Right Opinion

Thumbs Down for Justice Roberts

Last week's Supreme Court rulings on Obamacare (Burwell) and same-sex marriage (Obergefell) were enormously dispiriting for reasons beyond the substantive issues of socialized medicine and same-sex marriage. I couldn't be more opposed to socialized medicine, which I believe is the endgame of Obamacare, and I am opposed to the societal sanctioning of same-sex marriage, but those are not my greatest concerns with these two rulings. In both cases, the court flouted the Constitution, the rule of law, the English language and the truth itself. People who appreciate the unique American system of government and those who value truth itself should be very concerned.

Supreme Insanity

The Supreme Court delivered a trifecta of insanity last week, courtesy of a majority who have made one thing abundantly clear: the nation as we once knew it, is on the brink of elimination. Perhaps it was inevitable, given a culture long on self-absorption and self-entitlement, and disastrously short on analytical skills and self respect. And while supporters of the Court's decisions are in a celebratory mode, their happiness will be short-lived. That's because what really got tossed on the ash heap of history last week was the rule of law, states' rights, common decency and any incentive to better one's lot in life. You won't get those types of characterizations from progressives or their mainstream media allies. When they're not busy figuring out how they can ultimately undermine religious freedom, they're attempting to purge anything they find distasteful from the nation's historical lexicon.

Supreme Court Lets Obama Administration Say Words Don't Mean What They Say

For most people, words mean what they say. But not necessarily for a majority of Supreme Court justices in two important decisions handed down Thursday. In the most prominent, King v. Burwell, Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for a 6-3 majority, ruled that the words "established by the state" mean "established by the state or the federal government." In a second decision, Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project, Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for a 5-4 majority, ruled that the omission in the 1968 Fair Housing Act of words banning acts that have a disparate impact on people of different races didn't matter. The plaintiff could bring a lawsuit anyway.

Supreme Court Disasters

Many people are looking at the recent Supreme Court decisions about ObamaCare and same-sex marriage in terms of whether they think these are good or bad policies. That is certainly a legitimate concern, for both those who favor those policies and those who oppose them. But there is a deeper and more long-lasting impact of these decisions that raise the question whether we are still living in America, where "we the people" are supposed to decide what kind of society we want, not have our betters impose their notions on us. The Constitution of the United States says that the federal government has only those powers specifically granted to it by the Constitution — and that all other powers belong either to the states or to the people themselves.

Same-Sex Marriage Is Only the Beginning

"Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." What Winston Churchill said in 1942 following a British military victory in North Africa might also be said about Friday's narrow 5-4 decision by the Supreme Court legalizing marriage between people of the same sex. That the majority threw a bone to religious people, their churches and institutions, saying they could continue to preach and teach that homosexual marriage is wrong, will almost certainly be challenged by gay activists and secularists whose goal is to drive religious people, and especially Christians, out of the public square.

SCOTUS Rewrites ObamaCare to Save It

High court validates the president's lies.

Time for a Principled Policy on Iran

Almost 30 years ago, when the US was negotiating with the Soviet Union about intermediate-range nuclear weapons, President Ronald Reagan was told that the Russians like to talk in proverbs. A writer on Russia taught him the proverb "doveryain no proveryai," which means trust but verify. It was a phrase Reagan would use many times in his dealings with Mikhail Gorbachev — and one that seems particular wise now. As I'm writing this, the US and five other nations (the permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) are engaged in nuclear talks with another adversary, Iran (towards a June 30 deadline for an agreement that will be missed). And the wisdom of the Russian proverb could not be more timely.

It'll Take More Than Tanks to Keep Putin From the Baltics

During a visit to Estonia on Tuesday, Defense Secretary Ash Carter made it official: The United States is sending a combat brigade's worth of tanks, armored vehicles, and other military equipment to six NATO allies in the Baltics and Eastern Europe. For the first time since the fall of the Iron Curtain, Washington will station heavy weaponry on territory that was once under Moscow's boot. Along with plans for a new NATO rapid-response force, as well as a series of large-scale military exercises this month, the pre-positioning of equipment in the former Soviet satellites is part of what is being called "the biggest reinforcement of NATO forces since the end of the Cold War." To judge from the news coverage, you could be forgiven for thinking America and its allies were revving up for war with Russia.

Supreme Deception

[Friday], in one breathtaking move, the nation's highest court took for itself the power reserved for its people — overturning the votes of millions of Americans and demanding that they walk away from millennia of human history, human nature, and the explicit teachings of Scripture in the process. Exactly two years after this court took an iron gavel to federal marriage law, the same justices came back to finish the job — inventing a sweeping "right" to same-sex marriage no founding father intended. Are we disappointed? Yes — but not surprised by an increasingly activist Court that sees itself as super-legislators. While five justices may have trampled the will of more than 50 million people, they do not have the moral authority to redefine marriage. Just as Americans refused to accept the Court's decision on abortion 42 years as legitimate, they will not accept this one. Like the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, this all but ensures that America will not achieve broad social consensus on marriage. Why? Because it will be used to rob Americans of their rights in the marketplace, in the education of their children, and most importantly, in the expression of their beliefs on marriage.

Spelling Bees & S.O.B's

I recently received an email from a reader named Roy who said that he wished he could put together a single GOP presidential candidate who had the best attributes of all the announced candidates without all the things there are not to like about them. He went on to ask how I would go about cobbling together this ideal composite. I agreed to give it a try, although I acknowledged that if I left out all the things I don't like about the 15 or 20 contenders, I would be left with more spare parts than Dr. Frankenstein. The winner I came up with was someone who possessed Carly Fiorina's intelligence, Marco Rubio's smile and ethnicity, Dr. Ben Carson's speaking voice, Scott Walker's record as governor and public union-buster, Jeb Bush's bankroll and my charm, good looks and sense of humor.

Papal Economics and Papal Climatology

Pope Francis weighed in on global warming the other day after convening a conference of climate scientists from around the world. His recent encyclical on the subject, "Laudato Si," was awful in describing what we know about climate science, dreadful in discussing possible solutions and completely wrong in understanding the role that economics must play. Let's begin by distinguishing between "is" and "ought." Scientists try to understand what is. And there is broad agreement about what we know and don't know. (I'll briefly summarize that below.) But there is not broad agreement about what we should do about it or whether we should do anything at all. And even if there were, there is no reason why the rest of us should pay any particular attention to it.

The Challenge: Missing the Point

It's easy to mistake the means for the ends and in doing so, to settle for less than we were intended for. For example, we all feel pressure to be productive and to use our time wisely, but if we're not careful, we will, as Peter Drucker says, manage for the sake of management instead of managing for the sake of results. There are many stories in the Bible that reflect this part of human nature — our tendency to miss the point, which in biblical terms is often known simply as sin. One of these stories comes from the Gospel of John, and another, from Genesis. In Jesus' day, there was a pool in Jerusalem where many disabled people gathered. They believed that once in a while, when the water was stirred, the first to enter into it would be healed. There was one there who "had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, 'Do you want to get well?' 'Sir,' the invalid replied, 'I have no one to help me into the pool…' Then Jesus said to him, 'Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.' At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked" (John 5:1-9).

The Damaging Doctrine of John Roberts

Conservatives are dismayed about the Supreme Court's complicity in rewriting the Affordable Care Act — its ratification of the IRS' disregard of the statute's plain and purposeful language. But they have contributed to this outcome. Their decades of populist praise of judicial deference to the political branches has borne this sour fruit. The court says the ACA's stipulation that subsidies are to be administered by the IRS using exchanges "established by the state" should not be construed to mean what it says. Otherwise the law will not reach as far as it will if federal exchanges can administer subsidies in states that choose not to establish exchanges. The ACA's legislative history, however, demonstrates that the subsidies were deliberately restricted to distribution through states' exchanges in order to pressure the states into establishing their own exchanges.

A Moral World Requires Moral Violence

Pope Francis had harsh words for the arms industry on Sunday, condemning as "two-faced" those who claim to be Christian while manufacturing weapons or investing in companies that produce them. "It is hypocritical to talk about peace and make weapons," the pope told an audience of young people in Turin. "Doing one thing and saying another. What hypocrisy!" It's not the first time Francis has blasted the defense industry. In May, he denounced the arms business as an "industry of death," run by people who "don't want peace" because "they make more money from war." In February, he labeled weapons dealers "merchants of death" and blamed them for "furthering a cycle of hate, fratricide, and violence."

King v. Burwell Decision Changes Nothing for ObamaCare Repeal

Hysteria, Inc.

Recently, I realized the reason that liberals are so unhappy is that everything throws them into a panic. I'm not just referring to things like armed men in uniform, be they members of the military or law enforcement, but, literally, everything, including the weather. In fact, in the midst of a world that sees the Russian bear expanding westward, the Chinese dragon expanding eastward and the entire Middle East going nuclear, we have such liberal icons as Barack Obama and Pope Francis insisting the greatest threat facing mankind is global warming. They base this contention on unscientific computer models, while ignoring the fact that the earth's temperature has remained stable for the past 17 years. What's more, none of the nonsense Al Gore began spouting in the 1990s about rising sea levels, melting icebergs and drowning polar bears, has come to pass. But when one's actual mission isn't to save the planet, but to destroy capitalism and to become enormously wealthy doing it, facts are simply an inconvenient truth.

Supreme Court vs. Rule of Law

Here is John Roberts, chief oracle of the United States of America, from Thursday's King v. Burwell decision: "Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them. If at all possible, we must interpret the Act in a way that is consistent with the former, and avoids the latter." What the statement illustrates is that for Roberts, the law is a subordinate concern. I know, I know, the Affordable Care Act is moral and decent and that's all that matters. Liberals demand we govern through empathy-based jurisprudence rather than anything resembling the antiquated tenants of founding principles. If you care about the latter more than you do the former, the fact that Supreme Court justices are aping the consequentialist arguments of the left and then working backward to make their legal justifications is probably the worst sign for checks and balances yet.

With Ruling, SCOTUS Poisons Burwell

The 381,517 words of the President's health care law may be a lot for Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to read, but the Supreme Court should have had no trouble with four. At the heart of the King v. Burwell ObamaCare case was one simple question: Did the words "established by the state" actually mean "established by the state?" "You would think the answer would be obvious," Justice Antonin Scalia said, "so obvious there would hardly be a need for the Supreme Court to hear a case about it." Unfortunately for Americans, nothing is obvious in Washington anymore — not even the plain language of the written law. In one breathtaking move, six justices chose to ignore those four words — and with it, Congress's clear intent on the President's health care exchange. Together, they gave the White House another license for lawlessness, costing Americans billions of dollars in illegal subsidies in the process.

The Obama Robot's Gushy Podcast

Marc Maron is a stand-up comedian and radio host in Los Angeles. Hipsters love his podcast, mostly interviews with other comedians, which he titled "WTF." On his website, the merchandise includes a coffee mug that says "Pow! I (soiled) my pants." You can understand why he was shocked President Obama wanted to grant him an interview. As for Obama's tastes, and his devotion to the decorum of his office, nothing shocks us. He has neither. Eleven years ago, Maron was an original crew member on the leftist radio network Air America, where he hosted a show he called "Morning Sedition." They were filled with certitude that they would overtake The Rush Limbaugh Show with their snobbish liberal comedy. It belly-flopped, then sank.

The Media's Vile Attacks on Conservative Assimilationists

I have had enough of smug liberal elites wrapped in their "Celebrate Diversity" banners tearing down minority conservatives. Look in the mirror, media and academia bigots. Your own reflexive racism and divisive rhetoric are poisoning public discourse. There's nothing "progressive" about attacking the children and grandchildren of immigrants who proudly embrace an American identity. We are not "self-hating." You just hate what we believe. The most recent grenade tossed by the jack-booted Enforcers of Ethnic Authenticity came from The Washington Post this week. The Beltway fish-wrapper hyped a 2,100-word investigation of GOP Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal with a condescending quote from Professor G. Pearson Cross, who sneered: "There's not much Indian left in Bobby Jindal."