Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
In the South, Grace and Dignity After Charleston Church Shootings
"Lots of folks expected us to do something strange and break out in a riot. Well, they just don't know us," the Rev. Norvel Goff told the packed, multiracial congregation of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., on Sunday. It was the first service since the horrific slaughter of nine innocent souls by a racist fanatic. Not being a Christian, I can only marvel at the dignity and courage of the victims' relatives who forgave the shooter. If I could ever manage such a thing, it would probably take me decades. It took them little more than a day. Less shocking, but almost as uplifting, was the conduct of the broader Charleston community, which has been unified and dignified, despite the expectations of some in the media — and the accused gunman, who had singled out Charleston because of its success at racial integration.
You're What You Say You Are
Rachel A. Dolezal, the recently resigned president of the Spokane, Washington, office of the NAACP, has come under a bit of controversy. Both of her parents are white, but for eight years, Dolezal claimed that she was black. In addition to her role as president of an NAACP chapter, Dolezal was an instructor of Africana studies at Eastern Washington University. Some critics claim that Rachel Dolezal's actions were motivated by greed and narcissism. By becoming a black person, she could more easily become an NAACP leader, chair a police watchdog committee and get a teaching appointment. Dolezal is not the only white woman who has benefited from racial fakery. Sen. Elizabeth Warren claimed that she was of Cherokee Indian ancestry. That helped her land a job at diversity-hungry Harvard University as a professor of law. Not only was her great-grandfather not a Cherokee as she claimed but also he was a white man who boasted of shooting a Cherokee Indian.
Confederate Flag Controversy a Complete Misdirect
Last week, evil racist terrorist Dylann Storm Roof shot nine innocent black members of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Before their bodies had cooled, President Obama attempted to blame the shootings on the National Rifle Association and lack of gun control; Hillary Clinton blamed the shootings on white supremacy and Donald Trump-like overheated rhetoric; Bill Maher blamed Fox News, and suggested that Fox News ought to be droned like al-Qaida propagandist Anwar Al-Awlaki. Despite these divisive tactics, Americans united. There were no racial lines to grief: Thousands of blacks and whites marched in Charleston, packed the devastated church, mourned together.
Government and Politics Won't Solve Our Racial Problem
When horrible things happen, such as the tragic mass murder that occurred at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, we try to understand because it is through understanding that we solve problems. Speaking about the incident, Hillary Clinton said: "It is tempting to dismiss a tragedy like this as an isolated incident — to believe that in today's America, bigotry is largely behind us, that institutionalized racism no longer exists. But despite our best efforts and our highest hopes, America's long struggle with race is far from finished." Some of the Republican candidates for president are taking heat because they have not come out so boldly and clearly as Clinton regarding the racial dimension of this crime.
Importing a Potential Epidemic
The dark truth about disease and Obama’s border lawlessness.
Mankiller Money?
A woman will be on the new $10 bill, bumping Alexander Hamilton aside. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew says he will choose the woman by year's end, based on "input from the public." In one survey of the "public," the first female chief of the Cherokee Nation, Wilma Mankiller, placed fourth. I understand the wish to counter sexism prevalent in early America, but "Mankiller?" The name alone probably reveals something about the attitude of some of those voters. Fortunately, more voted for Harriet Tubman. Tubman escaped slavery to become a leader of the Underground Railroad, then repeatedly returned to slave territory to help others escape. Tubman would be a good choice. What's more libertarian than helping people escape slavery and resist being governed without their consent?
Massacres and Magical Thinking
The Urge to 'Do Something' After the Charleston Church Attack Inspires Half-Baked Proposals
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
The Impending Collision of Obama's Failures
Like two speeding trains heading toward the same collapsed bridge, the dangers and failures of Barack Obama's foreign, economic, and social policies are heading rapidly toward implosion. Our vital security interests, our economic well-being, our religious liberties, and the very fabric of American family life are all at grave risk of becoming casualties of the extreme ideological agenda and simple incompetence of the current Administration. First, with respect to foreign policy: Watching the spread of ISIS throughout the Middle East is like watching the growth of a cancer. Yet President Obama says he still has no fully-formed strategy with which to deal with it. Instead, his focus has been on Iran, to which end he is encouraging Senate approval of a plan that would give Iran the continued capacity to produce nuclear weapons in coming years.
Losing Faith
Last week a Gallup poll revealed that Americans have expressed a loss of confidence in virtually every major institution in the nation, including Congress, the presidency, the Supreme Court, banks, big business, labor, the police and organized religion. "From a broad perspective, Americans' confidence in all institutions over the last two years has been the lowest since Gallup began systematic updates of a larger set of institutions in 1993," said a spokesman for the polling company. Is anyone really surprised? Let's begin with Congress. Right now it is run by the GOP, the party that was handed a massive victory in the 2014 election by an electorate disgusted with the status quo. So what did these stalwarts do? They embraced that status quo. They passed another debt-laden budget with full funding for the DHS, knowing full well Americans were outraged by that agency's effort to continue phasing in amnesty for illegals, even in defiance of a court order by federal judge Andrew Hanen. They approved the nomination of Eric Holder clone Loretta Lynch for U.S. Attorney General, knowing full well she would support that effort and maintain the Justice Department's track record of fostering racial polarization. And right now they are in the midst of force-feeding the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal to an American public just beginning to grasp the idea that while international trade might be beneficial to the nation, ceding our national sovereignty as part of the equation stinks on ice.
Meadows Raked Over by GOP
Only in Congress can *being* a leader cost you a *leadership* job. Unfortunately, that's the risk members take when their votes are driven by their conscience and constituents — not their careers. After a rough few years between Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and the House's more conservative wing, GOP leaders have decided that some members have rocked the party's boat a little too much. As most Republicans know, there's a price for bucking leadership — and Congressman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) is paying it. The popular North Carolina member, a respected member of the House, took it on the chin over the weekend for defying Boehner on last week's rule vote for the trade bill. Like most conservatives, he knew that splitting with leadership would have its consequences. And losing his subcommittee chairmanship a few months into the new session is his.
Amazing Grace in Charleston
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." —Martin Luther King Jr. It is such a rare act that most do not know how to respond, except in stunned silence. Relatives of the nine people murdered while attending a Bible study and prayer meeting at Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, South Carolina, told the accused killer they forgive him. In violent streets we have become used to calls for retribution, appeals for justice, rioting, looting, marches and self-appointed civil rights leaders hogging cameras and microphones with angry people standing behind them and chants of "no justice, no peace."
Hillary and History
There are no sure things in politics, but Hillary Clinton is the closest thing to a sure thing to become the Democrats' candidate for president in 2016. This is one of the painful but inescapable signs of our time. There is nothing in her history that would qualify her for the presidency, and much that should disqualify her. What is even more painful is that none of that matters politically. Many people simply want "a woman" to be president, and Hillary is the best-known woman in politics, though by no means the best qualified. What is Hillary's history? In the most important job she has ever held — Secretary of State — American foreign policy has had one setback after another, punctuated by disasters.
Clinton's Weakness in Important States
Hillary Clinton has relaunched her campaign on Roosevelt Island with a 4,687-word speech. But it's not clear whether she and her husband, Bill Clinton, can win four presidential elections as Franklin D. Roosevelt did. Negative news for Clinton's prospects comes in the latest Quinnipiac polls in the key mega-states of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. In each of them, she leads or ties Republican opponents, though in many cases not by statistically significant margins. But she also is running under 50 percent of the vote in every pairing, averaging 47 percent against six different Republicans in Florida, 44 percent against seven Republicans in Ohio and 46 percent against four Republicans in Pennsylvania. That's a danger zone for a candidate with universal recognition.
Obama Is Bipartisan Like I'm a Democrat
Of all the annoying things President Obama does, one of the worst is his hectoring Republicans and conservatives for their partisanship when he is the quintessential divisive partisan. The Washington Post reports that the day after the shootings in Charleston, South Carolina, Obama began the day angry and frustrated and ended it admitting that he has been unable to change the culture of polarization and gridlock in Washington, which he is obviously blaming for the climate that led to the shootings. Please imagine the level of arrogance it would take to assume one could, as president of the United States, even with the cooperation of other Washington politicians, create an atmosphere that would make such episodes of evil in the nation obsolete.
Monday, June 22, 2015
The Hate of Ignorance
History will criticize George W. Bush for plenty of things, but his ability to lead will not be one of them. "I have a different vision of leadership," the 43rd President once said. "A leader is someone who brings people together." Whether or not Americans agreed with where President Bush was leading, they had no doubt that he was. Seven years later, under a vastly different administration, the nation is in serious turmoil. And the strong, decisive leadership it once knew, is gone. Like his predecessor, President Obama has had his share of crises. From Sandy Hook to Boston, the tests of leadership have been significant — but the response far different. After the horror in Charleston, a weary Obama stood at the podium and acknowledged, "I've had to make statements like this too many times."
From Beyond the Fringe, It's Donald Trump
It speaks well of Republicans that most of them have no use for Donald Trump. The real-estate mogul and reality-TV personality proclaimed himself a presidential candidate on Tuesday, with a bizarre and rambling announcement in the lobby of the Trump Tower in Manhattan that drove the needle on the crazy-meter way into the red zone. I used to think that Trump was about as plausible a GOP candidate as Rufus T. Firefly. I realize now that I owe Firefly an apology. Heading into last week's event, Trump had already established himself as the GOP's most unpopular candidate — the first candidate in modern presidential primary history, as political analyst Harry Enten remarked, to begin a White House run with a majority of his own party against him. Averaging together the three most recent national polls, Enten calculates that a staggering 57 percent of Republicans have an unfavorable view of Trump. In a Fox News survey this month, 59 percent of likely Republican voters said Trump was a candidate they would "never vote for."
Scandals Galore
Every time you turn around these days, there's a new Clintonian scandal in the news. Among conservatives, the scandals raise hackles, while among liberals, they don't even result in a raised eyebrow. It's unfortunate that liberals only care what you say, not what you do, but, unfortunately, that's the only way it can work with that crowd. Once you sign on to be a Democrat, the contract demands that you never dare question why, for instance, Barack Obama has kept all of his documents under lock and key or why Bill Clinton has never served time for sexual assault, accepting bribes or fudging on his income taxes. So long as politicians on the Left utter the customary pieties about urban blacks, illegal aliens, Muslims, public schools, homosexuals, unions and single women, while blaspheming religious people, corporations, gun owners and conservatives, they will continue to hold their own in national elections.
Sunday, June 21, 2015
The Challenge: Children Adrift
As the nation celebrates Father's Day, we jointly reflect on the blessings our fathers have been to us. Our "Papa Doc," now gone, was a loving reflection of the Great Physician. Even as a Johns Hopkins educated pediatrician, he was humble enough to pray throughout the day for God to guide his hands and fill his mind with wisdom as he treated the youngest of patients. He was as honest as the day is long, and ever faithful to God and to his family. As co-authors of this column, the man that fills the role of husband to one and father to the other reveals godly character as he uses his gifts as an engineer and problem solver. Always looking for a better way to accomplish a task, he serves us by expanding our minds and challenging our faith to envision what could be, and shows us how to make it happen. And, like our Papa Doc, he is a man of his word, ever faithful, steadfast and true to his God and to his family.
Why Voters Vote
Hillary Clinton is still refusing to say whether she thinks President Obama should have the same fast track authority her husband and other presidents have had to negotiate trade agreements. She is refusing to say how she would have voted the other day when Democrats in the House of Representatives abandoned their own president en masse after he pleaded with them to give him authority to negotiate with Pacific nations. Her latest comments on the subject are at best described as waffling. This is after she earlier described the Trans-Pacific Partnership as setting a "gold standard in trade agreements" and after chiding her fellow Democrats to "get off the fence on trade." It is after she endorsed the trade agreement President Obama is proposing on 45 public occasions. (All 45 are listed by John Tapper at CNN Politics.) It is despite David Brooks' observation that almost all serious economists are convinced of the economic benefits of free trade for the country as a whole.
Let Greece Go
Now come Greeks bearing the gift of confirmation that Margaret Thatcher was right about socialist governments: "They always run out of other people's money." Greece, from whose ancient playwrights Western drama descends, is in an absurdist melodrama about securing yet another cash infusion from international creditors. This would add another boulder to a mountain of debt almost twice the size of Greece's gross domestic product. This protracted dispute will result in desirable carnage if Greece defaults, thereby becoming a constructively frightening example to all democracies doling out unsustainable, growth-suppressing entitlements. In January, Greek voters gave power to the left-wing Syriza party, one third of which, The Economist reports, consists of "Maoists, Marxists and supporters of Che Guevara." Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, 40, a retired student radical, immediately denounced a European Union declaration criticizing Russia's dismemberment of Ukraine. He chose only one Cabinet member with prior government experience — a leader of Greece's Stalinist communist party. Tsipras' minister for culture and education says Greek education "should not be governed by the principle of excellence ... it is a warped ambition." Practicing what he preaches, he proposes abolishing university entrance exams.