Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Friday, January 2, 2015
The Politician, the Coach, and the Founding Father
In a Christmas Day update to his email list and Facebook followers, Governor-elect Charlie Baker touched all the right notes: gratitude to Massachusetts voters who elected him, admiration for "the ideas and the genuine commitment" he encounters in his travels across the commonwealth, sobriety regarding the gaping hole in the state budget ("the only outstanding question is how big it will be"), and optimism about the "smart, experienced, and unabashed" individuals who have agreed to join his new administration. But the most valuable part of Baker's message was his celebration of Derek Herber, a track coach at North Attleborough High School, who led his team to a second consecutive Division II state championship last spring -- only to realize after the trophy had been awarded that a scoring error had given North Attleborough too many points.
Iran Remains Our Biggest Threat
The agreement this week between the governments of Iraq and Iran to enter a formal relationship to fight the Islamic State group should be deeply troubling to the United States. The Islamic State, also known as ISIS, is a grave threat to the region and is responsible for the horrifying beheading of American journalists and an aid worker, as well as the brutal slaughter of countless innocent Muslims and Christians in Syria and Iraq. But as grave a threat as the Islamic State is, Iran is a much greater threat -- especially if it acquires nuclear weapons. In November, the U.S. decided to extend nuclear talks with the Iranians, despite stalling on the part of the mullahs. The practical effect of the decision is to give the Iranians more time to make a bomb.
Voter Turnout Boomed Under Bush, Not Under Obama
There is a widespread assumption that President Obama has expanded the electorate and inspired booming voter turnout. One could make a case for that based on the 2008 election. But since then, not so much. Looking back over the past 15 years, the biggest surge in voter turnout came during George W. Bush's presidency. In the Obama years, turnout actually declined in both the 2012 presidential and the 2014 congressional elections. In 2000, about 105 million Americans voted for president. In 2004, 122 million did. That's a 16 percent rise, the largest between two presidential elections since 1948 and 1952. Turnout increased further in 2008, to 131 million. That's a 7 percent increase over 2004.
Nylons for Nothing
There's an old Cold War joke -- pre-pantyhose -- that to defeat communism we should empty our B-52 bombers of nuclear weapons and instead drop nylons over the Soviet Union. Flood the Russians with the soft consumer culture of capitalism, seduce them with Western contact and commerce, love bomb them into freedom. We did win the Cold War, but differently. We contained, constrained, squeezed and eventually exhausted the Soviets into giving up. The dissidents inside subsequently told us how much they were sustained by our support for them and our implacable pressure on their oppressors.
Sneering at the Sniper Movie
At this point in George W. Bush's presidency, Hollywood uncorked a barrel of anti-Iraq-war movies, all of them in their varying styles trashing the American military or intelligence agencies as vicious murderers, rapists and all-around freedom-tramplers. Most were duds because the public wanted nothing to do with those messages. But oh, did the critics love 'em. In Obama's "fourth quarter," as he calls it, Clint Eastwood has released his movie "American Sniper," starring Bradley Cooper as Chris Kyle, a NAVY Seal who survived four tours of duty in Iraq and was credited with an astonishing 160 confirmed kills. The story ended horribly in 2013, four years after he left the Navy, when he and a friend were shot down at a Texas shooting range. Oh, how the critics hate it.
Who Had the Worst Year? Jonathan Gruber
Jonathan Gruber, sage of MIT and proud champion of the Affordable Care Act, may well have had the worst year in American public life. His repeated demonstrations of arrogance, contempt for the American people and smug self-satisfaction brought mortification to his party and president. His glib references to the redistributionist aspects of the Affordable Care Act gave the lie to the Democratic Party's dubious claim that the mandate was not a tax, along with the excruciating (to Democrats) acknowledgment that -- presidential oaths to the contrary notwithstanding -- Democrats regard "nontransparency" as their friend.
Thursday, January 1, 2015
The Challenge: Taking a Personal Inventory
Empty lines on dated pages are set, ready and waiting to be filled with the black ink and pencil marks that shape the year as our lives fill the days. The crisp whiteness of the untouched paper seems to reflect the excitement that accompanies the reality of a new beginning. And the false guilt of falling for a cliché melts away beneath the truth that we were made to hope for perfection, taught to work out our salvation and hard-wired to appreciate second chances. The nearly irresistible urge to make a New Year's resolution is as much a part of our nature as our desire to number our trips around the sun. Standing on the edge of a new year can be more freeing than a good spring-cleaning, and a solid New Year's resolution can make you feel like a kid with a book bag full of new school supplies.
A Night Out With the Clintons and Their Brain Trust
It is the end of the year 2014 and the beginning of 2015. Perhaps it is an appropriate time to think about what we are to be confronted with in the presidential year 2016. Ever since the autumn electoral rout of the Democrats, we have been confronted by news stories of the looming presidential prospects of Hillary Rodham Clinton and hints about the rise of the presidential prospects of Elizabeth Warren. Only rarely is there a news story about the presidential prospects of the Republicans, though I count more than 25 possible Republican candidates. On the Democrats side we only hear of two, Clinton and Warren.
Studying ISIS and Ourselves
The commander of American Special Operations in the Middle East, Major Gen. Michael K. Nagata, is reported to be seeking help in learning why the Islamic State is so dangerous. If he doesn't know, what does that say about the prospect for victory over these radical terrorists who seek to destroy everyone who disagrees with them? "We do not understand the movement," the Times quotes Gen. Nagata as saying in confidential minutes of a conference call he held with more than three dozen "experts." Until we understand it, he said, "we are not going to defeat it. We have not defeated the idea. We do not even understand the idea."
'Hands Up, Don't Shoot' Activists -- and Historical Ignorance
What to say about "activists" pushing the "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" "movement," even as police shootings of blacks are actually down 75 percent over the last 45 years? Some protestors, many old enough to know better, say ridiculous things about race relations, like "things have gone backward." Time for perspective.
Liberals: If the Shoe Doesn't Fit, Make Everyone Wear It
It is a common practice of the left to stage an incident and then demand enormous legal changes to respond to their hoax. Griswold v. Connecticut was a scam orchestrated by Yale law professors to challenge the state's anti-contraception law. The case was a fraud: The law had never been enforced and never would have been enforced, until the professors held a press conference announcing they were breaking the law. But we still got the new constitutional "privacy right" which, less than 10 years later, transmogrified into a constitutional right to kill an unborn baby.
Our Constitutional Scowler
I think it's high time the media stopped referring to Barack Obama as a constitutional scholar. Judging by the contempt he has displayed towards our most sacred document, he is better described as a constitutional scowler. I am probably being overly generous, but I think a case can be made that over the past six years, Obama has ignored or acted in violation of at least eight Amendments, the first, second, fourth, sixth, seventh, tenth, fourteenth and fifteenth. The reason I spend so much time denigrating liberals isn't simply because it's so much fun, but because I sincerely believe they are working overtime to destroy America. To maintain a polite silence in the face of it is my idea of moral cowardice.
The Ironies of Oil
Gasoline prices are on the verge of crashing down to below $2 a gallon. The price of oil may dip below $50 a barrel. Even with renewed demand from a global economic resurgence, energy prices continue to fall. The U.S. has suddenly become the world's largest combined producer of oil and natural gas. That fact -- along with a desire to weaken hostile Iran and Russia -- has prompted the oil-rich Gulf sheikdoms to keep pumping oil even as the price falls. In their game of petro-chicken, the desperate sheiks hope that either their poorer enemies will run out of cash, or that fracking in the U.S. will become unprofitable and cease.
A Strike Against Rent-Seeking
Mighty oaks from little acorns grow, so last year's most encouraging development in governance might have occurred in February in a U.S. District Court in Frankfort, Ky. There, a judge did something no federal judge has done since 1932. By striking down a "certificate of necessity" (CON) regulation, he struck a blow for liberty and against crony capitalism. Although Raleigh Bruner's Wildcat Moving company in Lexington is named in celebration of the local religion -- University of Kentucky basketball -- this did not immunize him from the opposition of companies with which he wished to compete. In 2012, he formed the company, hoping to operate statewide. Kentucky, however, like some other states, requires movers to obtain a CON. Kentucky's statute says such certificates shall be issued if the applicant is "fit, willing and able properly to perform" moving services -- and if he can demonstrate that existing moving services are "inadequate," and that the proposed service "is or will be required by the present or future public convenience and necessity."
A Year of Anniversaries
2014 has been a year of anniversaries. It was the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the First World War -- a war which many at the time saw as madness, and predicted that it would be the harbinger of a Second World War a generation later. 2014 was also the 70th anniversary of the fateful landing at Normandy that marked the beginning of the end of World War II. 2014 was likewise the 60th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision that marked the beginning of the end of racial segregation, the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and of the beginning of President Lyndon Johnson's "war on poverty" programs.
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
ObamaCare's Annus Horribilis
There's no candy coating the truth: Obamacare has had a very terrible, horrible, crappy, none-too-happy year. What it really means is that the victims of Obamacare -- taxpayers, health care consumers, health care providers, employers and employees -- have had a hellish, nightmarish 2014. Let's start with premiums. President Candy Land promised that he'd "lower premiums by up to $2,500 for a typical family per year." But premiums for people in the individual market for health insurance have spiked over the last year. In fact, Forbes health policy journalist Avik Roy and the Manhattan Institute analyzed 3,137 counties and found that individual market premiums rose an average of 49 percent.
Liberals' Use of Black People
Back in the day, when hunting was the major source of food, hunters often used stalking horses as a means of sneaking up on their quarry. They would walk on the opposite side of the horse until they were close enough to place a good shot on whatever they were hunting. A stalking horse not only concealed them but also, if their target was an armed man and they were discovered, would take the first shot. That's what blacks are to liberals and progressives in their efforts to transform America -- stalking horses. Let's look at some of the ways white liberals use black people. One of the more obvious ways is for liberals to equate any kind of injustices suffered by homosexuals and women to the black struggle for civil rights. But it is just plain nonsense to suggest any kind of equivalency between the problems of homosexuals and women and the centuries of slavery followed by Jim Crow, lynching, systematic racial discrimination and the blood, sweat and tears of the black civil rights movement.
The Year's Highlights in Buck Passing
For years, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof has insisted that people who pay for sex and the intermediaries who facilitate that exchange are responsible for violence against women. Hence his Feb. 26 column celebrating the arrests of men who were guilty of nothing but negotiating terms with cops posing as hookers. In reality, it is prostitution prohibitionists such as Kristof who make the occupation unreasonably dangerous by creating a black market in which vendors are subject to theft and assault without legal recourse. Kristof is hardly unique in avoiding responsibility by casting blame on others.
Federal Student Loan Debt Tops $800 Billion
From November 2013 through November 2014, the aggregate balance in the federal direct student loan program -- as reported by the Monthly Treasury Statement -- rose from $687,149,000,000 to $806,561,000,000, a one-year jump of $119,412,000,000. The balance on all student loans, including those from private sources, exceeded a trillion dollars as of the end of the third quarter, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. "Outstanding student loan balances reported on credit reports increased to $1.13 trillion (an increase of $8 billion) as of September 30, 2014, representing about $100 billion increase from one year ago," the bank said in its latest report on household debt and credit.
Ignorance
No wonder Cuba wallows in poverty. Last week, the New York Times reported that the Castro brothers opened a special business zone where foreign companies "would be given greater control over setting wages at factories. ... (P)roposals would be approved or rejected within 60 days." What? If I want to give someone a raise, I have to wait up to two months for government approval! That's absurd. Yet the Times said that the zone offers "big incentives for investors."