Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Friday, July 10, 2015
Bernie Sanders Is the Future of the Democratic Party
"The rise of Bernie Sanders is proving awkward for the Democratic Party," contends Politico in a recent piece about the surprisingly popular socialist presidential candidate. Well, maybe it's not *that* surprising. And it's probably not *that* awkward. Politico could have just as easily declared: The rise of Bernie Sanders is a completely predictable outcome of the Democratic Party's trajectory. Or, maybe: The rise of Bernie Sanders portends a socialistic future for the Democratic Party. After all, while the press had fun detailing every rightward lurch of the conservative movement, not only has the "socialist surge" been a restive force within Democratic Party politics during the Obama Age, but it's been making tremendous policy progress.
'A Republic, If You Can Keep It.' Can We? Will We?
When Benjamin Franklin emerged from Independence Hall at the close of the Constitutional Convention, a lady asked him what kind of government had been formed. Franklin reportedly responded, "A republic, if you can keep it." Franklin's answer has always been interesting because it revealed that he well understood the profound difference between a pure democracy and a constitutional republic. But far more intriguing to me was Franklin's implied concern that the newly crafted scheme of government was hardly self-sustaining and ultimately vulnerable. He and the other framers understood that liberty was rare in world history and that it would be no easy task to design a system that would both maximize and preserve it. I believe that until relatively recently most Americans cherished this system precisely because it was uniquely equipped to accomplish those purposes. Now I am not so sure.
Unasked Questions in the LGBT Wars
For decades now, the liberal "news" media have demonstrated a dramatic tilt toward the gay agenda, beginning with their notion that there is no such thing as a "gay agenda." But now, as the Supreme Court has mandated gay "marriage" in all 50 states, the liberal world is celebrating the agenda it has been pushing for decades. Television coverage has been the usual appalling agitprop, but in this case it was also a victory lap. News segments have been either unanimous in their "analysis" or, if "balance" is presented, stacked by about 5-to-1. Simply put, a debate is not allowed, just as it is not allowed on global warming, gun rights, abortion and a host of other liberal imperatives. So much for free speech.
The Democrats' Trump Card
President Obama seems on the verge of the most abject diplomatic capitulation in American history — to Iran, our bitterest enemy — and Republicans are arguing about Donald Trump? The prospect of a deal with Iran is dumbfounding and infuriating, as the U.S. held all the cards in the protracted negotiations and yet executed serial surrenders to the Iranians, rather like a courtier bowing his way backward from a monarch. While the Obama administration is paving the way for a possible mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv or New York in the near term, we're all tying ourselves in knots about what Trump said about Mexicans. The Democrats seem to have a Trump card. Immigration arouses tremendous rage among both left and right. The left, always panting to push grievance buttons, transforms illegal immigrants into yet another clientele — as if those who enter the country illegally are *entitled* to legal status, benefits and even citizenship. They establish "sanctuary cities" as if enforcing immigration laws amounts to persecution.
Of Donuts, Divas and Celebrity Tantrum-itis
There's a regular feature in grocery gossip magazines titled "Stars: They're just like us!" Supposedly "candid" photos show actors and starlets taking out the trash, dropping off their kids at school and walking their dogs to emphasize their Everyday Peoplehood. But we all know it's another manufactured Tinseltown myth. Routine outbreaks of celebrity tantrum-itis remind us that the denizens of the entertainment world are a spoiled bratty species unto themselves. Take pop diva Ariana Grande. This week, the wide-eyed tartlet got caught profanely bashing our country, mocking cashiers and spreading her precious spit on donuts for sale at a Lake Elsinore, Calif., shop.
Pluto and Us
We need a pick me up. Amid the vandalizing of Palmyra, the imminent extinction of the northern white rhino, the disarray threatening Europe's most ambitious attempt ever at peaceful unification — amid plague and pestilence and, by God, in the middle of Shark Week — where can humanity turn for uplift? Meet New Horizons, arriving at Pluto on July 14. Small and light, the fastest spacecraft ever launched, it left Earth with such velocity that it shot past our moon in nine hours. A speeding bullet the size of a Steinway, it has flown 9 1/2 years to the outer edges of the solar system. To Pluto, the now-demoted "dwarf planet" that lives beyond the Original Eight in the far distant "third zone" of the solar system — the Kuiper Belt, an unimaginably huge ring of rocks and ice and sundry debris where the dwarf is king.
Latin America's Leftist Slide
Since the start of the 21st Century, the leftward lurch in Latin America has been unmistakable. By early 2008, the nations of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Venezuela, and, to a certain extent, Mexico and Peru, have all embraced center-left political parties or movements. The reason for the tilt is a familiar one: the siren song of government-mandated wealth redistribution and increased levels of social spending have resonated with people with a long history of economic and development troubles. "I think it's difficult for conservative candidates to move forward because inequality is such an entrenched issue," said Ana Quintana, a Latin America expert at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. "And it's hard to implement free-market, institutional reforms when you need to make sure a significant portion of the population can get enough to eat."
Thursday, July 9, 2015
A Welcome Check on Bureaucratic Power
To say that conservatives haven't had much to cheer about at the Supreme Court lately is an understatement. Much has been said — and rightly so — denouncing the judicial acrobatics required to save Obamacare and strike down state bans on same-sex marriage. So I wanted to take a moment to spotlight a case where the court got it right: Michigan v. EPA. As the saying goes, even a blind pig finds an acorn once in a while. And in ruling that the Environmental Protection Agency improperly ignored costs when it decided to regulate hazardous air pollutants from power plants, the majority made the right call. At issue is Section 112 of the Clean Air Act, which directs the EPA to reduce air pollutants if the agency deems the regulation "appropriate and necessary." Part of what goes into determining what regulations are, in fact, "appropriate and necessary" is cost. And when it comes to the regulation in this case, the court found that the EPA hadn't done that.
ISIS: 0; Ted Kennedy: Too Many to Count
In the days leading up to July Fourth weekend, Americans were hysterically warned about an ISIS attack in the United States. Congressman Peter King, for example, somberly advised Fox News viewers that "this is the most concerned I've seen the FBI and Homeland Security" since 9/11. And, once again, the weekend came and went without anyone in America being killed by ISIS, but a lot of people being killed by immigrants — legal, illegal, second generation and anchor babies. There's no way to know exactly how many Americans were killed July Fourth weekend as a result of the country's immigration policies, because the media don't trust us with the truth.
As Greece Collapses, the Big Loser Is Socialism
The Green citizens have rolled the dice and voted overwhelmingly to reject the "austerity" referendum. This was a way for voters to stick a finger in the eye of their creditors. The left around the world has responded to the vote with thunderous applause — and is selling the results as a vote for "the little guy." The Greeks believed that voting against the debt restructuring plan would give them more leverage with the banks, the IMF and the EU. But what happens now in Greece? The banks are shutting down this week. Withdrawals from bank accounts are being tightly restricted. Greece is formally in default on its loans and in the weeks ahead as more IMF and EU loans come due, Greece is about to slide into fiscal oblivion. This is the natural and unavoidable consequence of socialism everywhere it has been tried.
Libs Kick Off Tour de Rants
In the 12 days since the Supreme Court's marriage ruling, the Left's army is already marching on its next target: the First Amendment. At least two movements are finding more common ground in the wake of the decision — secular and LGBT activists. The pair are becoming fast allies against what they view as a common enemy: religious freedom. Since June 26, that bond has only strengthened, as both sides converge on the church in the first wave of post-ruling attacks. Like us, they heard Solicitor General Donald Verrilli's threat to strip religious schools' tax exemptions and are moving quickly to turn that possibility into reality. Barry Lynn, a longtime thorn in the First Amendment's side, is the first to capitalize on this new foothold for religious crackdown, announcing [Tuesday] that his Americans United for the Separation of Church and State would be launching an initiative to destroy the tax relief for faith-based schools. Starting with Christian colleges, Lynn's "Protect Thy Neighbor" project promises to use the IRS as a weapon to force same-sex "married" housing on universities with natural marriage views.
The Origins of Bernie Sanders: A Public Service Announcement
Political observers are still speculating about whether the July 4th New York Times report on the loony biography of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was meant as a hit-job or an encomium. He is closing in on the Democratic frontrunner, Hillary Clinton. Joe Biden is standing in the wings. Other ambitious Democratic pols are smelling blood. Sanders is surging in New Hampshire, the first primary state. The Times went all the way back to the late 1960s and early 1970s to capture young Bernie when he was a hippie expatriate from the Bronx forging a political career for himself among the left-wing youth movement that was then intent on ousting Vermont's political "establishment" and moving on to other states, possibly to the whole wide world. Everyone would learn to play the guitar, sit cross-legged in the dirt and affix flowers in their hair.
Cubans Pay the Price for Obama's 'Engagement' With the Castros
On July 1, President Obama announced the formal resumption of diplomatic relations with Cuba, asserting confidently that "American engagement ... is the best way to advance our interests and support for democracy and human rights." On July 5, the Communist regime in Havana delivered its customary response. It arrested more than 80 democratic dissidents, including at least 60 members of Ladies in White, a peaceful group of brave women who march weekly in support of husbands, fathers, and other relatives imprisoned in the Castros' jails. Many of those detained were hurt, some severely. One prominent human-rights activist, Antonio Rodiles, was sent to the hospital with a shattered nose; he had reportedly been handcuffed by security forces, then beaten for shouting "Long live freedom" and "Long live human rights." There had been even more arrests and beatings in the days leading up to Obama's Rose Garden statement. Some 225 Cuban dissidents across the island were arrested the previous Sunday, with Ladies in White again prominent among those targeted. In fact, there have been police actions against Cuban democrats for 12 Sundays in a row — the government makes a point of going after dissidents as they walk to Mass or emerge from church holding photos of imprisoned loved ones.
They Hate Us, but Who Cares?
In her 1985 speech after receiving the Best Actress Oscar for her role in "Places in the Heart," actress Sally Field famously gushed, "You like me; you really, really like me." The latest in a long history of surveys examining the public's level of trust in the news media might paraphrase Field's line this way: "You hate us; you really, really hate us, but we don't care." The 2015 State of the First Amendment Survey, a project of the Newseum Institute's First Amendment Center, has "discovered" what most of us could have told them. According to the survey, "Only 24 percent now think that the news media try to report on news without bias. This represents a 17-point drop from last year and a 22-point drop from 2013. In fact, the 24 percent who now say the media try to report news without bias is the lowest since we began asking this question in 2004."
Disregard for the Law Is America's Greatest Threat
Barbarians at the gate usually don't bring down once-successful civilizations. Nor does climate change. Even mass epidemics like the plague that decimated sixth-century Byzantium do not necessarily destroy a culture. Far more dangerous are institutionalized corruption, a lack of transparency and creeping neglect of existing laws. All the German euros in the world will not save Greece if Greeks continue to dodge taxes, featherbed government and see corruption as a business model. Even obeying so-called minor laws counts. It is no coincidence that a country where drivers routinely flout traffic laws and throw trash out the window is also a country that cooks its books and lies to its creditors. Everything from littering to speeding seems negotiable in Athens in a way not true of Munich, Zurich or London.
Trump Towers in 'First Debate'
FYI, my fellow Americans. Donald Trump, a political amateur, has won the first Republican presidential debate of the 2016 primary. It wasn't a formal scheduled TV debate. That political circus doesn't debut on Fox News until next month. The debate Trump won was the one dealing with illegal immigrants from Mexico that he started three weeks ago when he officially announced he was running for president. Trump, who didn't bother to use a prepared speech or read from a teleprompter, said blunt and unfriendly things about his fellow GOP candidates and their lousy leadership skills, which the liberal mainstream media gleefully reported.
Donald Trump Strikes a Nerve
Businessman and celebrity Donald Trump, in his nearly hour-long, teleprompter-less announcement of his GOP presidential candidacy, said: "The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else's problems. ... When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people." His crude and over-the-top comment instantly made him the most hated white man since Donald Sterling. Never mind that Trump hit on a topic the media are loath to admit: our borders remain porous. The backlash against Trump was fierce. NBC, which carried Trump's show, "The Apprentice," ended their relationship with him. Univision dropped Trump's Miss USA pageant. ESPN moved a golf tournament from a Trump-owned resort to another site. Macy's dropped Trump's menswear line. And New York's Mayor Bill de Blasio said, "We are reviewing Trump contracts with the city." For New York City, the Trump organization runs a carousel, an ice-skating rink and a golf course.
A Tantrum Masquerading as Governance
When Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras decided to call a referendum on a bailout offer from Greece's creditors — an offer that expired before Sunday's referendum — he informed the Greek nation in a televised speech. At 1 a.m. Mediterranean lifestyles are different. Greece's chosen style of living is dependent on others' choices. Tsipras is a peculiar phenomenon, a defiant mendicant. He urged voters to do what they did. In voting "no," they asserted that Greece's dignity is incompatible with loans that come with conditions attached. Tsipras' Syriza Party insists, however, that dignity is compatible with perpetual dependency on the forbearance and productivity of others.
State-Based Accounting 101: Ranking Fiscal Condition
One of the most boring classes I took in college was on accounting. Over the years, however, I've come to understand the importance of proper and transparent accounting. As the disastrous examples of Greece, Puerto Rico, Detroit and Chicago demonstrate, dodging long-term obligations with rosy forecasts or risky assumptions usually ends badly. Faulty accounting can ruin a nation (Greece), shake an economy (Puerto Rico) and devastate a city (Detroit, Chicago). New research by my Mercatus Center colleague Eileen Norcross reveals that more fiscal disasters loom in the United States. She ranks each state's financial health using data from standardized and audited Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFRs) that show short- and long-term debt along with key fiscal obligations, including unfunded pensions and health-care benefits. Beyond the ranking itself and the disastrous fiscal health of several states, the study points to worrisome structural weaknesses shared by most states. Unfortunately, she notes, these issues are mostly overlooked by ignorant or unscrupulous state officials who are blinded by poor accounting techniques.
Wednesday, July 8, 2015