Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Thursday, July 14, 2016
The Travesty of Teacher Tenure
The mills of justice grind slowly, but life plunges on, leaving lives blighted when justice, by being delayed, is irremediably denied. Fortunately, California’s Supreme Court might soon decide to hear — four years after litigation began — the 21st century’s most portentous civil rights case, which concerns an ongoing denial of equal protection of the law. Every year, measurable injuries are inflicted on tens of thousands of already at-risk children by this state’s teacher tenure system, which is so politically entrenched that only the courts can protect the discrete and insular minority it victimizes. In 2012, nine Los Angeles students recognizing the futility of expecting the Legislature to rectify a wrong it has perpetrated asked California’s judiciary to continue its record of vindicating the rights of vulnerable minorities by requiring the state’s education system to conform to the state’s Constitution.
Wednesday, July 13, 2016
Why a Warming World May Be the Cause of Less Weather Woes
Relative to GDP, costly weather disasters are going the *opposite way* of what is being said by people cultivating apocalyptic fear over anthropogenic global warming. For instance, we know that longevity of life is increasing on the planet, but more people are dying now than they did a century ago. Why? Simple: There are more people on the planet. The global population stood at 1.6 billion people in 1900. There are 7.3 billion people today. So, historically, it is true that more people are dying today. It may even be true that *more people are affected by bad weather than ever before.* In fact, that should be intuitively true since there are close to 5.5 billion more people. But relative to population and property, losses have been *decreasing*, not increasing!
End of an Era? Global Economy’s Tectonic Plates Moving Again
October 1987: The U.S. stock market collapsed 23 percent in one day, the largest one-day drop on record. For the rest of that year economists debated how deep the depression would be in 1988. There was no depression in 1988. The reason was that for the first time in central banking history there was a coordinated global response to a visible economic crisis. The leadership attached to that response was provided by U.S. Treasury Secretary James Baker III.
There Is a God in Heaven. Here’s Why That Matters.
Chaos. Crime. Corruption. Shootings. Terrorism. Political upheaval. Racial strife. Economic catastrophe. Family breakdown. Societal unrest. Moral disintegration. Does it feel like our communities, culture, nation and world are coming apart at the seams? Does it seem like everyday we wake up to another crisis that threatens you, your family or our nation? If you are a business owner or an employee, does it feel like even your livelihood is at risk? Are there any solutions to the seemingly insurmountable and existential problems facing us?
Congressional Black Corruption
If Black Lives Matter, then why have entrenched members of the Congressional Black Caucus spent more time enriching themselves than taking care of their neglected constituents? Too many social justice protesters are busy throwing shade, rocks, bottles, concrete blocks and vicious death threats at police officers of all colors trying to keep the peace. Instead of moaning about “#WhitePrivilege,” I invite radical racial identity warriors to join me in taking on the black political elites selling out their people.
Obama’s Police Distortions
President Barack Obama is a lawyer, not a statistician, and it shows. After the controversial officer-involved shootings in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Falcon Heights, Minnesota, Obama unloosed a series of statistics in his remarks in Warsaw, Poland, to show “racial disparities that exist in our criminal justice system” — in other words, racial bias by police, prosecutors and judges.
Leadership Matters
After last week’s protests over police practices, mass killing of cops in Dallas, and usual efforts to take political advantage, it should be evident to every American that we face a crisis in public trust and accountability. The only solution is good old-fashioned leadership by men and women of integrity and principle. American law enforcement faces a multitude of serious criticisms. For instance, the federal government has turned homeland security into pork by distributing military equipment to local governments. Some police departments use drug busts as a profit-making opportunity by seizing private property. SWAT teams look more like military special operations forces than cops.
UK Is Best U.S. Customer in Europe — and Should Remain So Post-Brexit
Less than three months ago, President Barack Obama stood in London — beside British Prime Minster David Cameron — and issued a warning to the free and independent voters of the United Kingdom. “Crucially,” a reporter asked him, “what happens if the U.K. does decide in June to leave the European Union?” Obama prefaced his answer by rationalizing his intervention in the internal politics of this longtime democratic ally. “Let me repeat, this is a decision for the people of the United Kingdom to make,” he said. “I’m not coming here to fix any votes. I’m not casting a vote myself. I’m offering my opinion. And, in democracies, everybody should want more information, not less. And you shouldn’t be afraid to hear an argument being made.
Absolving Black Lives Matter in Dallas
When white racist Dylann Roof allegedly shot and killed nine people in a black church in Charleston, South Carolina, it was very easy for President Obama and his media enablers to paint with a broad brush and blame the wider political culture. Bill Maher even blamed Fox News and the Daily Caller and the Drudge Report. But when black racist Micah Johnson gunned down five cops and wounded seven others in Dallas, suddenly the motivation was complicated, and it couldn’t be blamed on a “climate” of hostile rhetoric. Dallas police Chief David Brown reported, “The suspect said he was upset at white people. The suspect stated he wanted to kill white people, especially white officers.” His Facebook page had “likes” for Black Lives Matter and the New Black Panther Party.
For Obama, Leftist Rhetoric Is Always Innocent and Conservatives Are Always Guilty
When it comes to the linkage between violence and rhetoric, I abide by a fairly simple rule: If you’re not advocating violence, you’re not responsible for violence. That doesn’t mean your rhetoric is decent or appropriate; it may be vile, awful and factually incorrect. But it isn’t the cause for violence. President Barack Obama also abides by a simple rule when it comes to linking violence and rhetoric: If he doesn’t like the rhetoric, it’s responsible for violence. And if there’s violence associated with rhetoric he likes, then the violence must have been caused by something else.
Clueless or Ignorant?
Progressives and socialists constantly come to conclusions about the motives of whole groups of people with virtually no proof to justify their views. For example, when working class Christians did not rally to Obama’s banner in 2008, he said it was because they were bitter and clung to their guns and Bibles. If a professor has a run-in with the police, as happened early on in his administration, without little knowledge of the facts, Obama concluded that the police acted stupidly. After the tragic confrontations in Baton Rouge and Minneapolis, the facts of which are still largely unknown, leftists everywhere concluded that racism motivated the police officers to shoot Alton Sterling and Philando Castile.
Challenges for Black People
President Barack Obama and his first attorney general, Eric Holder, called for an honest conversation about race. Holder even called us “a nation of cowards” because we were unwilling to have a “national conversation” about race. The truth of the matter is there’s been more than a half-century of conversations about race. We do not need more. Instead, black people need to have frank conversations among ourselves, no matter how uncomfortable and embarrassing the topics may be.
The War on Cops: Part II
Even in this age of runaway emotions, there are still some people who want to know the facts. Nowhere are facts more important, or more lacking, than in what has been aptly called “The War on Cops,” the title of a devastating new book by Heather Mac Donald. Few, if any, of the most fashionable notions about the police, minorities and the criminal justice system can withstand an examination of hard facts. Yet those fashionable notions continue to dominate discussions in the media, in politics and in academia. But Ms. Mac Donald’s book of documented facts demolishes many fashionable notions.
Black Lives Matter and Lawlessness
Let’s try and connect some dots. Last week, FBI Director Jim Comey expressed his view that, after investigation of Hillary Clinton’s handling of State Department official business, including classified material, on her personal email server, he would not recommend criminal charges against her. This despite describing the behavior of the former secretary of state as “extremely negligent.” Former New York City mayor and federal prosecutor Rudy Giuliani said, according to Clinton’s behavior as described by Comey, she was clearly in violation of the law. By choosing to recommend that she not be indicted, Giuliani said that Comey decided to put her “above the law.”
Cops, Blacks and Crime
Claims about racist cops from groups like Black Lives Matter lead more people to fear and hate the police. That’s bad news for cops. It’s also bad for black people who live in crime-ridden neighborhoods, says Heather Mac Donald, author of “The War on Cops.” She points out that activist policing is what people in those neighborhoods need and want, because they are much *less* safe if fearful cops (or cops who just want to avoid a hateful experience — like being screamed at and called racist) stay in the car instead of questioning the young men hanging out on the corner.
Deputies Reportedly Taunted at Zaxby’s Restaurant in North Carolina
A pair of deputy sheriffs got a hankering for some chicken the other day, so they decided to drop by a Zaxby’s in Shelby, North Carolina. For you folks in Wisconsin, Zaxby’s is a Southeastern fast-food chain specializing in chicken fingers and wings. Although they do have delicious fried pickles — but I digress. Anyway, the Cleveland County deputies (who were in uniform) placed their orders — and then something very disturbing happened. Several workers in the back of the kitchen allegedly began hollering at the law enforcement officers and calling them names. And one of the workers allegedly tampered with one deputy’s meal.
Week of Tragedy Reveals Our Ideological Blind Spots
It seems almost ghoulish to look for a silver lining in the dark cloud that blanketed the nation last week. But I think there was one. The killings by police in Minnesota and Louisiana, quickly followed by the killings of police in Dallas, knocked the lazy certainty out of almost everybody. At least for a moment, antagonists on either side of polarizing issues could see beyond the epistemic horizon of their most comfortable talking points. Black Lives Matter activists thanked the police for their protection and sacrifice. Conservative Republicans, most notably House Speaker Paul Ryan and former Speaker Newt Gingrich, spoke movingly about race in America.
Tuesday, July 12, 2016
Solid Platform Shoes for GOP in Cleveland
For those looking for conflict in Cleveland at the 2016 GOP Convention — they may be a bit disappointed. The contested convention that was talked about did not materialize, nor is a battle royal developing over the party’s platform. After the first full day of working on the platform, it appears the GOP is set to have another solidly conservative statement of principles that draws sharp lines of contrast with the Democratic Party.
Hey, Black Lives Matter, Stop Terrorizing Our Cities
Black Lives Matter protesters laid siege to a number of cities over the weekend including my hometown: Memphis, Tennessee. They shut down the Interstate 40 bridge over the Mississippi River, stranding thousands of motorists for hours in sweltering heat. Blocking a roadway is a crime under Tennessee law. Yet Memphis police officers were told to stand down and allow the agitators to block the Hernando-Desoto Bridge. They used to call that kind of behavior aiding and abetting. Not a single person was arrested.
The Supreme Court’s Texas-Abortion Ruling … Justice Black’s Warnings Become Reality
Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt was recently decided 5-3 by the U.S. Supreme Court. It struck down the Texas legislature’s regulations requiring abortion clinics to meet the same standards as any other Texas ambulatory surgical center and to have their physicians obtain admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. The court majority caved in to the abortionists and ignored Texas’ reasonable efforts to protect the safety of women choosing abortion. The court thus continued its unrelenting march away from the actual language of the Constitution, creating confusion and uncertainty in its wake. One former justice, Hugo Black, clearly saw the beginnings of this unfortunate journey a half century ago in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965). The Black dissent was uncanny in its prediction of what would happen to a jurisprudence that concocted a new right — the right to privacy — which had no grounding in the Constitution itself.