Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Thursday, June 26, 2014
The Obamification of America
Who's that gray-haired old guy in the Oval Office? What happened to the hopeful young man who promised all those great things in 2008? What's happened to America under Barack Obama? Our economy is still mired in a recession he still blames on George W. Bush.
Living Good Stories
Have you ever stopped to consider why stories mean so much to us? Why do great books and great movies enrapture us the way they do? When you pick up your empty popcorn bag and slowly -- almost mournfully -- make your way out of the theater, or when you finally lay down a dearly loved book after you have turned the final page, the deep sense of longing we experience suggests to me that our hearts long for far more than mere entertainment. In *A Million Miles in a Thousand Years*, Donald Miller writes about the parallels between storytelling and living -- about how the elements that make a story compelling are the same elements that comprise a meaningful life.
No Denying Climate Change Deniers
People who refuse to drink the Kool-Aid known as global warming-climate change are not just "deniers"; we are guilty of a "nihilistic refusal" to address the issue. So says a Washington Post editorial commenting favorably on Monday's Supreme Court ruling that allows the Environmental Protection Agency, under certain limits, to proceed under the Clean Air Act to regulate major sources of greenhouse-gas emissions. The actual nihilists are those who refuse to accept any scientific information that undermines their claim that the globe is warming and humans are responsible for it. Cults are like that. Regardless of evidence contradicting their beliefs, cultists persist in blind faith.
Lift the Embargo, but Liberate Cuba First
At a June 12 appearance in New York before the Council on Foreign Relations, Hillary Clinton made the familiar argument for ending the US trade embargo against Cuba, the same one critics of the policy have been making for years. "The embargo is Castro's best friend," the former secretary of state said; it provides the Havana regime with "an excuse for everything." Scrapping sanctions would "change the psychology of this issue" and improve US relations with the rest of the hemisphere. So "we should advocate for normalizing relations and see what [Cuba's rulers] do."
Mississippi Votes Its Appetite
Chris McDaniel, 41, the flawed paladin of the tea party persuasion who in Mississippi's Republican Senate primary failed to wrest the nomination from the faltering hands of six-term incumbent Thad Cochran, 76, came into politics after a stint in talk radio. There practitioners do not live by the axiom that you don't have to explain something you never said, and McDaniel had some explaining to do about some of his more colorful broadcast opinions and phrases, which may have given a number of voters pause about whether he is quite senatorial, whatever that means nowadays.
Breakfast With a Doctor
A couple of weeks ago, I was lured from my customary solitary breakfast to dine with Dr. Ben Carson, the celebrated neurosurgeon and inchoate politician. He probably squirms at the appellation "politician," but I am afraid that is what he is going to be. In fact, a politician is what he will have to be if he acts upon his diagnosis of America. He believes America is losing touch with its founding principles. Usually at breakfast time I am holed up with four newspapers, eggs and coffee to gain my bearings on the day ahead. Yet, the prospect of listening to Dr. Carson overwhelmed my newspaper time. Besides, I am a confirmed hypochondriac, and Dr. Carson is a truly accomplished physician. Possibly I might gain a new insight to various afflictions.
10 Reasons Why Iraq's Bloodbath Is Not W's Fault
1) In 2011, President Barack Obama pronounced Iraq "self-reliant and democratic," and "a country in which people from different religious sects and ethnicities can resolve their differences peacefully through the democratic process." In 2010, Vice President Joe Biden called Iraq "one of the great achievements of this administration." Obama ignored pleas by top generals who advised against pulling out without leaving a residual force. 2) Nearly everybody assumed Saddam Hussein possessed stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. Of the newspaper editorials that opposed the war, not one challenged the assumption that Iraq possessed stockpiles of WMD.
Revisionist History Prevails on Iraq Invasion
So who lost Iraq? The blame game mostly fingers incompetent Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Or is Barack Obama culpable for pulling out all American troops monitoring the success of the 2007-08 surge? Some still blame George W. Bush for going into Iraq in 2003 in the first place to remove Saddam Hussein. One can blame almost anyone, but one must not invent facts to support an argument.
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
Meriam on Standby
Just when it looked like Sudanese mother Meriam Ibrahim and her two children would finally be free from the grip of injustice, they were snatched back into the clutches of the Sudanese authorities, who detained them when they arrived at an airport to leave Sudan yesterday. Sources close to the situation told me that Sudanese officials claimed they were trying to leave the country based upon incorrect documents. Monday, in a heartening turn of events, a Sudanese appeals court overturned a lower court ruling in which Meriam had been sentenced to death for apostasy and 100 lashes for adultery. According to Sudan's official SUNA news agency (as reported by the Independent), "The appeal court ordered the release of Mariam Yahya and the cancellation of the (previous) court ruling." This was certainly a good bit of news, as numerous human rights organizations and governments had pressured Sudan and called on the ruling to be reversed.
Exposed: How the VA Red-Flags 'Disruptive' Vets
Imagine how much better off America's veterans would be if the federal government spent more time delivering actual care and less time compiling tyrannical lists. The death-inducing secret waiting lists for patients are just the tip of the iceberg. Did you know, for example, that the VA keeps a database on "disgruntled" and "disruptive" vets that results in arbitrarily restricted care? Disabled Air Force veteran and veterans advocate/attorney Benjamin Krause has been raising questions about the system for months and warning his peers. Under the VA policy on "patient record flags" (PRFs), federal bureaucrats can classify vets as "threats" based on assessments of their "difficult," "annoying" and "non-compliant" behavior.
Media Helpers for White House Summits
In November of 2002, Washington Post reporter-editor Bob Woodward unveiled excerpts of his latest book, "Bush at War," and caused a big stir by revealing that Fox News boss Roger Ailes had sent a confidential memo to the George W. Bush White House after 9/11 insisting the president stay tough against the terrorists. NBC "Meet The Press" host Tim Russert, who revolved into TV news from Mario Cuomo's office, spoke for his industry when he asserted, "I would not recommend that behavior for any practicing journalist." One can only imagine the furor had Fox News hosts actually entered the White House gates to participate in a Bush administration publicity event designed to promote public policy.
Jay Rockefeller's Vaping Vapors
A Senate Hearing Highlights Irrational Hostility Toward E-Cigarettes
Iran: The Existential Threat
In the confusion that accompanies the surge of ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), it is not surprising that many are deeply concerned. This extraordinarily savage group of terrorists has stormed out of Syria and is threatening many cities in Iraq -- cities that Americans liberated with their blood and treasure. It's not surprising that, faced with such a stunning development, even officials like Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) might consider working with Iran's mullahs to stem the tide. It was Churchill who decided to work with Stalin following Hitler's betrayal of his ally some 73 years ago. He said if Hitler invaded hell, he would at least make favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.
Detroit: How the Left Made Water More Expensive Than Cell Phones
Progressives' cruel assault on the poor unmasked.
The Education Establishment's Success
Many view America's education as a failure, but in at least one important way, it's been a success -- a success in dumbing down the nation so that we fall easy prey to charlatans, hustlers and quacks. You say, "Williams, that's insulting! Explain yourself." OK, let's start with a question or two. Are you for or against global warming, later renamed climate change and more recently renamed climate disruption? Environmentalists have renamed it because they don't want to look silly in the face of cooling temperatures. About 650 million years ago, the Earth was frozen from pole to pole, a period scientists call Snowball Earth. The Earth is no longer frozen from pole to pole. There must have been global warming, and it cannot be blamed on humans. Throughout the Earth's history, we've had both ice ages and higher temperatures when CO2 emissions were 10 times higher than they are today. There's one immutable fact about climate. It changes, and mankind can't do anything about it. Only idiocy would conclude that mankind's capacity to change the climate is more powerful than the forces of nature.
Is it Murder or Suicide?
There are times when I suspect that people like Obama, Reid, Pelosi, Schumer, Boxer and Durbin, should have their photos on the wall of the post office as suspects in the killing of America. Other times, I remember that all of these people, along with the likes of Elijah Cummings, Brad Sherman, Henry Waxman, Sheila Jackson Lee and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, have all been elected numerous times, so perhaps it's America that's chosen to commit suicide. As many of you recall, a doctor named Jack Kevorkian was generally reviled for assisting the terminally ill achieve a painless death. Some people called him a vulture. I was not one of them. It seems to me that if a person chooses to end his pain and suffering by ending his life, he shouldn't be denied that which we bestow, ironically, on both our beloved pets and the vilest serial killers.
A Questionable Game of 'Shut Up' on Iraq
It's a fact of human nature that it's easier to talk about who's to blame for a problem than it is to figure out what to do about the problem. Case in point: There's a near-riot in liberal circles over the very idea that supporters of the Iraq War should even be allowed to criticize the president's handling of the current Middle East crisis, never mind offer advice on how to proceed. The Atlantic's James Fallows says Dick Cheney and company "have earned the right not to be listened to." Slate magazine's Jamelle Bouie says that prominent public intellectuals and journalists who supported the Iraq war should "be barred from public comment." Charles Pierce at Esquire is less subtle: "Shut up, all of you. Go away."
Omission Control
Reporter Sharyl Attkisson's story sounds familiar to me: A major network got tired of her reports criticizing government. She no longer works there. The CBS correspondent reported on Fast and Furious, the shifting explanation for the Benghazi, Libya, attacks and the bungled rollout of the Obamacare website. "But as time went on, it was harder to get stories on," she says. "There are people who simply would rather just avoid the headache of going after powers that be because of the pushback that comes with it, which has become very organized and well-financed," she says on my TV show this week.
Welcome to the Executive Dictatorship
The Constitution is dead. Long live the executive dictatorship. There is almost nothing the president of the United States cannot do. This week, we found out President Barack Obama's IRS not only targeted conservative nonprofit applicants with impunity but then destroyed the emails that could have illuminated the process behind such targeting. Meanwhile, the attorney general -- the executive officer charged with fighting government criminality -- continues to stonewall an independent prosecutor, maintaining along with his boss that there is not a "smidgen of corruption" in the IRS.
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Saddam's WMDs: The Left's Iraq Lies Exposed
Where is the apology to the Bush administration?