Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Saturday, August 9, 2014
Crocodile Crock: Sir Elton Attacks Christian Missions!
Sir Elton John is world famous, deservedly so. This billionaire singer is one of the most creative talents we have. But when he attacks Christian missionaries in Africa and other Third World regions, his message is off-key. Instead of *Crocodile Rock*, he's peddling a Crocodile Crock. As a mega-star, Sir Elton is free to say whatever he likes. His native Britain and the U.S. are still free countries. But his belief that the worst thing about AIDS is the "stigma" attached to it is bizarre. We thought the worst thing about AIDS was the disease itself. Even here, however, Sir Elton is free to disagree with us.
Lower Benefits, Higher Jobs -- Paul Ryan Has It Right
Neel Kashkari, the Republican candidate for governor of California, just recounted in The Wall Street Journal his week on the streets of Fresno posing as a homeless man looking for work. At the end of his op-ed, Kashkari lamented that he didn't need a higher minimum wage, paid sick leave or a health care plan. What he needed was a job. And Kashkari made the important point that all those government benefits, especially extended unemployment benefits, are work disincentives that may actually block job creation.
The Mockery of 'Black Jesus'
At night, the children's channel called Cartoon Network transforms into the badly named Adult Swim channel, a parade of juvenile "satirical" sludge such as repeats of Seth MacFarlane's "Family Guy" and "American Dad" cartoons. How many parents know this? Or know these shows rarely miss an opportunity to sock it to "organized religion" -- especially if that religion is Christianity? Sadly, in the second quarter of 2014, the juvenilia on Adult Swim made it the No. 1 television network on basic cable for adults 18-24, 18-34 and 18-49, and also for males in those age brackets. Its mockery has made fans.
From The Comedy Store
Mayor Rahm Emanuel welcomed a thousand illegal kids who were transferred from the Texas border to Chicago. What an Odyssey. The children were fleeing revolution, drug wars and random shootings, and that was just from the Chicago bus station to the mayor's reception.
Friday, August 8, 2014
The GOP's Party Planning on Marriage
If you believe the latest polling, then you know that the midterm elections are the GOP's to lose. And based on the decisions of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), some of the GOP want to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory! While the Republican National Committee (RNC) has been on a conservative course correction under the current chairman, Reince Priebus, the NRCC and its Senate counterpart -- the NRSC -- have gravitated toward moderates over fidelity to the GOP's core principles.
The UN Prevents Peace
The United Nations plays a supporting role in every war between Hamas and Israel. U.N. spokesmen routinely issue statements, accusations and denials about everyone's conduct, including their own (most recently they had to account for why they returned rockets, discovered in a U.N. school, to Hamas). Israel was denounced worldwide for an "attack" on a U.N. school said to be housing 3,000 civilians, but it was actually an attack on particular terrorists on the adjoining street. It's time to reconsider the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
Obama Remains Consistent in His Indifference to Slaughter
In the summer of 2007, then-Sen. Barack Obama was asked if he was worried that his proposed withdrawal from Iraq would result in ethnic cleansing or even genocide. He scoffed at the premise. "By that argument you would have 300,000 troops in the Congo right now -- where millions have been slaughtered as a consequence of ethnic strife -- which we haven't done," he told the Associated Press. "We would be deploying unilaterally and occupying the Sudan, which we haven't done. Those of us who care about Darfur don't think it would be a good idea."
Readin', Writin' and Social Justice Agitatin'
It's back-to-school season across the country. But in an increasing number of districts, "back to school" doesn't mean back to learning. Under the reign of social justice indoctrinators, academics are secondary to political agitation. Activism trumps achievement. In Massachusetts, the John J. Duggan Middle School will open on August 25 with a new name and mission. It is now a "social justice magnet school." As a hiring advertisement for teachers explained earlier this year, the emphasis will be on "helping students develop the necessary skills to analyze and synthesize information and to generate empathy by looking at multiple sides of important issues facing the world, be that hunger, water quality, racial barriers, child labor or imbalance of power."
The Choice Between Adventure and Safety
Throughout history, men have left the warmth of home to light upon untamed lands. Scientists venture into the deep of the sea and the dark of the sky. Architects build bridges raw and powerful, stable on the brink of peril, with just enough room in the balancing act for doubt to make crossing an adventure. Danger appeals to us. As children, we typically dream of becoming heroes of a wild breed -- mountain climbers and lion tamers -- because we want to be brave.
Rand Paul, I'm Talking to You!
Isolationists are always insisting that America can't be the world's policeman; what they don't tell you is who should be. After all, even the most liberal pinheaded pacifist wouldn't dare suggest this is a safe world. So who gets the job? The U.N.?! There are two reasons that's a lousy idea. The first is that the U.N. is incapable of keeping the peace even on a grammar school playground. Hell, they can't even wipe out the few hundred members of Boko Haram, a name which apparently translates to "Western education is a sin," but should conclude with "but kidnapping 300 Christian girls is a virtue in the eyes of Allah."
Amnesty as Impeachment Bait
President Obama is impatient. Congress won't act on immigration, he says, and therefore he will. The White House is coy as to exactly what the president will do. But the leaks point to an executive order essentially legalizing an enormous new class of illegal immigrants, perhaps up to 5 million people. One doesn't usually respond to rumors. But this is an idea so bad and so persistently peddled by the White House that it has already been pre-emptively criticized by such unusual suspects as (liberal) constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley, concerned about yet another usurpation of legislative power by the "uber presidency," and The Washington Post editorial page, which warned that such a move would "tear up the Constitution."
Medicare Solution
Next week I'm scheduled for a cervical spinal fusion that costs upward of $100,000, but I won't be paying for it. Like 50 million other Medicare recipients, I will receive the medical care I need more or less free of charge thanks to Medicare. It's something most seniors take for granted -- a benefit we believe we're entitled to because, after all, we paid Medicare taxes all our working lives. But as it happens, those taxes aren't nearly enough to pay for the benefits we receive from the system -- at least for most of us. Despite the fact that I still work and pay hefty Medicare taxes, I am likely to become one of those people who becomes a drain on the system if I live long enough (my mother died at 90, my grandmother at 95).
Have You Taken Your Obama Oath?
Jonathan Alter at The Daily Beast has an idea that will infuse the president's "economic patriotism" rhetoric with some bite: Compel companies to take "loyalty oaths" to prove their patriotism. You may find this suggestion a little creepy, maybe even a little fascistic; but Alter says that "it's time for red-blooded Americans to take matters into our own hands."
GOP Voters Wary of Tea Party Candidates, Skeptical of Party Establishment
The standard thing to say about the various Republican primaries this year is that the tea party movement has lost one race after another. That's a defensible conclusion but also an oversimplification. I see more turbulence and undercurrents among Republican primary voters than usual. The evidence is that incumbents -- both those the mainstream media call tea partyers and those they call the party establishment -- have been prevailing by tenuous margins in primaries that in the pre-tea party years would almost certainly not have been seriously contested.
Compromise With Obama? Surely, You Jest!
It's time to revisit the widely disseminated myth that compromise in politics and governance is the highest virtue. Recently, I heard a television host whom I like and respect lament that Congress left town without taking action on our border crisis. Members of Congress, the argument goes, just need to get together, put aside their partisanship and get something done. After all, even couples going through an acrimonious divorce can sit down in the same room, close the doors and work out some agreement.
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Don't Cry for Argentina -- Cry for Us
Thursday's headline in the Los Angeles Times -- "Argentina Defaults on International Debt" -- spooked me, as it did investors. The stock market tanked on the news. All Americans should feel the same apprehension. Argentina has about $200 billion in debt including billions in restructured bonds that it still can't make payments on. Now Argentina has to go hat in hand to its debtors to try to reach a new repayment deal. Standard and Poor's declares that the nation is already in "technical default." Interest rates and inflation are in double digits. The stock market collapsed 8.4 percent in one day. This is akin to a 1,000-point decline in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
America: Unprepared for War
Obama's determination to downsize the military -- and its catastrophic consequences.
IRS to Churches: Be Audit You Can Be
Most of us would love to get the IRS to go to church -- but not to censor what's being said there! Unfortunately, that seems to be the next stop on the agency's intimidation tour, thanks to a new settlement between the President's favorite tax bullies and the extremists at the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). In late July, the government persuaded the Freedom From Religion Foundation to drop its lawsuit by striking a deal with the atheist group. They had sued the IRS to get it to do what it already does: harass religious Americans. Apparently, the radicals at the Foundation felt like churches were being left out of the administration's conservative targeting party and took the IRS to court for refusing to crackdown on churches that spoke freely about moral or political issues from the pulpit. According to FFRF, the IRS promised to rewrite its policies and take a harder line against pastors exercising their First Amendment rights.
The Reason for Watergate?
At about 5:15 p.m. on June 17, 1971, in the Oval Office, the president ordered a crime: "I want it implemented on a thievery basis. Goddamn it, get in and get those files. Blow the safe and get it." The burglary he demanded was not the one that would occur exactly one year later at the Democratic National Committee's office in the Watergate complex. Richard Nixon was ordering a break-in at the Brookings Institution, a think tank, to seize material concerning U.S. diplomacy regarding North Vietnam during the closing weeks of the 1968 presidential campaign.
Democrat Support for Amnesty Threatens Their Most Loyal Voters
In 1964, Malcolm X chastised black people for their blind allegiance to the Democratic Party. He said: "You put them first, and they put you last -- 'cause you're a chump. A political chump! ... Anytime you throw your weight behind a political party that controls two-thirds of the government, and that Party can't keep the promise that it made to you during election time, and you are dumb enough to walk around continuing to identify yourself with that Party -- you're not only a chump but you're a traitor to your race."