Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Friday, September 4, 2015
More Campus Fascism
Is there something in the water in the Washington State University faculty lounge, or are its professors conspiring against common sense? Three faculty members, showing their contempt for free speech, threatened to punish students who disobeyed them on race, gender or immigration terminology. The Daily Caller reports that in his "Introduction to Multicultural Literature" syllabus, professor John Streamas warned white students that "to do well in this class," they must "reflect" their "grasp of history and social relations" by "deferring to the experiences of people of color." This professor once berated a student who advocated limits on illegal immigration as "just a white s—bag."
The Law Is Only Sacred When It Furthers a Liberal Value
Working for the government is not an inalienable right. So Kim Davis, a county clerk in Kentucky, was wrong to refuse same-sex couples marriage licenses in her office. If you're unwilling to enforce the law, you shouldn't be an officer of the state. After all, it's not a clerk's job to ascertain the constitutionality or practicality of a law. If it were, we'd have anarchy. There are hundreds of other vocations she is free to pursue if this one doesn't suit her. So Davis' stand isn't about religious freedom. Not really. Signing off on state documents is not tantamount to being forced, as bakers and photographers have been, to participate in a wedding ceremony. There are certainly bigots out there intent on coercing Christian businesses to choose between their faith and their livelihood; this isn't one of those instances. If you want to participate in civil obedience, don't work for the state.
Joe Biden's Yuck Factor
Next week, as rumors swirl of his possible entry into the 2016 presidential race, Vice President Joe Biden will appear on liberal comedian Stephen Colbert's new late-night CBS show. The host is a professional clown. The VIP guest is a political clown with more baggage than the Kardashians during Paris fashion week. Setting aside the past plagiarism, fabulism, K Street cronyism, chronic gaffes and the stagnant aroma of 4-decades-old Beltway entrenchment, though, Biden's two biggest cultural liabilities currently on the table (and everywhere else) are his grabby paws: Groper One and Groper Two. Seriously, those two troublesome tentacles need to be wrapped in yellow caution tape and stamped with a trigger warning. Joe's yuck factor is no joke.
Republican Suicide
Nine years ago, aboard a National Review cruise, I debated immigration policy with my colleagues and the cruisers. It was a good discussion that touched all the familiar bases. Are there really jobs Americans won't do? Are big business and big agriculture enmeshed in a corrupt bargain with liberal Democrats whereby business gets cheap labor and Democrats get new voters? I argued then, as I do today, that there are many serious immigration reforms we ought to be undertaking. We have a valuable commodity — the right to live and work in the U.S.A. (and in some cases to become a citizen) — and we should not be handing it out to just anyone. We should swiftly deport criminals even as we should be more welcoming to those who earn PhDs or bring other skills. But I also argue that illegal immigration, particularly from Mexico, is steeply declining and likely to continue to; that even most Republicans, to say nothing of the larger electorate, are moderate on immigration; and that immigrants tend to work hard.
Donald Trump's Appeal Is Based on Yesterday's News
Aside from the court-ordered dribbling out of Hillary Clinton's classified-material-filled emails, the big presidential campaign news of the summer has been the boom for Donald Trump in the race for the Republican nomination. Trump has risen from 3 percent in the polls (when he announced on June 16) to where he now stands at 26 percent — 14 percent ahead of any other candidate. Trump is drawing support from a constituency that in many ways resembles that amassed by another celebrity candidate who defied the usual political rules, Ross Perot in 1992. Like Perot, Trump runs better among whites than blacks, among men than women, among non-college graduates than college grads, in the suburbs and countryside than in big cities. Like Perot, he does not run especially strong among traditionally religious voters.
Obama Wins; America Loses, Servergate Gets Serious, Poll Position
[Wednesday], Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski became the 34th senator to support the Iranian nuclear deal. Her support gives President Obama the votes needed to sustain his veto of a congressional resolution disapproving the deal. That means this terrible deal will likely go into effect. This is a hollow victory for Obama and the deal's supporters. A new Rasmussen poll finds that 66% of likely voters believe that the deal should not go into effect unless Congress approves it. But that isn't going to happen because most members of Congress will not vote for this bad deal. And it is a bad deal.
Why Clinton Remains, Yes, Inevitable
Unless she's indicted, Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic nomination. That kind of sentence is rarely written about a major presidential candidate. But I don't see a realistic third alternative (except for one long-shot, below). Clinton is now hostage to the various investigations — the FBI, Congress, the courts — of her emails. The issue has already damaged her seriously by highlighting once again her congenital inability to speak truthfully. When the scandal broke in March, she said unequivocally that she "did not email any classified material to anyone." That's now been shown to be unequivocally false. After all, the inspector general of the intelligence community referred her emails to the Justice Department precisely because they contain classified material.
Thursday, September 3, 2015
Is the Fed Necessary?
The Federal Reserve opened its annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyo., Thursday. Its experts have assembled to discuss "inflation dynamics." Concurrently, another group of economists and financial experts is meeting just down the road. They're discussing monetary policy, as well, but they're considering questions never raised at Fed symposia — questions like: "Do we really need the Fed?" It's a question worth asking. America's monetary system is the Achilles heel of the world's economic system. Something is seriously wrong when trillions of new dollars are created out of thin air to bail out big banks, "stimulate" the economy and buy government debt. And something is dangerously wrong when the political establishment is afraid even to discuss it.
School Days, School Days
When I first read that the San Francisco Board of Education voted unanimously to give 107 students high school diplomas, even though the students has not met the requirements for graduation, I naturally assumed it was a case of educrats bending the rules to boost graduation statistics. But when I looked at the situation more closely, the board's action was fair and made sense. The San Francisco board's vote was a response to the high-handed decision from the California Department of Education that suddenly canceled the required high school exit exam. Those 107 students from San Francisco International High arrived at the testing center only to find there was no test and no way to get their diploma, since state law requires passing the test before a diploma is issued.
How to Write a New York Times Op-Ed in Three Easy Steps!
Today we'll talk about how to write a New York Times op-ed in 45 minutes or less. We all like labor-saving tips! The main point to keep in mind is that your op-ed is not intended to elucidate, educate or amuse. These are status pieces meant to strike a pose, signaling that you are a good person. After reading your op-ed, readers should feel the warm sensation of being superior to other people — those who don't agree with you. The idea is to be in fashion. It's all about attitude, heavy on eye-rolling.
President Obama's Peculiarity
This week I am filing a world exclusive! Remember, you read it here first! For years I have maintained a team of investigators sedulously trailing our president. They have studied pictures of him. They have inquired of photographers and camera crews who employ both still and video cameras to cover the president. My investigators have interviewed White House journalists, occasionally White House employees and, of course, White House visitors and even tourists. All have been asked the same question: "Have you ever seen the president's shadow?"
Blumenthal's Bad Advice, Christie Goes Nuclear, Fiorina Wins Again
Top government officials get a lot of advice from a lot of people. Cabinet officials have entire cadres of career civil servants dedicated to providing information and analysis. In the case of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, we know from her publicly disclosed emails that she also relied heavily on outside, non-governmental sources, especially from one person — Sidney Blumenthal. Mr. Blumenthal has been close confidant of the Clintons for decades. But the Obama White House blocked Mrs. Clinton's attempt to hire Blumenthal as a top adviser at the State Department. So the Clinton Foundation hired Blumenthal at $10,000 a month.
Jorge Ramos: Activist Masquerading as a Journalist
One can be excused if he thought he witnessed a heckler, not a reporter, being ejected from a recent Donald Trump press conference. Jorge Ramos, a so-called "journalist," works for Univision, and has more than two million nightly viewers. He told Trump, "I have the right to ask a question." Trump repeatedly told him to sit down, saying, "No, you haven't been called. Go back to Univision." He asked Trump the following "question": "You cannot deport 11 million people. You cannot build a 1,900-mile wall. You cannot deny citizenship to children." That was, at best, a series of statements. At worst, it was a rant.
Church in Hot Water Over Football Field Baptism
Asking a Baptist preacher to baptize is like asking Colonel Sanders if he wants a bucket of chicken. Somebody's going to get dunked. So when a football coach in Villa Rica, Georgia asked to be baptized on the high school football field, the local First Baptist Church obliged. At the end of the school day somebody hauled out an old feeding trough, plopped it in the end zone near the field house and filled it with water.
The Exhausting Ms. Clinton
Hillary Clinton's second race for the presidency is only about a quarter through, but she already seems to be causing general fatigue. The lurid revelations about the Clinton Foundation proved that it was not so much a charity as a huge laundering operation. Quid pro quo donations from the global rich and powerful fueled the Clintons' jet-setting networking. In between political campaigns, the foundation provided sinecures for out-of-work Clinton politicos. This is hardly proof of Hillary's grass-roots progressivism.
The Blood-Stained Indian Child Welfare Act
"It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race." —Chief Justice John Roberts. Sordid, always. And sometimes lethal, as some Native American children could attest, were they not, like Declan Stewart and Laurynn Whiteshield, dead. They were victims of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), which as construed and applied demonstrates how identity politics can leave a trail of broken bodies and broken hearts.
Addressing the Social Security Disability Insurance Dis-Trust Fund
Have you ever wondered why your television screen is often filled with advertisements from law firms touting their ability to land money for the disabled? It's because helping people obtain federal Social Security disability benefits has become a lucrative industry in the past decade. But it would be a mistake to only blame the legal profession. After all, lawyers are only taking advantage of a program that frequently encourages people with dubious disability claims to seek benefits, especially when the economy is down. According to the Social Security trustees report released at the end of July, the disability insurance trust fund will run out of money by the end of 2016. Without reforms, millions of Americans will receive an automatic 19 percent reduction in their Social Security Disability Insurance benefits.
Superheroes No More
Ridiculous stories about political correctness float around the Internet like so much ocean garbage. Occasionally, one washes up on "Good Morning America" with a larger story to tell. A little girl named Laura was sent home with a note because she had brought a Wonder Woman lunchbox to school. (The website The Mary Sue first reported the story, from a post on the social media site Imgur.) In the letter addressed to Laura's parents, the school explained: "The dress code we have established requests that the children not bring violent images into the building in any fashion — on their clothing (including shoes and socks), backpacks and lunchboxes. We have defined 'violent characters' as those who solve problems using violence. Superheroes certainly fall into that category."
Exchanging One Country for Another
Back when I was in school, I performed a scientific experiment in which I poured a liquid of one color into a beaker that contained liquid of a different color. At first the liquid in the beaker was diluted, but as I kept pouring, the poured liquid eventually overtook the liquid in the beaker, creating an entirely new substance. That's what is happening in Europe as thousands of migrants flee their home countries, seeking refuge in the European Union. Germany, alone, is expected to have received 800,000 migrants by the end of the year, four times last year's number.
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
Kentucky Clerk Not Issuing Gay Marriage Licenses Causes Uproar. North Carolina Shows Better Way.
In the wake of the Supreme Court's ruling redefining marriage throughout the country, there's an open question as to what happens to people who believe marriage is the union of husband and wife. [Monday] the Supreme Court declined to review a lower court's ruling requiring the county clerk of Rowan County, Ky., to issue marriage licenses to all legally eligible couples.