Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Sunday, August 24, 2014
In Defense of the Defenders
What is called "the" 1964 Civil Rights Act is justly celebrated for outlawing racial and other discrimination in employment, "public accommodations" and elsewhere. But that year's second civil rights act, the Criminal Justice Act, which is 50 years old this month, is, some say, largely a failure because of unanticipated changes in the legal and social context. Is it? In 1961, Clarence Gideon allegedly broke into a Florida pool hall and its vending machines. Gideon, who was indigent, requested a defense attorney, was refused and was convicted. In 1963, a unanimous Supreme Court overturned his conviction, holding that the Constitution's Sixth Amendment ("In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to have the assistance of counsel for his defense") entitles indigent defendants facing serious criminal charges to a government-provided defense attorney.
Let's Privatize Medicare
Paul Ryan proposed a private health insurance alternative to Medicare for future retirees, liberal critics pounced. It's another scheme to undermine health care for the elderly by "privatizing" and "voucher-izing" the program, they said. Yet, almost one third of seniors are *already* in private health insurance plans. They are called Medicare Part C, or Medicare Advantage, plans. And you would be hard pressed to find any Democratic office holder who wants to abolish them. The reason? Seniors choose to be in these plans because they like them better than traditional Medicare.
Tender Hearts & Soft-Boiled Brains
We Americans like to think of ourselves as 320 million humanitarians. While it's true that we tend to be charitable, even going so far as to help our enemies around the world when they're hit by a natural disaster, sometimes our better nature flies in the face of commonsense. For instance, in recent weeks, we have welcomed thousands of Central Americans into the U.S. and then transported them around the country even though we know that many of them suffer from chicken pox and tuberculosis. In the old days, when America actually had borders and a sense of self-preservation, even legal immigrants were turned away if they were found to have communicable diseases. In some cases, sick children were separated from their nuclear families and sent back to their relatives in Europe and Asia until they were healthy enough to return.
Saturday, August 23, 2014
The Obama Bank Shakedown
The $16.65 billion settlement by Bank of America over financial-crisis-era mortgage securities "highlights a pattern of the government extorting the banks," Dick Kovacevich said on CNBC this week. Kovacevich is the former Wells Fargo chairman and CEO. I've known him for years. He ran a great bank. He kept Wells Fargo clean during the credit meltdown. And, unusual for a big-bank CEO, he strongly supports free-market principles. Kovacevich went on to say, "It's definitely politics. It has nothing to do with justice or restitution to the innocent victims. In fact, more of the money is going to the coffers of the states and various departments than the victims." He then concluded, "Why are we charging the stockholders instead of going after the people who did wrong? Corporations don't engage in criminal behavior. People do."
Hillary's Delphic Politics
If Hillary Clinton doesn't become the next president of the United States, perhaps she could set up as the next Oracle of Delphi. To the ancient Greeks, the oracle was an authority of immense significance, whose pronouncements carried such weight that supplicants would undertake grueling journeys to consult her before making important decisions. But the Delphic words of wisdom were often ambiguous. "Arguments over the correct interpretation of an oracle were common," one account notes, "but the oracle was always happy to give another prophecy if more gold was provided." Clinton brings to mind the famous oracle not just on account of all the gold she has been amassing since leaving the State Department last year. The former secretary of state has collected so many six-figure speaking fees, according to Bloomberg, that her income now puts her in the top .01 percent of the nation's earners. But even more striking than the riches and honors showered on Clinton by audiences eager to hear her speak are the debates over what she meant to convey and what her words portend.
From The Comedy Store
Barack Obama got his lowest job approval ratings ever in last week's Gallup Poll. This week in Wilkes-Barre, somebody stole a life-sized statue of Barack Obama from a woman's front porch. Local police say they've narrowed the list of suspects down to the U.S. Census Report.
Give Obama a Break About Vacations: Presidenting Is Hard
People are starting to wonder if maybe -- just maybe -- President Obama takes too many vacations. This is his work week lately: Monday: Get home from vacation.Tuesday: Readjust after being gone for so long.Wednesday: Work.Thursday: Pack for next vacation.Friday: Tee time! And if you've ever been by 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, you know that the mailbox out front is constantly stuffed, because no one is ever there to collect the mail.
Friday, August 22, 2014
Rational Thinking About Irrational Numbers
I am drawing this reference from this article from someone who I look up to and admire -- [Dr. Roy Spencer](http://www.drroyspencer.com/2014/03/hey-ipcc-quit-misusing-the-term-risk/). In the last 100 years, the amount of CO2 in the air has increased from three molecules per 10,000 molecules of air, to four molecules out of 10,000 molecules of air. Which means we are being asked to believe the increase of one molecule of CO2 out of 10,000 molecules of air in the last 100 years is causing catastrophic climate change that threatens mankind.
America's Worker Shortage: One Million and Counting
America has a deficit of workers. Willing workers. Capable workers. Skilled, or at least semi-skilled workers, who can do a job and do it well. There are at least one million jobs that go begging day after day if only employers could find workers to fill them. This probably seems hard-to-believe. After all, how can America have a worker shortage when we have about 18 million Americans who are unemployed or underemployed? When the real unemployment rate is 12 percent? Well certainly the economy isn't creating nearly as many jobs as it should -- in large part because of regulatory and tax restraints on hiring workers. ObamaCare's anti-employment impact, including the rule that caps employment at 50 workers or less at many firms to avoid the law's higher costs, is just one example of a law that adds to unemployment lines.
Obama Satire? Still Objectionable
The amount of mockery presidents endure usually corresponds with their polling. It applies to Republicans (Nixon, Bush, Bush), but sometimes also to Democrats (Carter). In 2012, the Center for Media and Public Affairs found network late-night shows told twice as many jokes about Mitt Romney as they told about President Obama. Was it because Obama was more popular than Romney? Or did it make Obama more popular than his opponent? Obama isn't running for office again, so there's no need for satirists to go easy on him at the risk of endangering his electability. The last NBC poll put Obama's approval rating at 40 percent approval, 54 percent disapproval. His numbers are Carter-esque. Increasingly, he is seen as a national embarrassment, and yet the utter lack of zinging satire for Barack Obama remains.
The Jihadi Serial Killer No One's Talking About
For two bloody months, an armed jihadist serial killer ran loose across the country. At least four innocent men died this spring and summer as acts of "vengeance" on behalf of aggrieved Muslims, the self-confessed murderer has now proclaimed. Have you heard about this horror? Probably not. The usual suspects who decry hate crimes and gun violence haven't uttered a peep. Why? Like O.J.'s glove: If the narrative don't fit, you must acquit. The admitted killer will be cast as just another "lone wolf" whose familiar grievances and bloodthirsty Islamic invocations mean nothing.
Fanning the Flames of Racial Tension
Words matter -- and never more so than when race is involved. For more than a week, we have been repeatedly told that a white police officer shot and killed an "unarmed black teenager" on a street in Ferguson, Missouri. The words conjure the image of a kid gunned down because of the color of his skin by a trigger-happy white cop. And now we have the highest law enforcement official in the nation reinforcing this narrative. After visiting Ferguson this week to initiate a federal civil rights investigation into the shooting, Attorney General Eric Holder declared that he understands the distrust of police that many blacks feel.
Obama's Small-Screen Worldview
Does the president think the world is a TV show? One of the things you learn watching television as a kid is that the hero wins. No matter how dire things look, the star is going to be OK. MacGyver always defuses the bomb with some saltwater taffy before the timer reaches zero. There was no way Fonzie was going to mess up his water-ski jump and get devoured by sharks. Life doesn't actually work like that. That's one reason HBO's "Game of Thrones" is so compelling. Despite being set in an absurd fantasy world of giants, dragons and ice zombies, it's more realistic than a lot of dramas set in a more plausible universe in at least one regard. Heroes die. The good guys get beaten by more committed and ruthless bad guys. No one is safe, nothing is guaranteed. There is no iron law of the universe that says good will ultimately triumph.
War on Christianity Still Alive and Well in America
Many reject the notion that a good segment of our popular culture and of our political class is at war with Christianity. But this is a real war -- not a phony one, such as the left's manufactured "war on women." This hostility toward Christianity is a global phenomenon. Radical Muslims are targeting, persecuting and, in many cases, slaughtering Christians in numerous countries around the world. But I want to talk about a softer form of hostility -- though nevertheless of serious concern -- that is occurring in the United States. I filled an entire book with examples of discrimination against Christians in this country about a decade ago, and since then, there has been little or no abatement of this practice.
Are Republicans Abandoning the ObamaCare Issue? Doubtful
In a bit of dubious cherry-picking, a new Bloomberg article concludes that the Affordable Care Act is losing its effectiveness as a political issue for Republicans and is diminishing as a major issue. How do we know the end is near-ish? Well, so many Americans are "benefiting from the law," theorizes Heidi Przybyla, that political ads are simply not doing the job anymore. This news is somewhat unexpected -- and unpersuasive -- when you consider that a Kaiser Family Foundation poll recently found that only 15 percent of Americans believe Obamacare has directly helped them, whereas 28 percent say it has directly hurt them. (Fifty-six percent say it has had no effect on their lives.)
Riots & Racism
Can we all agree that the recent riots in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, MO, had as much to do with the police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown as it did with a hurricane in Hawaii or a square dance in Iowa? As I have written in the past, a legitimate protest consists of tossing tea into Boston Harbor; it doesn't involve stealing a TV. Time and again, young black thugs in Detroit, L.A., Philadelphia and now St. Louis, have taken advantage of an event to run amok, turning over cars, looting stores and setting fires. They do it because they are bottom-feeders who feel empowered by corrupt politicians, a liberal media and race hustlers like Al Sharpton, to carry out the sort of violence which when committed by one or two individuals results in jail time, but when committed by a mob results in liberal pundits justifying the mayhem.
Not Nearly as Daunting as the 1960s Riots
Continued violence in Ferguson, Missouri, brings back memories of the urban riots of the 1960s. As it happens, I had a front-row seat back then, as an intern in the office of Detroit Mayor Jerome Cavanagh during the six-day riot in July 1967. At one point I was alone in the so-called command center with Cavanagh and Michigan Gov. George Romney. Forty-three people died in that riot. Many were bystanders who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. One was a deaf man who did not heed a policeman's command, which he couldn't hear.
Stopping the Worst People on Earth
Baghdad called President Obama's bluff and he came through. He had refused to provide air support to Iraqi government forces until the Iraqis got rid of their divisive sectarian prime minister. They did. He responded. With the support of U.S. airstrikes, Iraqi and Kurdish forces have retaken the Mosul dam. Previous strikes had relieved the siege of Mount Sinjar and helped the Kurds retake two strategic towns that had opened the road to a possible Islamic State assault on Irbil, the capital of Kurdistan.
Obama and 'History'
Bad actors around the globe keep getting confused about the calendar, and it falls to the Obama administration to set them straight. The Russians, Secretary of State John Kerry protested back in March, have forgotten what century we're living in: "You just don't in the 21st century behave in 19th-century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pretext." Kerry was echoing President Obama's observation that by seizing Crimea, Russian president Putin was putting himself "on the wrong side of history." It's a theme this president sounded in his first inaugural address, warning that "those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent" are "on the wrong side of history." He returned to it in his remarks (bracketed by golf outings) about the horrific murder of James Foley. After describing just how barbaric the ISIL terrorists are, Obama offered the following complacent analysis: "And people like this ultimately fail. They fail, because the future is won by those who build and not destroy and the world is shaped ... by the overwhelming majority of humanity who are appalled by those who killed [Foley] ... One thing we can all agree on is that a group like ISIL has no place in the 21st century."
Thursday, August 21, 2014
Over-Covering Ferguson
Why have the protests and riots lasted so long in Ferguson? Why have out-of-town agitators and opportunists like the Communist Revolutionary Party and the New Black Panthers flocked to a St. Louis suburb? Why, 12 days after Michael Brown was shot to death by a policeman, do the good people of Ferguson who want to see a fair and just investigation into the facts surrounding Brown's death still have no peace? It's the national news media, stupid.