Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Healthy Profits?
I'm the underachiever in my family. My parents also produced Harvard Medical School research director Thomas Stossel. Mom called him the one who had "a real job." For years, my brother annoyed me by not embracing the libertarianism that changed my life. It bored him. He was comfortable in his Harvard cocoon. But then he realized that the anti-capitalist activists who fight with me on my TV show are also the people who make life more difficult for doctors, and for patients who want cures.
Want a Real Anti-Poverty Plan? Stop Amnesty!
It is now all the fashionable rage in Washington, D.C., to proclaim solidarity with America's working poor in front of the cameras -- while stabbing them in the back behind closed doors. Privileged Illinois Democratic Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky and others have taken to Twitter, posting photos of themselves eating tuna sandwiches and buying Ramen noodles to show how much they empathize with minimum-wage workers. On the other side of the aisle, GOP Rep. Paul Ryan has wrapped himself in a cloak of compassion, putting a cheesy Taylor Swift hand heart around conservatism by proposing government "life coaches" for those in poverty. Message: They care! Reality: They fake. The cognitive dissonance on Capitol Hill is so thick you need a V8-powered chainsaw to slice it.
Same-Sex Marriage vs. Motherhood
The movement demanding legal recognition for same-sex marriage has made a radical and profoundly uncharitable assumption. It is this: Adult homosexuals need and have a greater right to same-sex marriage than babies have to their mothers. You cannot simultaneously claim babies have a right to their mothers and two men have a right to marry each other. Nor, of course, can you simultaneously claim babies have right to their fathers and two women have a right to marry each other.
The Blackout of Obama Foreign Policy Critics
During the George W. Bush years, network news airtime was loaded with criticism of Bush for every foreign policy development. His policies either caused the crisis or worsened an existing crisis, or, in the case of Iraq, both. Everything Team Bush did was either bumbling, dishonest, blatantly unconstitutional or horrendously costly in lives and treasure. "Bush lied; thousands died." That was the vile mantra of the ultra-left but never denounced as vile by the news media, perhaps because so many agreed with that sentiment. Bush had ruined America's image in the eyes of the world.
Rand Paul's Theft Protection Plan
Senator's Forfeiture Reform Bill Would Limit Govt.'s License to Steal
Jim Crow and the Donkey: A True History the Left Loves to Ignore
You know you've hit a sore spot when the Left starts screeching. MSNBC host Rachel Maddow's producer, Steve Benen, just took a whack at the American Civil Rights Union's new booklet, "The Truth About Jim Crow," (TTAJC) which National Review Online writer John Fund wrote about in a recent column. Benen cites a critique from the Atlanta Journal Constitution blogger Jay Bookman: "Jay Bookman took a closer look at the pamphlet Fund's piece was promoting, highlighting some of its more glaring errors of fact and judgment."
Obama: Troll Hard With a Vengeance
This week, as I have been predicting for months, President Barack Obama announced that he would be considering unprecedented executive action to provide legal status for millions of illegal immigrants. His goal is not to solve the immigration crisis -- you don't grant legal status to 5 million illegal immigrants, then leave the back door wide open if you're interested in solving the problem. His goal is not to help illegal immigrants -- he instead leaves them in limbo by granting them temporary work permits, rather than blanket amnesty. His goal is trolling. Trolling is a practice whereby a person takes a deliberately indefensible position simply to draw passionate excess from an opponent. That is Obama's goal here: He hopes for extreme language, impassioned opposition and eventually, impeachment.
Democrats' Impeachment Fixation
"Sorry to email you late on a Friday, but I need your urgent support," Nancy Pelosi wrote me. The House minority leader went on to explain that "for the first time in history, Congress voted to sue a sitting president." And, "Today: the White House alerted us that they believe 'Speaker Boehner ... has opened the door to impeachment.' "What Republicans are doing to President Obama is historic -- and offensive," she wrote. And then, in a bright bold red text that can't be done justice in black and white, she chided me, "With everything happening right now, I'm a little disappointed to see that you haven't had a chance to chip in to defend President Obama.
Please Stop Helping Us
While reading the first chapter of Jason Riley's new book, "Please Stop Helping Us," I thought about Will Rogers' Prohibition-era observation that "Oklahomans vote dry as long as they can stagger to the polls." Demonstrative of similar dedication, one member of Congress told Vanderbilt University political scientist Carol Swain that "one of the advantages and disadvantages of representing blacks is their shameless loyalty. ... You can almost get away with raping babies and be forgiven. You don't have any vigilance about your performance." In my opinion, there appear to be no standards of performance low enough for blacks to lose their loyalty to their black political representatives.
Guard Gives Kids' Camp the Boot
Whether it's erasing a Bible verse on a white board or the banning of pocket-sized Gideon Bibles from an Air Force base, our military service members, under the Obama administration, have experienced an unprecedented rise in the suppression of their religious speech. Members of the Missouri National Guard are now finding out that even associating with church members is enough to trigger a secularist clampdown. Last week, the boys and girls of Bible Baptist Church in Carthage, Missouri were planning to salute the guardsmen at the church's Vacation Bible School. You can probably guess what happened next. Fox News' Todd Starnes talked to the pastor who told him, "We were going to thank them for protecting our religious liberty," said Pastor Hogan. "It was more of a promotion for the military -- to show the kids what the military does." But at the last minute, the National Guard canceled the visit, blamed federal policy and told the pastor that "if the National Guard had assets on church property it would look like the National Guard is sponsoring the Baptist religion."
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
The Trouble With Banning Trans Fats
Like many Americans, you probably think it's up to you to determine how healthy your diet is. Well, the Food and Drug Administration has a different idea. You see, the FDA is gunning for the trans fats in your diet. Last year, the agency tentatively decided to revoke the status of partially hydrogenated oils as "Generally Recognized as Safe." A recent FDA update notes that if this decision is finalized, it could "mean the end of artificial, industrially produced trans fat in foods." Wait, you may say, trans fats are bad, so this is a good thing. Not exactly.
Congress: The Good, Bad, and Ugly
Despite Congress's gridlock on a host of issues related to our national security and economic stability, last week included two bright spots for conservatives interested in common-sense policy reforms. The good news: coming just a day after news of Meriam Ibrahim's safe travels with her family to Italy, Congress gave advocates of international religious freedom one more reason to celebrate. Late Friday, the House passed by unanimous consent S. 653, the Near East and South Central Asia Religious Freedom Act of 2014, a bill which establishes a Special Envoy to advocate for religious minorities in the region of the world most impacted by the violent persecution of believers.
The Genocide Libel
In order to justify killing Jews, Jew-haters throughout history made up libels about the Jews that were so awful that they justified, at least for the Jew-hater, the mass murder of Jews. The charge that the Jews of every age -- not just some Jews at one time -- killed God Himself was used by medieval Christians to justify mass murdering of Jews. Then came another grotesque libel -- what is known as the blood libel. Also prevalent in the Middle Ages, this charged Jews with kidnapping Christian children, sacrificing them and using their blood to bake matzo (the unleavened Passover bread).
Halbig Is an Opportunity for Supreme Court to Rededicate Itself to Rule of Law
True, the Halbig case, if it makes its way to the Supreme Court, will present an opportunity for Chief Justice John Roberts to redeem himself from his abominably activist salvation of Obamacare. But more important, it will be an opportunity for the high court to reaffirm this nation's commitment to the rule of law. In Halbig v. Burwell, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals held that under the Affordable Care Act federal health insurance subsidies are available for policies purchased only on state exchanges and not those purchased on the federal exchange.
The Gospel of the Terrorists: Beat it or Die
Word to Christians from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria: Convert, leave or die. Forget accommodation. Forget religious tolerance and related catch phrases from the always tolerant, perpetually forbearing West. Convert, leave or die. Against the backdrop of attempts to exterminate -- not just subdue, not just conquer; *exterminate* -- Christianity in the Middle East, Secretary of State John Kerry's frantic appeals for an Israeli stand-down in the war with Hamas look more absurd by the second. The firers of rockets from Gaza into Israel are of the same kidney as the ISIS terrorists. If you're not one of them, they want you gone or dead.
Israel Supporters: Beware of Hillary
In the last several weeks, I've heard people confidently declare that the 70 percent of Jewish Americans who voted for Obama are finally sorry. I'm skeptical, but even if they are, they're probably telling themselves that Hillary Clinton would be a better friend to the Jewish state than the current president. They have short memories. Remember the way first lady Hillary Clinton sat mute while Suha Arafat accused Israelis of poisoning children? She then embraced Arafat and kissed her on both cheeks. Clinton learned to mouth the right words when seeking a Senate sinecure from the (heavily Jewish) state of New York, and later the presidency. But her recent book and interviews suggest that her sympathies are by no means clear, and her judgment is worse.
Lois Lowry's 'The Giver' a Portent of What Might Be?
With his approval numbers sinking to 39 percent a week ago, according to the Gallup tracking poll, President Obama isn't alone in having a bad summer. So is Hollywood. Entertainment Weekly calls gross receipts for what should have been a blockbuster July 4-6 weekend "downright terrifying." Writes EW, "Not only were grosses down 45 percent from last year's holiday, according to Boxofficemojo.com, but it was Hollywood's worst July 4 weekend since 1999. (And that's not taking into account inflation. In fact, this was the worst July-holiday weekend for ticket sales since the summer of 'Dragnet' in 1987.)"
Cease the Cease-Fires
Many years ago, on my first trip around the world, I was struck by how the children in the Middle East -- Arab and Israeli alike -- were among the nicest looking little children I had seen anywhere. It was painful to think that they were going to grow up killing each other. But that is exactly what happened. It is understandable that today many people in many lands just want the fighting between the Israelis and the Palestinians to stop. Calls for a cease-fire are ringing out from the United Nations and from Washington, as well as from ordinary people in many places around the world.
Fighting Parasitic Bureaucracies and Crony Capitalism
"Pare down the parasitic fringe" of government. "Favor a gospel of work" instead of aristocratic entitlement. "Rationalize finance" and "reverse the Parkinson's law of bureaucracy." All that sounds like rhetoric from the Tea Party or reform conservatives who assail what they call crony capitalism. But it's not a contemporary criticism. Those are phrases from a long essay, written more than half a century ago, by the British historian H. R. Trevor-Roper, titled "The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century."