Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Friday, January 8, 2016
The Consequences of Doing Nothing
"If you see 10 troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you," said the ever wise Calvin Coolidge, who was both the best American President and most conservative. Washington politicians of both parties, in an ever-greater quest to play to the crowd and earn free media, are desperate to just do something.
Thursday, January 7, 2016
The Weakest Economic Recovery in Modern Times
Even in boom times, any president can expect candidates from the opposing party to subject his record to pitiless scrutiny. The economy under Barack Obama isn't exactly filling voters with confidence, so it's not surprising that presidential hopefuls are pretty severe in their critique. Listen to the kinds of things being said as candidates assure voters that they understand how shaky the economy is, more than six years into the current recovery.
Joking About Gun Control
When I was a kid my father gave me three rifles and a shotgun. First he gave me a single-shot .22 rifle. I was about eight. Then in 1958, when "The Rifleman" came on, my father gave me a rapid-fire lever-action .22 Winchester rifle like the one Chuck Connors had. I was about 12. Later, when I was a teenager my father gave me a .243 hunting rifle to hunt deer in Arizona and a 12-gauge shotgun to hunt birds. He bought all the guns legally. But he gave them to me without first doing a background check to see if I was a criminal.
Is Global Warming to Blame for Spread of 'Tropical' Diseases?
The New York Times has just published an article claiming that global warming is (partly) to blame for the spread of various "tropical" diseases to the U.S. and other areas where previously they had been eradicated or had never existed. Donald G. McNeil Jr. begins his article titled "U.S. Becomes More Vulnerable to Tropical Diseases Like Zika" thus: "Tropical diseases — some of them never before seen in the United States — are marching northward as climate change lets mosquitoes and ticks expand their ranges."
Obama's Gun Order Triggers Outrage
The media's focus may have been on the president's tears during his gun control speech, but it should have been on the cries of freedom-loving Americans. After seven years of watching the administration wipe its feet on the Constitution, this latest power grab epitomizes everything people have come to resent about the White House. This week, the president's impersonation of the legislative branch got personal with the announcement of a four-point plan to curb one of the country's most important rights: to keep and bear arms.
Rahm, I Tried to Warn You
Chicago has always struck me as one of the most affluent cities in the world. Growing up in Chicagoland, I saw little poverty in the city at the foot of glistening Lake Michigan. I am sure poverty was there, but Chicago in the 1960s seemed rich and abundant with opportunity. Alas, that was long ago. Chicago is still affluent at least on its north side and in the environs around Michigan Avenue, the city's Magnificent Mile. Yet, statistics tell us something different when we consider Chicago as a whole. Its poor neighborhoods are desperate.
North Korea's Nukes
The U.N. Security Council held an emergency, closed-door meeting [Wednesday] morning to discuss North Korea's claim that it successfully tested a hydrogen bomb. The underground detonation was some kind of nuclear device, but intelligence analysts are skeptical, for the moment at least, that it was in fact a hydrogen bomb. If it was a hydrogen bomb, the national security threats to our allies and us would grow significantly.
The One-Man Rule
"Kings or parliaments could not give the rights essential to happiness, as you confess those invaded by the Stamp Act to be," John Dickinson wrote in 1766. "We claim them from a higher source — from the King of Kings, and Lord of all the Earth," he said in a public letter he signed simply "A North American." "They are not annexed to us by parchments and seals," Dickinson said. "They are created in us by the decrees of Providence, which establish the laws of our nature. They are born with us; exist with us; and cannot be taken from us by any human power, without taking our lives. In short, they are founded on the immutable maxims of reason and justice."
Black Serial Killer: Why the Media Indifference?
Why the near media-silence over the absurdly long-delayed trial of alleged serial killer Lonnie Franklin Jr.? Franklin would seem to represent ideal grist for the voracious 24/7 national media. There is, of course, murder. He is charged with killing 10 and suspected of killing more. The crimes took place in a big, media-centric city, Los Angeles, as opposed to some obscure small town or rural community in a fly-over state ignored by national media.
The Criminalization of Politics
The impulse to ferret corruption from politics corrupts the criminal justice system when it causes overzealous prosecutors and judges to improvise novel interpretations of the law of bribery. Consider Robert McDonnell's case. Virginia's former Republican governor has been sentenced to prison for actions that he could not have reasonably anticipated would be declared felonies under a dangerous judicial expansion of federal law defining bribery of public officials. Friday the Supreme Court will decide whether to review McDonnell's conviction.
Retailers Don't Need Another Regulatory Handout
Benjamin Franklin said there are only two things certain in life: death and taxes. But I'd like to add a third: cronies coming back for more after Washington gives them a handout. Case in point, the merchants and retailers who got a juicy morsel from Dodd-Frank are now clamoring for more. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., slipped into the monstrous 2010 Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill a favor long sought by big-box retailers, such as Wal-Mart. The Durbin amendment, as it is known, imposed price controls on interchange fees for debit cards. Interchange fees are what banks and card issuers charge retailers for processing payments. Many consumers prefer to use cards instead of cash, so it's advantageous for retailers to provide that as an option.
Out of (Gun) Control
I'm still waiting; waiting for someone to show me how laws stop a person intent on breaking them. Daily on the roads I see people breaking speed limits despite the possibility that cameras will catch them and send a ticket in the mail. In one of his last gasp efforts to "fundamentally change" America, President Obama is taking executive action — because he knows he never would get Congress to agree — to keep guns out of the hands of people he claims should not have them.
NY Times Article on Ocean Acidification: The World Is Doomed, Pay Us to Research It
The NY Times published an article entitled "[Our Deadened, Carbon-Soaked Seas](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/16/opinion/our-deadened-carbon-soaked-seas.html?_r=0)" that at first glance is very scary. The oceans are acidifying due to human carbon-dioxide emissions! We are hurting marine life, and ourselves in the process! Lions and tigers and bears, OH MY! etc. etc. etc. But upon a second read one notices sentences that include words and phrases such as "may," "could," and "almost certainly." If the oceans are really in such dire straits, why would they use phrases that indicate doubt?
Rendezvous With Reality in 2016
Changes of administrations usually mark dicey times in American foreign policy. But transitional hazards will never be greater than in 2016. Over a span of just a few months in mid-1945, new president Harry Truman lost all trust in Soviet Union strongman Josef Stalin — in a way that Truman's predecessor, the ailing Franklin Delano Roosevelt, never had during nearly four years of World War II. Ensuing American foreign policy jerked from a pragmatic Lend-Lease alliance with a duplicitous communist superpower to a tense Cold War.
Obama — and FDR — Set Precedent for Trump's One-Man Rule
There has been a lot of talk — almost all of it accurate — about how Barack Obama's presidency has fueled the rise of Donald Trump. The president's fans hate this talk, for understandable reasons. They see the president as dignified and cerebral. They see Trump as crude and bigoted, a "short-fingered vulgarian," as Graydon Carter famously put it. The argument that Obama paved the way for Trump takes many forms. He "lowered the bar" for presidential qualifications, argues Peggy Noonan. Trump's Don Rickles act, writes Michael Barone, reflects "the coarseness of Obama's non-stop insults of Republicans and anyone who does not share his views and priorities."
Wednesday, January 6, 2016
Bettors Know Better Than Pundits
Want to know who the next president will be? Don't trust polls or pundits. Betting odds at ElectionBettingOdds.com are the best predictor of who will win any election. Pundits have a terrible track record. Last election, Newt Gingrich and Dick Morris forecast a Romney "landslide." Rush Limbaugh said, "All my thinking says Romney big. ... It's not even close." Polls are better, but not much. That's because *you* are not normal. Since you read this column, you are different from most voters. You think a lot about politics. Most Americans don't.
Finding Men to Match our Mountains
In April 1967 one of my heroes, Ronald Reagan, gave a speech to the California Republican Assembly just a few months after being elected Governor of California. At the time, his state was facing significant challenges and he had sought to attract men and women from the private sector to help in turning the state around. In his speech he recognized the fact that in order to achieve the successes he envisioned he would need to find "men to match our mountains."
How Lawmakers Stopped Part of Obama's Assault on First Amendment
There is no question that the omnibus appropriations bill that Congress passed just before its holiday recess is full of wasteful spending. Even worse, it completely funds Obama's unilateral, above-the-law executive actions in almost every area, from his immigration amnesty program to his overregulation of power plants. However, there is one area where Congress acted through the omnibus (and tax extenders bill) to stop part of the administration's assault on the First Amendment.
School Stops Saying 'God Bless America' After ACLU Threat
For more than a decade boys and girls at Glenview Elementary School would start the day by gathering on the playground to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. The children of Haddon Heights, New Jersey, would conclude their patriotic service by saying "God bless America." It was a tradition birthed by two kindergarten teachers in the aftermath of the Muslim terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 — a way to honor those who lost their lives on that terrible day. But that tradition ended Monday thanks to the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey.
The Wildlife Refuge Putsch
The Malheur National Wildlife Refuge hasn't heretofore been known as a locus of government tyranny or much of anything else. Saying that the refuge, established in 1908 by Theodore Roosevelt, is in the middle of nowhere makes it sound too centrally located. It is in Southeastern Oregon, about 30 miles from the nearest town of Burns, population 2,722. Now the Bundy family — notorious for its standoff with the feds at the family's Nevada ranch last year — and sundry anti-government protesters have occupied the refuge and pronounced it the staging ground for an offensive against an oppressive federal government.