Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Monday, December 8, 2014
EEOC Has Become the Problem, Not the Solution
One of President Ronald Reagan's most famous quips was that the nine most terrifying words in the English language are "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you." It is indeed sad that America today is plagued, indeed threatened, by the very institution it invented to protect its own citizens. Government. And there's no better example of today's distortions of what government is supposed to be about than the EEOC -- The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
MN Sports Anyone's Game
Forget ABC's "Wide World of Sports" -- now we have the LGBT's Wild World of Sports. After an intensely emotional debate, the Minnesota athletic league tore down the walls between girls' and boys' sports teams under the guise of "transgender inclusivity." The back-and-forth grabbed plenty of national headlines, as critics pleaded with the State High School League to take a deep breath and consider the consequences for student safety, privacy, and competition. Unfortunately, those concerns fell on deaf ears, and the board voted a whopping 18-1 to bulldoze the gender norms across Minnesota athletics -- for public, private, and home schools. With a written statement from their parent or guardian, kids confused about their sex can petition for a spot on girls' or boys' teams. And any school caught turning down a request without an iron-clad reason could be slapped with a lawsuit, athletic ineligibility, or both. It was a jaw-dropping decision for most parents, who can't imagine their daughter sharing showers and hotel rooms with teenage boys (who may or may not be struggling with their gender). Most high school kids already have anxiety about their bodies. Imagine the discomfort they'd feel surrounded by members of the opposite sex! Apart from the obvious problems with the new rule -- which takes effect next year -- it also gives boys an unfair advantage in leagues that have a level female playing field.
The Good That Results From U.S. 'Boots on the Ground'
It has always made Americans uncomfortable to think of their nation as the world's policeman. John Quincy Adams avowed nearly two centuries ago that the United States "goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy"; today, Barack Obama declares that America's focus must be on "nation-building here at home." A broad swath of public opinion shares that view -- 52 percent of Americans in a Pew survey last winter agreed that the US should "mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own." Influential Americans regularly argue that US intervention abroad does more harm than good. "Every time the US touches the Middle East, it makes things worse," insists Harvard's Stephen Walt in a recent essay. The same has been said about America's military involvement everywhere from Latin America to Indochina. Samantha Power, currently the US ambassador to the United Nations, wrote in 2003 that America is justifiably seen as "the very runaway state international law needs to contain," resented for its "sins" and "crimes" in using its power to harm others.
They Protesteth Too Much
As I have written on other similar occasions, it's a protest when you toss the tea into the harbor; when you grab the tea or, rather, the TV sets, liquor and sports equipment and take it home, it's a riot and those who take part are not patriots, they're thugs. As I watched what was taking place in Ferguson after the Grand Jury returned its rational verdict, the thing that surprised me was that after Gov. Jay Nixon had announced he was calling in the Missouri National Guard as a backup to the St. Louis and Ferguson police departments, the only people I saw on the streets were black punks smashing windows, burning down businesses and carting off stolen loot.
Sunday, December 7, 2014
Mission Impossible: Making a Smart Choice in the O'Care Exchange
The Obama administration is actually pleading with people to shop around before choosing a health insurance plan. Ordinarily that would be good advice. Ideally, people should comparison shop -- considering the differences in premiums, subsidies, and networks of the different plans. But as I wrote at Forbes this week, there's one big problem: Intelligent comparison shopping is virtually impossible. The Obama administration calls the health insurance exchanges "markets." But they are unlike any market you have ever encountered. Think about what you would have to consider to make a reasoned choice. For starters, you have to consider all the health problems you might have. For example, you might get cancer, heart disease, diabetes… Then you would have to compare the networks of all the different plans for cancer care, heart care ….
Government for the Strongest
Intellectually undemanding progressives, excited by the likes of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. -- advocate of the downtrodden and the Export-Import Bank -- have at last noticed something obvious: Big government, which has become gargantuan in response to progressives' promptings, serves the strong. It is responsive to factions sufficiently sophisticated and moneyed to understand and manipulate its complexity. Hence Democrats, the principal creators of this complexity, receive more than 70 percent of lawyers' political contributions. Yet progressives, refusing to see this defect -- big government captured by big interests -- as systemic, want to make government an ever-more muscular engine of regulation and redistribution. Were progressives serious about what used to preoccupy America's left -- entrenched elites, crony capitalism and other impediments to upward mobility -- they would study "The New Class Conflict," by Joel Kotkin, a lifelong Democrat.
Saturday, December 6, 2014
From The Comedy Store
Obama pardoned two turkeys presented to him by the National Turkey Federation at the annual ceremony at the White House. Their names are Mac and Cheese. After they received their presidential pardon, the turkeys each received a driver's license and registered Democrat.
'Dear Chairman Rogers...'
(Mike Rogers, Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton, Mike Morell, the Supreme Court, Glenn Beck)
What Schumer Wants to Embrace
At a time when Ferguson, Missouri, has been under siege, the president unilaterally brought millions of illegal immigrants "out of the shadows," the so-called Islamic State beheaded another American, an architect of Obamacare admitted the law was conceived and birthed in deception, and the secretary of defense was unceremoniously dumped, it's no wonder that a speech by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. -- the Tuesday before Thanksgiving -- didn't get the coverage it deserved. But for political junkies, Schumer's speech at the National Press Club is a marvel to behold. It is at once one of the most impressive acts of political truth-telling from a major politician in our lifetimes and a sophomoric explication of political philosophy. Let's start there. "Democrats must embrace government. It's what we believe in; it's what unites our party," Schumer explained. "If we run away from government, downplay it, or act as if we are embarrassed by its role, people won't vote for our pale version of the Republican view."
Friday, December 5, 2014
Rushing the National Defense Authorization Act
A lame-duck Congress puts military lives on the line.
Gov't Funding: On a Wing ANDA Prayer
With just a handful of days left of Democratic control, Christmas recess can't come soon enough for most conservatives. But before the movers start clearing out the Senate Majority Leader's office, there's plenty left to do under the scaffolds of the Capitol dome. Priority number one is bankrolling the federal government for the next fiscal year -- a testy process that just became ground zero in the battle over immigration reform. Reaching a consensus on the spending bills is difficult enough, but now that conservatives are willing to play hardball with government funding to make a statement on the President's amnesty order, it's anyone's guess how (or when) the lame duck session will end.
Obama's Scandal-Tainted BCGB (Best Chicago Golfing Buddy)
In his "Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior," George Washington offered this sage advice: "Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company." Too bad President Obama and his best Chicago golfing buddy (BCGB), Dr. Eric Whitaker, didn't heed our Founding Father's wisdom. The duo's continued intimacy, as the stench of government corruption thickens around them, speaks volumes about our current commander in chief's reckless disregard for his reputation.
Ferguson vs. New York City
The grand jury system -- indeed, the criminal jury system overall -- is not perfect. And while I think the grand jury in Ferguson got it right by not indicting Officer Darren Wilson in the death of Michael Brown, based on the physical evidence and credible testimony from actual witnesses, the outcome of a grand jury in New York City this week in the death of Eric Garner is another matter. The two cases are worlds apart in terms of the actions of the men who died and the officers who caused their deaths. Unfortunately, on both sides of the argument, proponents seem all too ready to adopt a narrative that fits their politics rather than examining the facts.
Hollywood Hypocrites
The actor and comedian Russell Brand has certainly tried brand himself. "Messiah Complex" was the name of his last tour. His new book is titled "Revolution." On "The Tonight Show," he told Jimmy Fallon he's inspired by Jesus, Gandhi, Malcolm X and Che Guevara. He thinks he's like them. In Tinseltown, they're the Fab Four revolutionaries for the downtrodden. So it's shocking to him -- and no surprise to us -- when he gets exposed by the British press as a fraud. He's just another champagne socialist playacting. On Dec. 1, he led an angry march to No. 10 Downing Street in London to take a petition to the prime minister's residence protesting skyrocketing rents in the city. In particular, he was protesting for tenants of the New Era apartments, recently bought by an American investment company. The demand for downtown real estate has caused prices to soar, leaving the middle class in dire straits.
Rand Paul Is Right: Cig Taxes Factored Into Garner's Death
Reasonable people can disagree on whether racism was involved in the tragic death of Eric Garner. My own suspicion is that this misfortune could have transpired just as easily with a white man resisting arrest and/or a black cop choking him. And even though lots of people don't want to hear it, reasonable people can disagree on whether illegally excessive force was to blame. Personally, watching the ubiquitous video of Garner's arrest, it looks like excessive force to me. But the simple fact is that a Staten Island grand jury saw evidence that led it to conclude otherwise. People should at least entertain the possibility that it might have gotten the ruling right.
Yes, Stupid Laws Help Kill People
After news of the baffling decision by the New York grand jury not to indict a police officer in the killing of Eric Garner, I sent out a (slightly) hyperbolic tweet that wondered why Americans would want to entrust their free speech and health care to an institution that will kill you over failure to pay a cigarette tax. Since then, I've seen numerous tweets arguing that bringing up the tax is preposterous. It's something akin to blaming jaywalking for the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., touched on the issue in an interview with MSNBC yesterday and was, unsurprisingly, ridiculed for it by liberals -- because mentioning the circumstances of a violent act is preposterous, apparently.
The Real Civil War
Old habits die hard. The media are so enamored of the continuing (and largely contrived) story about the great Republican civil war that they fail to appreciate that the real internecine fight is being waged on the other side of the aisle. I grant that there's a lot of shouting today among Republicans. But it's a ritual skirmish over whether a government shutdown would force the president to withdraw a signature measure -- last time, Obamacare; this time, executive amnesty. And it will likely be resolved with the obvious expedient of funding the government through next year, except for a more short-term extension for homeland security. That way, defunding the executive order could be targeted to just the issue at hand, namely immigration, and would occur when the GOP holds the high ground -- control of both houses of Congress.
Congress Must Fight Back Against Obama's Lawlessness
Evidence mounts that President Obama is reacting with greater defiance and lawlessness despite Americans' repudiation of his agenda in the November elections, and the word is that Republican leaders in Congress are relaxing their resistance. Isn't it axiomatic that if you reward bad behavior you'll get more of it and that if you punish it you'll deter it? Then why would certain Republicans choose to reward behavior they are on record condemning? I'm talking about not the president's making policy choices we disagree with but which he has constitutional authority to implement. Increasingly, he has become a law unto himself, rewriting substantive provisions of laws Congress not only opposes but has expressly rejected.
What the UVA Rape Case Reveals
Rolling Stone magazine and its reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely are facing a great deal of skepticism about a story called "A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA." The article tells the story of "Jackie," a University of Virginia student who says she was gang raped at a fraternity party early in her freshman year. There are solid journalistic reasons to question Erdely's reporting. She failed, as Slate and others have objected, to get any statements from the accused, while offering feeble and conflicting accounts about why -- first saying the young men were hard to find, and then explaining that the victim was uncomfortable about having them contacted.
Clinton's Stock Declining in Futures Market
Is the market in Hillary Clinton futures collapsing? Quite possibly so. A year ago Clinton seemed likely to become the next president. Presumably she and her husband had not yet started to call themselves, Bush style, 42 and 45. But she had an overwhelming lead in the polls for the Democratic nomination and was getting 50 percent or more in most polls against possible Republican candidates in general election pairings. Ratings of Clinton's performance as secretary of state were positive. She seemed poised to hold and add onto Barack Obama's 2008 and 2012 majorities.