Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
He's a Conservative! Get the Noose!
Heavens, no! Insists Michael McCrum, the "special prosecutor" who procured the indictment of Texas Gov. Rick Perry for alleged misuse of his constitutional power to veto legislation. Why, it wasn't about politics at all! The legal case against Perry, which discombobulates such plans as the governor might have for another presidential bid, is grounded, McCrum says, in "the facts and the law, and nothing else." The prosecutor, if I may be permitted, is full of a commodity long recommended for agricultural enrichment. We may imagine if we like that a grand jury in one of America's most liberal counties concluded, without bias or rancor, that one of America's best-known conservative politicians illegally vetoed funding for that same county's "public integrity" unit presided over by a DA convicted of drunk driving. It was illegal for the governor to use his legal power? That seems essentially the narrative the jury bought from McCrum.
Governor Perry Still Looks Strong
The so-called "abuse of power" indictment of Texas Gov. Rick Perry is not only not going to hurt him in the 2016 GOP sweepstakes but it might actually help him. I say that because Perry immediately fired back at the charges with no hesitation, labeling the indictment the partisan political ploy that it really is. And in terms of threatening to veto legislation that would have funded the state's Public Integrity Unit, run by Travis County district attorney Rosemary Lehmberg, Perry held his Texas constitutional ground. In a number of TV appearances, Perry not only said that he was legally authorized to defund the DA but that he would do it all over again if he had the chance.
Theater of the Absurd in Ferguson, Missouri
It was in a college theater class that I learned about a genre called "Theater of the Absurd." These were plays written mostly by European playwrights between the 1940s and 1960s, as well as a certain style that flowed from their work. What reminded me of this is now "playing" in Ferguson, Missouri, following the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was -- select one -- a) innocently walking down the street when a police officer shot him to death without provocation, or, b) walking with a friend in the street and told by a police officer to get on the sidewalk, whereupon a physical confrontation occurred and Brown allegedly tried to grab the officer's gun and was shot by the cop, now identified as Darren Wilson. This after Brown allegedly robbed a convenience store of some cigars and was seen on a store camera intimidating the clerk as he walked out, which may, or may not, have been related to the shooting.
Random Thoughts
Random thoughts on the passing scene: I don't know why we are spending our hard-earned money paying taxes to support a criminal justice system, when issues of guilt and innocence are being determined on television -- and even punishment is being meted out by CNN's showing the home and address of the policeman accused in the Ferguson, Missouri shooting. One of the big differences between Democrats and Republicans is that we at least know what the Democrats stand for, whether we agree with it or not. But, for Republicans, we have to guess.
Every Honorable Citizen Must Condemn Partisan Indictment of Perry
I hope and pray that my Democratic friends are outraged by yet another criminalization of political differences with the bogus criminal indictment of Texas Gov. Rick Perry. What is this all about, you ask -- in case you haven't heard? Well, a grand jury indicted Perry on Friday on first-degree felony charges for allegedly abusing his powers by vetoing $7.5 million of funding over two years for the unit run by Texas state prosecutors who investigate public corruption. Perry is also charged with the third-degree felony of coercion of a public servant.
Monday, August 18, 2014
You Work This Many Hours a Week to Pay Your Federal Taxes
We talk about taxes as a "burden" because they reduce the take-home pay of American workers, the profits of American businesses, and the purchasing power of American consumers. Over the past century, the overall federal tax burden steadily grew from about 5 percent of national income to almost 20 percent. Over the last decade, tax receipts declined due to the recession and fiscal policy, but taxes have increased over the last five years. This trend roughly corresponds with the growth in government spending. Americans effectively work one day a week to pay federal taxes and the other four days to pay their bills and take care of their families. Taking into account state and local taxes, almost one in three dollars of a worker's earnings go to the tax collector. Taxes are, for many households, the single largest expenditure item in the family budget.
Is the Criminal Justice System Racist?
Events in Ferguson, Missouri raise this question: Is the criminal justice system unfair to minorities, especially blacks? Liberal blogger Ezra Klein says it is. And libertarian Rand Paul agrees. Klein serves up these statistics: - Of people impacted by a SWAT deployment, at least 54 percent were minorities. - White and black people are similarly likely to use drugs, but black people are 3.6 times likelier to be arrested for drug use than white people. - Until 2010, triggering the mandatory 5-year sentence for cocaine, which is used more often in the white community, required possession of 100 times as much of the drug as for crack, which is used more heavily in the black community. After the 2010 reforms, the disparity was brought down to a (still huge) 18:1.
Barack Obama's Zero Sum World
Investopedia defines a "zero sum game" as "a situation in which one person's gain is equivalent to another's loss, so the net change in wealth or benefit is zero." If a political leader wielding power sees the world as a zero sum game -- gains to one must mean a loss to another -- it is likely that this leader will promote policies that will limit growth, wealth creation and innovative problem solving. What a zero sum worldview will produce more of is political, class, and ethnic resentment and strife.
Navy Sinks Censorship
Just when we thought the ship had sailed on Navy Lodge Bibles, its leadership is changing course. The same week that employees blew the whistle on the purge, Navy brass have stepped in to overrule the Lodge management. While housekeepers were busy tossing Bibles into lost and found bins, the chain of command says it was never alerted to the change. Until the social media firestorm, senior leaders said they had no idea the facilities were stripping the books out of nightstand drawers. As soon as they heard, the Navy put a stop to it. Until a final policy can be reached, officers have ordered the Bibles back. "That decision and our religious accommodation policies with regard to the placement of religious materials are under review," Navy spokesman Commander Ryan Perry told Stars and Stripes. "While that review is under way, religious materials removed from Navy Lodge rooms will be returned."
Obama's Goldilocks Mideast Policy
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is too strong. PLO boss Mahmoud Abbas is too weak. That's why we can't get a peaceful settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict, says President Obama in an interview with the ever-serious Tom Friedman of the New York Times. The president seems to be confusing Mideast politics with Goldilocks. The peace porridge is too hot (Netanyahu). It's too cold (Mahmoud Abbas). But with Mr. Obama's Goldilocks policy, it's just right.
The Fat Lady Is Practicing Her Scales
I don't think there is any way to overestimate the importance of the mid-term elections. Although I wish I could view the world through non-partisan eyes, Barack Obama and Harry Reid have conspired to make that impossible. I'm just hoping that a sufficient number of Americans come out of their collective coma before the fat lady has a chance to warble "Nearer My God to Thee" at this nation's funeral. The trouble is that we have a president who seems to lie awake nights trying to come up with new ways to destroy America. For openers, he is terrified -- partly because of his liberal base and partly because of his own questionable background -- to be confrontational towards the Islamists who are enthusiastically waging war on us and our allies. So even as he does the right thing in Iraq by trying to prevent the barbarians from exterminating Christians and Kurds, he keeps assuring those who are out to create a caliphate that we are limiting our response.
Sunday, August 17, 2014
How Republicans Can Win (or Lose) on Health Care
This should be a banner year for the Republican Party. Democrats are stuck with health care reform that most people don't like. Even among those who do like it, almost everyone admits the law has defects galore. Now for the surprise. What should be a cakewalk for Republicans in the fall is proving to be anything but that. Republicans aren't doing noticeably better in the polls, and they are especially failing to take advantage of the health care issue.
In a Stew Over Inversions
Barack Obama, presiding over an unusually dismal post-recession economy, might make matters worse with a distracting crusade against the minor and sensible business practice called "inversion," more about which anon. So, consider his credentials as an economic thinker. Obama, who thinks ATMs and airport ticket kiosks cost America jobs, gave a 2013 speech regretting that Maytag workers in Illinois lost their jobs when the plant moved to Mexico, but rejoicing that more Honda cars "are made in America than anyplace else" and that Airbus is "building new planes in Alabama." Maytag moved partly because in Illinois, which is not a right-to-work state, the price of unionized workers made Mexico a sensible choice. And Airbus is in right-to-work Alabama because capital, being mobile, goes where it is wanted and stays where it is well-treated.
Saturday, August 16, 2014
Death & Taxes
A while back, Theodore VanKirk died in Georgia at the age of 93. His death would have gone unnoticed except by friends and relatives if 69 years earlier he hadn't been the navigator on the Enola Gay, the B-29 Superfortress that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. As the last living member of the historic crew, he was interviewed in 2005. At the time, he said that his experience showed that wars and A-bombs don't settle anything. I would have understood if he'd said something about the terrible emotional toll that delivering that bomb had taken on him personally. But to have suggested that it didn't settle anything was absurd. That bomb, along with the one dropped on Nagasaki three days later, ended World War II. The two bombings led to Japan's unconditional surrender and eliminated the need for the allies to invade the islands, which, according to reliable sources, could have cost a million lives.
From The Comedy Store
Barack Obama's address to the nation on Iraq was delayed by a security breach on the North Lawn of the White House Thursday. A toddler had crawled in through the fence. The Secret Service patted him down and found his diaper full of the government's approval ratings.
Secular Stagnation Is a Cover-Up
John F. Kennedy campaigned for president in 1960 by belittling Dwight Eisenhower's three recessions and declaring, "We can do bettah." He was right. In the 1960s, after the Kennedy tax cuts were implemented, prosperity returned, the economy grew by almost 4 percent annually, unemployment sank to record lows and a gold-linked dollar held down inflation. But today many leading economists are throwing up their arms in frustration and assuring us that 2 percent growth is really the best we can do.
Friday, August 15, 2014
Atheists Try Interception on Intercession
Plenty of football players exercise on Chestatee High School's field -- it's the exercising of their faith that atheists object to! Georgia locals found that out the hard way when the bullies at the American Humanist Association lined up against the team's posters and prayers. In a move that's almost comical, the national group sent an undercover photographer to practices and games, hoping to catch the team in an act of blatant religiosity. "We have received reports," AHA insisted, "that CHS coaches have joined players in prayer while standing in a circle, hands interlocked." Gasp!
Why Hillary Got It Right
"Great nations need organizing principles, and 'Don't do stupid stuff' is not an organizing principle." -- Hillary Clinton, The Atlantic, Aug. 10 Leave it to Barack Obama's own former secretary of state to acknowledge the fatal flaw of his foreign policy: a total absence of strategic thinking. Mind you, Obama does deploy grand words proclaiming grand ideas: the "new beginning" with Islam declared in Cairo, the reset with Russia announced in Geneva, global nuclear disarmament proclaimed in Prague (and playacted in a Washington summit). Untethered from reality, they all disappeared without a trace.
Meet the Cops Who Gave Their Lives
If you've been watching cable news, reading Hollywood celebrities' tweets and listening to race-hustling opportunists, you might think that every police officer in America has a finger on the trigger, hunting for any excuse to gun down defenseless youths. This hysterical nonsense must be stopped. The Cirque du Cop-Bashing, with Al Sharpton as ringmaster, is working overtime to exploit the deadly incident in Ferguson, Mo. That means stoking anti-law enforcement fires at all costs.
America's Selective Libertarianism
There's an old rule in journalism: All you need are three good examples to prove a trend. And by that measure, writer Robert Draper had more than he needed to declare a new "libertarian moment" in American politics. In a New York Times Magazine cover story, Draper made exactly that case. His chief evidence: Young people are more libertarian today, and libertarian ideas are having a renaissance on the right. Also, self-described "libertarian-ish" Sen. Rand Paul's star is on the rise, thanks in part to national exhaustion with foreign interventions. Plus: recent victories for legalized weed and gay marriage.