroad, its radical reorientation of American foreign policy — disengagement marked by diplomacy and multilateralism.
Robin Hood Economics Falls Flat in Debates
Robin Hood is dead. Or at least seriously ailing. The politics of taking from the rich and giving to the poor — the politics that philosophers from Aristotle to James Madison dreaded — just doesn’t seem to be working as it used to. That’s not to say that the United States is about to give up on progressive taxation. With its graduated income tax, the American tax system is by some measures the most progressive in any advanced country. For a generation, the jousting between Republicans and Democrats has been waged within a pretty narrow range. The former want a top rate of 33 percent, the latter 42 percent. However, Hillary Clinton, evidently trying to win over wary Bernie Sanders fans, now says she wants to raise it to 65 percent.
Clinton Corruption Continues
News broke [Wednesday] that the FBI had arrested Hillary Clinton. Among other things, Mrs. Clinton was charged with “unauthorized removal and retention of classified materials” after officials raided her home and discovered “documents and digital information stored on various devices that contained highly classified information.” Oops! That story isn’t about Hillary, but former NSA contractor Harold Thomas Martin III of Glen Burnie, Maryland. Unfortunately for Mr. Martin, his last name is not Clinton, and I’m sure there will be plenty of “reasonable prosecutors” willing to press the case against him.
Kaine Reveals Emptiness of Democratic Policies
Because of his stellar debate performance, some think Mike Pence was positioning himself for a presidential run in 2020. But if likability still matters, it’s likelier that Tim Kaine was taking himself out of the 2020 running. From the very beginning, it was as though Kaine was auditioning for the role of a despicable shyster in some cheesy TV legal drama. And with her frequent interruptions of Pence at key moments, it’s also as if debate moderator Elaine Quijano was trying to help him get the part. Kaine focused mainly on three things: smarmily interrupting and taunting Pence, mouthing tired Democratic talking points, and slamming Donald Trump. What is it with Democratic vice presidential candidates such as Kaine and Joe Biden that compels them to act like jerks in these debates?
Obama Shifts Blame Without Warming
Are you late for work? Did you forget someone’s birthday? Blame global warming! Everyone else is. Severe acne, bad beer, crumbling gingerbread houses — you name it! These are just some of the things scientists are pinning on what they claim is a man-made climate crisis. Only now, it isn’t just scientists. It’s the president too. On Monday, the White House joined in the charade, desperate for a scapegoat for its pile of foreign policy failures.
Thursday, October 6, 2016
School District Bans Jesus, Bibles, Angels & Prayer
Jesus just got kicked out of public schools in Henry County, Georgia. The school district fired off a directive to school administrators ordering them to eradicate anything remotely religious from all public school buildings. One of my readers sent me a copy of the directive from the Henry County School District that was relayed to the staff at East Lake Elementary School. “You are hereby directed to remove all items which contain religious symbols, such as crosses, printed bibles, angels, bible verses, printed prayers, and biblical quotations from the common areas, hallways, classrooms, and office of East Lake Elementary School,” the edict read. “Further…religious and biblical references should not be included in notes to parents, email signature lines, or any other correspondence sent on behalf of East Lake Elementary School,” the edict continued.
Kaine and Able
After [Tuesday] night’s vice presidential debate, there has to be at least one person who’s relieved there isn’t a second: Hillary Clinton. From start to finish, Governor Mike Pence (R-Ind.), long considered the stable, thoughtful anchor of the GOP ticket, was in command — calmly beating back a worked-up, over-rehearsed Senator Tim Kaine (D-Va.). For 90 minutes, the duo sparred on everything from the failed Iran deal to tax reform and even the role of faith in each man’s life.
Trump, Taxes and Liberal Hypocrisy
Let’s describe the relationship of the media and their Democratic cohorts to taxes and those who “don’t pay them” as, well, complicated. In 2012, ABC News’ Jonathan Karl claimed on television that an auto mechanic making $75,000 a year paid a higher federal income tax rate than that paid by then-Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. But, as I later told Karl in a radio interview, that would only be true if Mr. Auto Mechanic had no children, owned no home and therefore did not take the same deductions as those taken by Romney. In an apples-to-apples comparison, I informed him, Romney, at a 14 percent rate, pays twice the rate paid by Mr. Mechanic.
Hillary’s Hired Thugs
Through the years, one of my favorite sallies against the Clintons has been referring to Hillary Clinton as “Bruno.” At times, readers have asked, “Why do you call her Bruno?” It is because there has always been an atmosphere of thuggishness about her. Another way of putting it is, time and again, she acts as though the rule of law does not pertain to her — for instance, on the matter of the many women who have willingly or unwillingly been pulled into her husband’s lubricious ambit. How many times have you read or heard a quote attributed to her where she vows to “crush” or “crucify” a woman whom Bill Clinton rutted with? One even reads such quotes in the mainstream media, or MSM. Yet she is portrayed as a champion of women.
How Donald Trump Became the Issue
On Tuesday night, by consensus, Republican vice presidential candidate Mike Pence wiped the floor with Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine. Kaine appeared nervous, flustered and confused; Pence appeared comfortable and in control. Pence’s attacks on Hillary Clinton’s corruption and policy evils were well-calibrated and hard-hitting. There was only one problem: Kaine spent the entire evening hitting Donald Trump, and Pence spent the night attempting to treat Trump as though he was the child on the milk carton. Kaine slammed Trump’s imbecilic comments over the course of the campaign, from Mexican judges to Miss Universe; Pence slapped back weakly with Clinton’s “deplorables” comment, then registered for the Federal Witness Protection Program.
Pence Prevails
Gov. Mike Pence won [Tuesday] night’s vice presidential debate hands down! Instant polls confirmed that voters at home thought Pence won. A focus group revealed that independent voters really connected with Gov. Pence. His strong performance undoubtedly reassured many that the Trump-Pence ticket is ready to lead and ready to make America great again. While Governor Pence was calm and collected, Senator Tim Kaine turned into “Mr. Buttinsky,” interrupting more than 70 times in 90 minutes. One focus group observer, a likely Clinton supporter, said that Kaine “came across as a jerk.” What got less attention is how often the moderator, Elaine Quijano of CBS News, interrupted Pence. Like Lester Holt, Quijano asked Pence eight pointed questions and only one of Tim Kaine. And when Pence started making strong points about Hillary’s email server or the Clinton Foundation, Quijano jumped in and talked over him.
Lame Ducks and Corporate Tax Privileges
Congress recently passed another short-term continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown and fund the government until Dec. 9. It was a small victory for those of us who fight against cronyism, as the cronies failed to use the bill as a way to restore the full lending authority of the Export-Import Bank, whose charter expired for a short time last year. Sadly, it is opening the way for the mother of all crony legislation: an omnibus bill during the lame-duck session. Congress will once again have to consider a massive and unaccountable 2017 spending bill during that postelection twilight period when outgoing politicians are able to push through legislation before the new president and new Congress take power.
From Greek Tragedy to American Therapy
The Greeks gave us tragedy — the idea that life is never fair. Terrible stuff for no reason tragically falls on good people. Life’s choices are sometimes only between the bad and the far worse. In the plays of the ancient dramatists Aeschylus and Sophocles, heroism and nobility only arise out of tragedies. The tragic hero refuses to blame the gods for his terrible fate. Instead, a Prometheus, Ajax or Oedipus prefers to fight against the odds. He thereby establishes a code of honor, even as defeat looms. In contrast, modern Americans gave the world therapy. Life must always be fair. If not, something or someone must be blamed. All good people deserve only a good life — or else.
A Taxing Situation
What would you think of an individual or a company that earned a pre-tax profit of $29.9 million in one year, paid nothing in taxes and still received a $3.5 million refund? Am I speaking of Donald Trump? No, it is The New York Times Company. Forbes magazine studied the newspaper’s 2014 annual report, in which the company explained: “The effective tax rate for 2014 was favorably affected by approximately $21.1 million for the reversal of reserves for uncertain tax positions due to the lapse of applicable statutes of limitations.” In other words the Times took advantage of tax laws that only good tax attorneys understand and in doing so was no different than Donald Trump. The Times, which obtained Trump’s supposedly confidential tax returns, made a big deal out of the Republican presidential candidate’s use of loopholes to avoid paying taxes.