Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Saturday, January 10, 2015
A Time to Act on Energy Security
With the new year comes a new Congress, and, as always, energy policy will be a major priority for this 114th session. Now that Republicans have regained control of both the Senate and the House, and with President Obama looking to establish his legacy, there is a unique opportunity to build positive momentum on energy security and reduce America's vulnerability to the historically volatile oil market. Oil prices are at their lowest in years, and Americans may be tempted to think we are entering a new era of stable, cheap fuel. Indeed, we find ourselves in a phase of temporarily low prices on the oil market rollercoaster. Unfortunately, those easily forgotten high prices will inevitably return, shocking the economy in the process and damaging U.S. productivity. This scenario will replay itself again and again, unless we take steps to avoid it.
Corker's Folly
What can Sen. Bob Corker be thinking? On his first Sunday-news-show appearance of the year, right at the beginning of a new Republican Senate era, does Corker communicate a new GOP message of growth and reform? Does he talk about business and personal tax reduction that might rejuvenate start-ups, higher wages and job-creation? Does he talk about rolling back Obamacare or regulations in general? Does he discuss sensible immigration reform, including border security? Free-trade promotion that will help consumers and businesses? Education reform? The Keystone pipeline? No. His first Republican message is: Raise the federal gasoline tax. He said this on Fox News Sunday and he repeated it on CNBC the next day.
Dying of Laughter in North Korea
North Korea isn't very funny, and the ghastly Kim Jong Un is no joke. All the more reason not to discount humor -- the caustic humor of mockery, satire, and farce -- as a weapon against the totalitarian regime in Pyongyang. For all the outrage generated by North Korea's cyber attack on Sony Pictures' email network, more cold-blooded by far is the Kim government's response within its own borders to Seth Rogen's sophomoric new spoof. "North Korea has begun the expected crackdown to prevent the movie 'The Interview' from polluting the 'people's paradise,'" reports Nightwatch, a national-security intelligence newsletter. "A three-star general heads up a border task force to keep the movie out. Task force members are going house to house searching for copies of the movie." Any North Korean caught owning or watching the film is likely to be charged with a capital crime.
Friday, January 9, 2015
A Reaganaut Who Made a Difference
When I heard that my friend Martin Anderson had died over the weekend, I gave thanks for his extraordinarily inquisitive mind and the critical role that an institution can play in advancing the cause of a free society. Martin was an economist and political scientist. Stanford University's Hoover Institution, where he was a senior fellow for more than 40 years, gave him the freedom to explore big policy ideas, and later to discover the hidden depths of a remarkable president -- Ronald Reagan. Martin, who was 78 when he died, was trained as an engineer at Dartmouth and earned a doctorate from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1962. His doctoral dissertation, "The Federal Bulldozer," a best seller when published as a book in 1964, destroyed the myth of effective federal urban-renewal programs.
Greek Radical Left on the March
How the far Left plans to "renegotiate" the debt obligations of the bankrupt country.
Giving in to the Terrorists
It is easy enough for those in the media to recite the words "nous sommes Charlie Hebdo" in solidarity with the victims of Wednesday's terror attack on the editorial offices of a satirical magazine in Paris. But uttering slogans is cheap. In the wake of the killings, most major media in the U.S. have refused to show the cartoons that the terrorists claimed warranted the slaughter of 10 journalists and two police officers. It is possible to see the cartoons online, if one goes to the trouble to search for them. And a few media outlets have published one or more. The Washington Post did so on Thursday -- and perhaps others will follow their lead in the days to come. But a host of media organizations have demurred, including CNN, the Associated Press, Fox News Channel and The New York Times.
Common Core: Republican Minefield?
Nine months from now, Republican candidates for president will meet on the stage of the Reagan Presidential Library (with the old Air Force One providing great visuals) for the first debate of the 2016 race. It seems likely that among those in attendance will be at least four -- Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal, Mike Huckabee and Jeb Bush -- who support (or once supported) the Common Core. Republicans are about to find out what's been percolating among the grassroots. Properly undertaken, a debate about Common Core could be healthy for the party and the country. Or it could be an unholy squabble over rumors and bogeymen. We'll see. The old joke has it that America will never adopt national education standards because Republicans hate anything with the word "national" in it, and Democrats hate anything with the word "standards" in it. Common Core's advocates accordingly worked through the National Governors Association and other state groups. Backed with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Common Core has now been adopted by 41 states. The Obama administration boosted participation by dangling waivers from some requirements of the No Child Left Behind law, as well as stimulus funds, to states that adopted Common Core. That alone was enough to alienate many Republicans.
Media Cowards and the Cartoon Jihad
I have never laughed so bitterly as I did while reading Thursday's lead editorial by the great pretender-defenders of free speech at The New York Times. Paying obligatory lip service to the 10 cartoonists and staffers of the Paris satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo who were slaughtered for offending Islam, the Times intoned: "It is absurd to suggest that the way to avoid terrorist attacks is to let the terrorists dictate standards in a democracy." My GPS tracker of journalistic hypocrisy immediately identified the Times editorial board's high-altitude location -- ensconced atop their own Mt. Everest of absurdity and self-unawareness.
Still Lying About Hollywood's Communists
Ask anyone under 40 to identify Paul McCartney or "I Want to Hold Your Hand," and the odds are you'll get a blank look in return. Ask someone under 30 to describe the Soviet menace and you may well get the same response. The first one is harmless ignorance, and some might argue the second one is as well. After all, it's over and we won, right? What's not harmless is a never-ending effort to glorify communist conspirators in Hollywood, like the forthcoming movie "Trumbo," starring "Breaking Bad" star Bryan Cranston as blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. Entertainment Weekly magazine spewed the usual leftist apologist narrative: "Trumbo -- who had been a member of the Communist party during World War II when the Soviets were a major American ally -- was punished for his principled stand for free speech and the Constitution."
The U.S. Constitution and Religious Liberty
The Wall Street Journal recently ran a fascinating op-ed by William A. Galston, "The Christian Heart of American Exceptionalism," much of which I agree with but some of which I don't. Galston argues that the idea of American exceptionalism should not be discounted and that its primary source is the "durability of American religious belief" -- mostly Christianity. Bravo. This will doubtlessly come as a shock to zealots for the blurry concept of multiculturalism, which on its face dictates that all cultures are equal and that all who disagree with the notion are more or less bigoted. At a deeper level, the concept is actually rooted in resentment toward Western and American culture.
Will the Speaker Do Some Listening?
The Republican-controlled Congress is underway, and so is the controversy surrounding it. After a couple of rocky days, "retribution" has been the buzzword on Capitol Hill for the new majority. But as of this afternoon, rumors are swirling that Republican leaders may be rethinking their revenge against conservatives who voted *with* their constituents and against the House Speaker. Angry and embarrassed, Boehner had struck back almost immediately, stripping three leaders from key committees and bills within hours of pledging to "stand tall and prove the skeptics wrong." But the day of reckoning meant for conservatives seemed to affect the Speaker more, as headlines of "revenge" and "paybacks" clogged the web. Yesterday, facing a storm of criticism, Speaker Boehner seemed to back off slightly, calling the moves against Reps. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.), Rich Nugent (R-Fla.), and Randy Weber (R-Texas) "temporary." Other members like Reps. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Steve Garrett (R-N.J.), whose fate as subcommittee chairs looked bleak, may get a second chance.
Paris Attack Puts Western World in a Bad Spot
The vigils in Paris are moving. The hashtag plumes of #JeSuisCharlie ("I am Charlie") are endearing. The expressions of condemnation from Muslim leaders are commendable, as are the assurances of solidarity and support from Western governments. But, as a practical matter, they don't change a thing: The jihadists won this week. Even if the atrocity in Paris served to imbue the civilized world -- Muslim and non-Muslim alike -- with a newfound resolve to battle radical Islam (it almost certainly won't), this still stands as a victory for the bad guys.
Martin Anderson: A Remembrance
Lou Cannon has a nice remembrance in RealClearPolitics of Martin Anderson, the economist and adviser to Ronald Reagan who died last week at 78. He touches on all of Anderson's accomplishments, from his successful advocacy in the Nixon White House to abolish the military draft to his unearthing, with his wife Annelise Anderson and Kiron Skinner, the handwritten drafts of Ronald Reagan's radio speeches, which show the impressive breadth of Reagan's reading and depth of his thinking. Let me add one more item to the list: Anderson's 1964 book "The Federal Bulldozer: A Critical Analysis of Urban Renewal 1942-1962." When I first met Anderson at the Hoover Institution, his professional base after he left the Reagan administration, he was pleased when I mentioned the book and the influence it had on me. I had imagined that urban renewal was a good idea; Anderson demonstrated that it was a terrible one. The theory, promoted by New Dealers but endorsed by the conservative Republican Sen. Robert Taft, was that poor housing conditions blighted people's lives and that the free market would never produce adequate housing. This had some plausibility since very little housing was built in the United States between 1930 and 1945, because of depression and war; and since many New York tenements built around 1900 were notoriously dismal places.
I Hereby Resolve in 2015...
I'm not big on making New Year's resolutions, but I do pledge to continue holding the feet of liberals to the flames until they pull this computer keyboard out of my cold, dead hands. Although I know it's too much to ask that left-wingers stop providing me with so much grist for my mill, I would appreciate it if they would at least slow down the rate at which they commit their mischief. I'm not getting any younger, after all, and I would appreciate a chance to occasionally catch my breath.
The Revenue-Neutral Gas Tax
For 32 years I've been advocating a major tax on petroleum. I've got as much chance this time around as did Don Quixote with windmills. But I shall tilt my lance once more. The only time you can even think of proposing a gas tax increase is when oil prices are at rock bottom. When I last suggested the idea six years ago, oil was selling at $40 a barrel. It eventually rose back to $110. It's now around $48. Correspondingly, the price at the pump has fallen in the last three months by more than a dollar to about $2.20 per gallon. As a result, some in Congress are talking about a 10- or 20-cent hike in the federal tax to use for infrastructure spending. Right idea, wrong policy. The hike should not be 10 cents but $1. And the proceeds should not be spent by, or even entrusted to, the government. They should be immediately and entirely returned to the consumer by means of a cut in the Social Security tax.
Supreme Court Shouldn't Ignore Constitution to Save ObamaCare
If the Supreme Court dismantles a core provision in Obamacare, America will be plunged into a pre-2010 level of dystopia -- or worse. If Democrats were to be forced by the court to follow the law they wrote, then 36 states that aren't interested in hosting federal "exchanges" would no longer be forced to do so, and consequently, the American dream would be shattered. So needless to say, the pending Supreme Court challenge over the Affordable Care Act via King v. Burwell is the most significant decision since Hobby Lobby or perhaps Citizens United -- or whenever the most recent time was when the world was going to come tumbling down around us. And while pretending that the legal challenge is laughably weak -- a politically motivated charade that has absolutely no chance of success -- most left-wing pundits who've weighed in on the matter feel oddly compelled to urge SCOTUS to contemplate a whole host of factors that have nothing to do with the law.
Thursday, January 8, 2015
The Grudge Report
Somebody needs to remind John Boehner that it's a gavel, not a hammer! Unfortunately for many of the conservatives who voted their conscience in yesterday's leadership election, that message didn't make it to the House Speaker. The Speaker used his first hours back in power to pummel members who didn't support his reelection. After the biggest challenge to a Speaker since the Civil War, conservative rebels got a taste of Boehner's displeasure when two were knocked off key committees and another was stripped from a bill he planned to sponsor. For the 24 who stood up to the third-term Speaker, the price of principle is already swift -- and severe.
Quarterbacking Congress
I'm not a huge fan of John Boehner. But now that he has both houses of Congress to work with, let's give him a chance to move the Republican offense down the field to the end zone. After fighting off a challenge to his speakership this week, Boehner has held on to his job as the starting QB of the GOP's legislative team in Washington. Boehner and his Boys of Winter have a lot of hard work to do for the next two years, on and off the field.
Dying for a Cigarette in New York
If you're wondering why New York City police officers keep turning their back on Mayor Bill de Blasio, let's review parts of the mayor's recent speech on the Eric Garner case that have been removed from the "Official Website of the City of New York." De Blasio said: "I was at the White House the other day, and the president of the United States turned to me and he said that [De Blasio son] Dante reminded him of what he looked like as a teenager." *Why does Obama think every black teenager looks like him? Does he think they all look alike?*
The Challenge: Broken Resolutions
So you made a New Year's resolution just a week ago and you've already broken it. Welcome to the club. In our culture we place a lot of value on willpower. We love stories of perseverance and physical and mental fortitude. We believe that personal resolve leads to success. We admire and strive after independence and self-improvement. Of course, these truly are admirable qualities. But what happens when we fail to meet our goals, when we let ourselves and others down? What happens when we give in, give up and break under pressure? How do we view ourselves when we wake up a week into the New Year and realize that we simply forgot about the promises we made so sincerely on the 31st?