Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Saturday, December 27, 2014
From The Comedy Store
Obama took off for Hawaii on a two-week vacation where he will relax with his pals, play golf, watch a lot of football and basketball on TV and catch up on movies. Doesn't he ever like to change things around? The idea of a vacation is to get away from your day-to-day routine.
Friday, December 26, 2014
Washington Power Is Flowing Away
Too much power being grabbed by Washington -- Obamacare, environmental regulations, education standards. That's a constant complaint of conservatives not only during Barack Obama's presidency but during George W. Bush's as well. But power is also flowing out of Washington, largely unnoticed, and back to the states and localities. You can see that if you look at transportation policy, which is following the same path as the little remembered federal revenue sharing program enacted in the Nixon years and phased out during the Reagan presidency. Federal transportation spending has an even longer pedigree, dating from the Federal-Aid Highway Act signed by Dwight Eisenhower in 1956. A few states had already been building limited-access toll highways. The new law instituted a federal gasoline tax to pay for Interstates, as they became known, throughout the country.
Democrats Can't Be Dad
Democrats have done very well politically by convincing voters that they are, in a very broad sense, on the side of the little guy. "Republicans," they say, "take care of the rich, but we Democrats are the party that brought you Social Security, Medicare, Head Start, the Civil Rights Act, free school lunches, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, and Obamacare. We are the party that will tax rich Republicans to fund government programs that help poor and middle-class Democrats." Like mothers, Democrats are nurturing and supportive. There are a few little problems with this narrative. Most of those programs, for good or ill, had bipartisan support. Further, Head Start has been a colossal failure; the school lunch program is overly broad and encourages waste (with 64 percent of children getting free or reduced-price lunches); civil rights laws (in direct contravention of the promises of their original backers) have been interpreted to permit quotas and "reverse discrimination"; AFDC wound up encouraging unwed childbearing and arguably contributing to poverty; and Obamacare is causing the middle class to pay higher premiums for more limited medical care while still covering only a fraction of the uninsured.
A Bush League Candidate
(Jeb Bush, the Clintons, Hamas, Bill De Blasio, LeBron James, the ACLU)
Balancing the Old and the New
The week between Christmas and New Year's used to be one of my favorites. It was my end-of-year respite at work. I looked forward to quiet days in my office, with few phone calls, no visitors and a relaxed dress code. Time to clean my desk, pack up books I'd bought but never got around to reading (and never would) and throw out the stack of studies and policy papers that might have made good columns but had grown stale. Not anymore. The first change came a couple of decades ago, when I stopped going into an office -- other than the one a few feet from my bedroom. Now I look forward to dressing up, not dressing down. And as for carving out time to be alone, my bigger challenge is making sure I see colleagues more than a few times a year.
Cultural Winners and Losers, 2014
Looking back at our popular culture in 2014, it appears that Hollywood's power is on the wane. Politically, the leftist celebrities and the "Rock the Vote" gang couldn't help dig the Democrats out of their rut. Even that paragon of permissiveness Sandra Fluke couldn't exploit her Limbaugh-victim aura to win a state Senate seat in libertine California. The year's biggest loser was Sony, which looked pathetically powerless in the wake of an alleged North Korea's hack attack. Worst yet were the people involved. A clearly frustrated George Clooney announced there was no one in that industry willing to sign a letter condemning Sony's capitulation. Clooney may be A-list, but that's apparently no match for Tinseltown's cowardice.
Thursday, December 25, 2014
Happy Kwanzaa! The Holiday Brought to You by the FBI
I will not be shooting any Black Panthers this week because I am Kwanza-reform, and we are not that observant. Kwanzaa, celebrated exclusively by white liberals, is a fake holiday invented in 1966 by black radical/FBI stooge, Ron Karenga -- aka Dr. Maulana Karenga, founder of United Slaves, the violent nationalist rival to the Black Panthers. In the annals of the American '60s, Karenga was the Father Gapon, pawn of the czarist police. In what was ultimately a foolish gambit, during the madness of the '60s, the FBI encouraged the most extreme black nationalist organizations in order to discredit and split the left. The more preposterous the group, the better. By that criterion, Karenga's United Slaves was perfect.
Meriam Ibrahim Is Role Model of the Year
In a year when some of the most exalted public figures in the United States distinguished themselves by advancing unjust causes or cowardly refusing to seriously resist them, a pregnant mother imprisoned in Sudan with her 18-month-old American son set a standard for saintly courage. Meriam Ibrahim is the role model of the year. When a Sudanese court told Meriam she must renounce her Catholic faith and convert to Islam or be hung by the neck until dead, she gave a non-negotiable answer: No. Meriam was born in Sudan to a Christian mother and a Muslim father -- who abandoned the family when Meriam was 6. Her mother raised her a Christian.
Two Ominous Stories for the New Year From New York City
Two news stories, both from New York City, suggest that 2015 may be a grim year, but the grimness might be tinged with whimsy -- at least in the second case. First the grimness, and I write as an American with two proud police officers prominent in my family tree, my great-grandfather and my great-great-grandfather. The first was Frank Tyrrell, for many years the sole survivor of Chicago's Haymarket Riot. As a youngster, wearing short pants and a neatly pressed suit coat, I went along with the burly members of the Chicago Police Department to place a wreath on the Haymarket memorial. Incidentally, the Chicago police had to move the memorial indoors after the radical SDS in the early 1970s bombed it a second time. Did our president's accomplice, Bill Ayers, have a hand in the bombing? We shall wait for the full Obama memoir.
Will Allred Offer the Cosby Deal to the Clintons?
Gloria Allred has graciously offered a deal to embattled comedian Bill Cosby. Allred says so many alleged victims have called her office, she's "literally lost count." She says she told these women, however, you're "too late." By this, Allred meant that the statute of limitations has passed for both criminal and civil charges to be filed against Cosby. Some of the claims date back to the '60s, '70s and '80s, with one going back as far as 1965. Former Playboy bunny P.J. Masten claims that Cosby raped her in 1979. The comedian, says Masten, invited her to dinner, asking her to meet him at his hotel room where he gave her a cocktail of Grand Marnier. "The next thing I knew, it was 4 o'clock in the morning," Masten alleged. "I woke up in a bed naked, bruised. He was laying next to me, and I slithered out of the bed ... I got myself together, I went downstairs, I got in a cab, and I went home. ... There were bruise marks all over me. I knew I was raped."
What if It's True?
Suppose what some call the "Christmas story" is true -- all of it, from the angels, to the shepherds, to the virgin birth, to God taking on human flesh. By this, I don't mean to suggest it is true only for those who believe it to be true, but what if it is objectively true, no matter what the deniers say? What difference would it make? Should it make any difference? The narrative and the quotations written by the physician named Luke and by John, the closest disciple of Jesus of Nazareth, are unique and exclusive. The genealogical line of Jesus compiled by Matthew the tax collector is impressive and compelling. The words spoken by Jesus and recorded by these men are phenomenal. They expose the inner darkness of Man, offering a roadmap out, while also revealing the light of God, offering directions into His presence.
A One-Man Revolution
Until now there were two types of peaceful American change. One was a president, like Franklin D. Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan, working with Congress to alter American life from the top down by passing a new agenda. The other was popular reform pressure, as happened in the 1890s or 1960s, to change public opinion and force government to make new laws or change existing ones. Barack Obama has introduced a quite different, third sort of revolution. He seeks to enact change that both the majority of Americans and their representatives oppose. And he tries to do it by bypassing Congress through executive orders and presidential memoranda of dubious legality.
Cuba Derangement Syndrome
Barack Obama has made a geopolitical irrelevancy suddenly relevant to American presidential politics. For decades, Cuba has been instructive as a museum of two stark failures: socialism and the U.S. embargo. Now, Cuba has become useful as a clarifier of different Republican flavors of foreign-policy thinking. The permanent embargo was imposed in 1962 in the hope of achieving, among other things, regime change. Well. Fidel Castro, 88, has not been seen in public since January and may be even more mentally diminished than anyone -- including his 83-year old brother -- who still adheres to Marxism. Whatever Fidel's condition, however, Cuba has been governed by the Castros during 11 U.S. presidencies, and for more years than the Soviet Union dominated Eastern Europe. Regime change -- even significant regime modification -- has not happened in Havana.
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
The Challenge: Seeking God
Moses wanted more of God. He wanted to understand him, to know him intimately. So he prayed, "If it is true that you look favorably on me, let me know your ways so I may understand you more fully and continue to enjoy your favor." And God, pleased by Moses' request, replied, "I will indeed do what you have asked, for I look favorably upon you, and I know you by name." Then Moses, perhaps encouraged by God's paternal reply, stepped boldly into the depth of his desire and made a wild plea: "Then show me your glorious presence" (Exodus 33:13-18). Moses didn't yet understand that God's presence would be too much for him. Romans 3:23 says, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Like the stars high in the heavens, God is too powerful, too bright, too glorious for us to handle up close. Moses wouldn't have been able to survive a face-to-face encounter with the force that created the universe.
Jeb Bush vs. Ted Cruz
Last week, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush announced his intention to "actively explore" a run for president. That announcement spurred spasms of joy in some segments of the Republican Party who have been itching for an effective counter to the enthusiasm of the grassroots right. Those Republicans -- largely coastal donors who scorn social conservatives as rubes, and shun the supposed fiscal extremism of the tea party -- have been searching for a candidate who will buck the base on immigration, who doesn't mind hand-in-glove corporatism, and who, most of all, feels the same way they do about the grassroots. And Jeb Bush promises to fulfill all these criteria. He says he feels "a little out of step with my party" on immigration and recently said that illegal immigration wasn't a "felony" but an "act of love"; his support for Common Core has more than a whiff of cronyism to it; just weeks ago, he told The Wall Street Journal that he would be willing to "lose the primary to win the general without violating [his] principles."
The Worst of 2014: 'Victory for the Haters'
Historians will record that 2014 was a terrible year for liberal Democrats, not just at the polls but also in the news. The networks spent most of the fall campaign pretending there wasn't a fall campaign, and for good reason. Obama's Hope and Change aura had completely sunk into the muck as Obama's honesty and competence both took a hit in the hard news of ISIS and Ebola. But if Team Obama was going down, the journalistic elite were going down with him. They are cemented with their so-called savior, as can be seen in the Media Research Center's "Worst of the Worst 2014," marking the worst quotes gathered from media coverage this year. A panel of 40 opinion leaders selected the most ridiculous verbiage.
Black Progression and Retrogression
There is no question, though it's not acknowledged enough, that black Americans have made greater gains, over some of the highest hurdles and in a very short span of time, than any other racial group in mankind's history. What's the evidence? If black Americans were thought of as a nation with their own gross domestic product, they'd rank among the 20 wealthiest nations. It was a black American, Gen. Colin Powell, who headed the mightiest military in mankind's history. A few black Americans are among the world's wealthiest. Many black Americans are among the world's most famous personalities. The significance of all this is that in 1865, neither an ex-slave nor an ex-slave owner would have believed that such progress would be possible in less than a century and a half. As such, it speaks to the intestinal fortitude of a people. Just as importantly, it speaks to the greatness of a nation within which such progress was possible. That progress would have been impossible anywhere except in the United States of America. The challenge that lies before us is how those gains can be extended to a large percentage of black people for whom they appear elusive.
Up-Lyft-ing Xmas Tale
This Christmas Eve, if you see a fat man in a sleigh distributing presents, tell him he is in violation of several government regulations. The Federal Aviation Administration is upset about his secret flight path, and his gift bag violates charity tax rules. In real life, government barely lets people give each other rides in cars. But now the Internet has given birth to exciting businesses that challenge the rules. Lyft and Uber offer a phone app that allows people who need a ride to connect to a driver nearby who'd like to make a few extra bucks. It's an instant taxi business -- which is why existing taxi businesses don't like it.