Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Monday, October 20, 2014
Kansas Senate Race Is a National Election
Former Democrat House Speaker Tip O'Neill's political wisdom that "All politics is local" has been a staple in political thinking for many years. But the truth of the matter is that, regarding elections for national office, politics is really, today, a national business. And this is what voters in Kansas should be thinking about in the current close Senate race between Republican incumbent Pat Roberts and Independent challenger Greg Orman.
What Really Ended the Great Depression
"What is history but a fable agreed upon?" as Napoleon once put it, and never has that been more true than the story of the Great Depression and its aftermath. With liberals again pitching more government spending "stimulus" in Washington, it's critical we get this history right. In a previous column I unmasked the historical lie that Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal programs ended the Great Depression. After seven years of New Deal-era explosions in federal debt and spending, the U.S. economy was still flat on its back, and misery could be seen on the street corners. By 1940, unemployment still averaged a sky-high 14.6 percent. That's some recovery.
A Subpoena for Your Thoughts...
Houston Mayor Annise Parker has been on quite a fishing expedition -- but it's her power that needs to be reeled in. Americans everywhere are appalled by the lesbian leader, who declared war on the First Amendment by barging into churches and demanding pastors' private communications. In a country still burning over the IRS's crackdown, Parker's missive became the subpoena heard 'round the world. Fed up with this administration's heavy-handedness, Houston has become a rallying cry for freedom-loving Americans tired of seeing their laws and liberties casually tossed aside in a liberal stampede.
Putin: Autocrat of all the 'Russias'
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is moving with a steady pace to establish his total control over Russia. He's now pushing a law to help him deal with the last pesky parts of the post-Soviet period of Russian history -- that annoying free press. In this [Washington Post story](www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/russias-putin-signs-law-extending-kremlins-grip-over-media/2014/10/15/6d9e8b2c-546b-11e4-809b-8cc0a295c773_story.html?tid=hp_more), we see that President Putin is doing in Russia what Sen. Harry Reid and fifty-three of his Senate colleagues attempted to do recently with a constitutional amendment to limit free speech. Putin knows he is fairly free to act on the world scene and at home. President Obama is distracted. His administration is perplexed. Having waited too long to address the threat of ISIS, Mr. Obama is now leaping into the ISIS crisis with both feet. And he is even willing to make the Russians our new partner in the Middle East.
A Logic Gap on the 'Gender Gap'
Are you voting for Charlie Baker for governor, [sweetheart](www.youtube.com/watch?v=71prq1-10PE)? He's been trying hard to win your support, in part through the familiar technique of highlighting those who support him already. For if there's one thing the Republican gubernatorial candidate wants you to know, it's that plenty of women do indeed support him. There is a "Women for Charlie" Facebook page and a "Women for Charlie" photo gallery. There was a "Women for Charlie" reception in West Roxbury last night, and a "Women for Charlie" fundraiser in the South End last month. "Women for Charlie" phone banks organize call centers every Wednesday night. There was even a recent drawing for "a basket of W4C goodies," complete with "Women for Charlie" T-shirts and earrings. Needless to say, there is a "Women for Charlie" link atop every page of the Baker campaign website.
Sunday, October 19, 2014
Militant Liberals
The emasculation of the U.S. military began, I believe, during the first Gulf War, and had nothing to do with the red carpet that was eventually rolled out for women and homosexuals. I still remember how shocked I was that there was such a to-do over the fact that our troops had to deal with their chocolate bars melting in the desert heat. I kept hearing that something, by God, had to be done about it. I would never suggest that our soldiers should be regarded as cannon fodder, but the uproar over candy bars made it sound as if they were a troop of Brownies. Things have only gotten worse under Obama's watch with his pledge that our warriors will never get any closer to the battlefield than 20,000 feet above it.
The Fictitious 'War on Women'
One of the wonders of this political moment is feminist contentment about the infantilization of women in the name of progressive politics. Government, encouraging academic administrations to micromanage campus sexual interactions, now assumes that, absent a script, women cannot cope. And the Democrats' trope about the Republicans' "war on women" clearly assumes that women are civic illiterates. Access to contraception has been a *constitutional* right for 49 years (Griswold v. Connecticut, 1965). The judiciary has controlled abortion policy for 41 years (Roe v. Wade, 1973). Yet the Democratic Party thinks women can be panicked into voting about mythical menaces to these things.
Saturday, October 18, 2014
'A Thousand Times More Dangerous Than ISIS'
Several years ago, the Israeli satirical series, Latma, produced [this funny sketch](motls.blogspot.com/2010/08/latma-tv-iranian-bomb.html) on the Iranian mullahs' push for a nuclear bomb. "The bomb, the bomb, I'll get the bomb. Listen to me, Honey, it ain't gonna be too long" sings the frolicking mullah in the online version of this humorous look at a most serious subject. The Israelis can joke about an Iranian nuclear bomb because they are on the front line. They know what it would mean. They don't go on and on about "stability" in the Middle East the way our State Department types do. There hasn't been stability in the Mideast in our lifetime and there is no likelihood of stability being achieved there in the future. All the Western journalists' gushing about the "Arab Spring" has produced not one country with a semblance of stability, freedom, or genuine change.
Lower Oil Prices Are Unambiguously Good
Steep stock market corrections often create shrouds of pessimism that do bad things to people's brainpower. And one of the absolutely stupidest things I have heard in recent weeks is that the recent drop in oil prices is bad. You heard me right. Serious people on financial television are saying lower oil prices are a signal of worldwide economic collapse. Here at home that translates to recession, deflation, a profits collapse and rising unemployment. I've been around for a while, and I've seldom heard such gibberish. The latest stock market scare stems from a bunch of fears -- such as the possible spread of Ebola, economic slowdowns in Europe and Asia, and deflation worries. And when the stock market decides to correct, any reason will do. We must respect the wisdom of the market.
Irresponsible 'Education'
Goddard College's recent decision to have its students addressed from prison by a convicted cop killer is just one of many unbelievably irresponsible self-indulgences by "educators" in our schools and colleges. Such "educators" teach minorities born with an incredibly valuable windfall gain -- American citizenship -- that they are victims who have a grievance against people today who have done nothing to them, because of what other people did in other times. If those individuals who feel aggrieved could sell their American citizenship to eager buyers from around the world and leave, everybody would probably be better off. Those who leave would get not only a substantial sum of money -- probably $100,000 or more -- they would also get a valuable dose of reality elsewhere.
From The Comedy Store
Joe Biden campaigned in Florida for Democratic candidate for governor Charlie Crist. The Democrats are running on the environment. Joe has a climate change plan. He says we can lower the earth's temperature dramatically just by switching from Fahrenheit to Celsius.
Friday, October 17, 2014
Who's Afraid of 'Rocky Mountain Heist'?
Free at last! I'm silent no more. Now, the story can be told. Democrats here in my adopted state of Colorado did not want the new political documentary I hosted to see the light of day. They lost. This week, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals issued an emergency injunction declaring that our movie deserved the same free-speech rights as a "traditional" (translation: old-guard liberal) news organization. "Rocky Mountain Heist," produced by David Bossie's Citizens United and directed by Jason Killian Meath, tells the story of how a wealthy quartet of liberal millionaires and billionaires in Colorado -- known as the "Gang of Four" -- took over the once-red state of Colorado in the course of a decade.
Fascist Leftists in Houston
There are at least three outrageous things about the Houston city government's recent actions pushing an ordinance to allow men and women to use each other's public restrooms. The first is the substance of the ordinance itself, which allows men and women, irrespective of their biology, to use bathrooms designated for the opposite sex. The major driver of this law was Houston's lesbian mayor, Annise Parker. Have we just become completely insane in this country? Is nothing sacred anymore? Is there no limit on the demands of radical leftists to force the rest of us to normalize their bizarre behavior?
The Return of the Clinton Democrats (Not Really)
Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes is running for U.S. Senate in the great state of Kentucky. She is a woman of conviction, of substance, of principle. "I'm not an empty dress," she insists, "I'm not a rubber stamp, and I am not a cheerleader! I am a Clinton Democrat." I'm old enough to remember when "Clinton Democrat" had a fairly specific meaning. Back when Bill Clinton first ran for president, he did so as "new kind of Democrat." He decried the "brain-dead policies of both parties." He was so determined to dispel the image of the Democrats as being soft on crime, he took time off from the campaign trail to approve the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, a man so mentally disabled that when he ate his last meal, he left some of his pecan pie on his plate and told guards he was saving it "for later."
The Equal Pay Delusion
Voters are souring on the Democratic Party. Apparently, all it takes are six years of economic torpor; the disastrous debut of the biggest new federal program in two generations; record levels of federal debt; revelations of scandals and malfeasance at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Internal Revenue Service, the Secret Service and the Justice Department; Russian revanchism on the march; a rampaging army of (literal) cutthroats gobbling up territory in the Middle East; and the feeble and patronizing government response to a modern plague. Truly, it says something about the reputation of the Democratic Party that even now, 50 percent of those responding to a CBS News poll said the Democrats are the party that "cares more about the needs and problems of people like" them. Only 34 percent chose the Republicans.
Ebola Fear Factor
It's time to take a deep breath. Ebola is an awful disease that has tragically infected a handful of Americans. Though it deserves the full attention of our medical community -- most importantly, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- it should not be dominating our news, preoccupying our president and other political leaders, and frightening Americans into believing an epidemic on U.S. soil is just around the corner. A Washington Post poll this week showed that two-thirds of Americans fear an epidemic in the U.S., and 4 in 10 said they are somewhat or very worried that a family member may contract the disease. This is simply not going to happen.
Ebola vs. Civil Liberties
Unnervingly, the U.S. public health services remain steps behind the Ebola virus. Contact tracing is what we do, Centers for Disease Control Director Tom Frieden assured the nation. It will stop the epidemic "in its tracks." And yet nurses Nina Pham and Amber Vinson, who developed Ebola, were not even among the 48 contacts that the CDC was initially following. Nor were any of the doctors and nurses who treated the "index patient," Thomas Duncan. No one even had a full list of caregivers. The other reassurance was: Not to worry. We know what we're doing. We have protocols. When, however, we got the first Ebola transmission in the U.S., it was blamed on a "breach in protocol."
EU Hangs on With Hookers, Drug Dealers & Gun Runners
The questionable accounting gimmick countries are using to claim economic progress.
Pulpit Friction: TX Leaders Rally to Pastors' Defense
It may be Boss's Day, but don't expect Houston's top leader to be flooded with well-wishes. Mayor Annise Parker hasn't exactly won Manager of the Year after her city-wide intimidation campaign of area churches. After subpoenaing the communications of local pastors, including their sermons and private messages, the Mayor got a few sermons herself from key leaders on the ridiculousness of her vendetta. Everyone from Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to the liberal Americans United for the Separation of Church and State have challenged Parker's naked abuse of government power. The Mayor "should be ashamed," Sen. Cruz told reporters before a local press conference this morning. "This is wrong. It's unbefitting of Texans, and it's un-American. The government has no business asking pastors to turn over their sermons."
The Attack of the Cuckoos
How it is that so many cuckoos escaped from their clocks and have wound up in positions of authority, I will never know. But there's no getting around the fact that the American symbol is no longer a bald eagle or even Ben Franklin's preferred turkey, but has been replaced by the Swiss-made cuckoo bird. For instance, the University of California, San Francisco, has just launched an online abortion course that will delve into "clinical aspects of medication abortion, aspiration abortion, post-abortion contraception, and pain management for abortion." According to Prof. Jody Steinauer: "I think if we can inspire even a small portion of the people who take the course to take steps in their communities to increase access to safe abortion and decrease stigma about abortion, then we will have been totally successful."