Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Random Thoughts
Random thoughts on the passing scene: Will the Veterans Administration scandal wake up those people who have been blithely saying that what we need is a "single payer" system for medical care? Delays in getting to see a doctor have been a common denominator in government-run medical systems in England, Canada and Australia, among other places. Class warfare rhetoric would have us resenting "the top ten percent" in income. But that would be a farce, because most of us would be resenting ourselves, since more than half of all Americans -- 54 percent -- are in the top ten percent at some stage of their lives.
The Rich List and the West's Culture of Envy
In the 1970s, while working as a low-paid cub reporter in Houston, Texas, I always looked forward to the annual Christmas catalogs from Neiman-Marcus and Sakowitz, a local luxury department store. Both contained outrageously expensive things that only the super-rich could afford -- his and hers Thunderbirds stick in my memory. My wife and I couldn't wait to thumb through them and we frequently laughed at how much some of the items cost, wondering if even rich Texans would spend so extravagantly. Another tribute to conspicuous wealth comes in the annual "Rich List," a guide to the 1,000 richest men and women in Britain, published in a special edition of The Sunday Times Magazine. A fat feline sits proudly on the cover with the symbol of a British pound (in gold) around its neck.
The Race Card Is Still Maxed Out
Having been raised by an Irish Catholic mother and a lapsed Jewish father, I have often referred to an immortal phrase I heard from a comedian whose name I no longer remember. "I know guilt *and* shame," I've explained to many people with whom I've discussed family backgrounds. Oftentimes, I go further, explaining that while Irish and Jewish are the biggies, my family's background is comprised of so many other ethnicities (Lithuanian, Brazilian and French/Creole to name a few) that being prejudiced is a dangerous enterprise: I could end up hating myself. I bring this up because I'm getting sick to death with regard to what passes for "enlightened thinking" on the subject of race. There's an old saying that no one is more annoying than a reformed drunk talking about the excesses of alcohol. I disagree. Progressives who believe they own the franchise on moral superiority -- and thus the self-appointed and exclusive right to determine who is or isn't racist -- blow the doors off reformed drunks.
Can Republicans Be as Ideological as Obama?
Talk about Republican Party differences between the "establishment" and the Tea Party is taking attention from where it really needs to be focused -- on the real issues facing the nation. With all our differences, Americans agree that we're on the wrong track. The latest Gallup poll asking "Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States at this time?" shows just 25 percent satisfied. Even among Democrats just 35 percent are satisfied.
Monday, May 26, 2014
The VA Scandal: A Shadow Over Memorial Day
The Left's message to our veterans: don’t hold your breath for accountability.
The Virtue Behind Memorial Day
America's success rests on the courage to do the right thing
The Vaunted 'Competence' of Barack Obama
As a candidate for president in 1988, Michael Dukakis famously proclaimed: "This election is not about ideology; it's about competence." It wasn't a winning argument. Dukakis had run as the architect of the so-called "Massachusetts Miracle," the state's mid-1980s economic boom. But the miracle was turning into a fiscal meltdown, and as it did Dukakis's once-commanding lead went down the drain. On Election Day, he lost to George H. W. Bush in a 40-state landslide. Dukakis played down ideology because he didn't want to be tagged as a liberal, and he played up competence because that's what all candidates do. Twenty years later, Barack Obama did the same thing, but with far greater success. Running to succeed the deeply polarizing George W. Bush, Obama held himself out not just as a leader who would never "pit red America against blue America," but as a natural-born manager whose hallmark was smarts and competence.
Mickey Mouse & Mickey Rooney
To get an idea of how far removed from reality or at least from the truth liberals are, you merely had to listen to them insist that when Eric Holder appeared before Al Sharpton's National Action Network, boohooing about the way he and Obama are treated, he wasn't referring to the fact they're both black. The truth is that virtually everything Holder does or says is racial in nature. Some would even say "racist." He was the fellow, you might recall, who called whites cowards for being unwilling to speak honestly about race, by which he meant fess up to being bigots. Also, according to certain lawyers at the Justice Department, upon taking office, Holder announced it would not be his policy to charge non-whites with hate crimes or civil rights infractions. What's more, he proved he meant it when he refused to indict the Black Panthers for intimidating white voters in Philadelphia during the 2008 presidential election. Under his despicable watch, the blindfold was forcefully removed from Lady Justice's eyes.
Sunday, May 25, 2014
An Address We'll Never Hear
All modern presidents of both parties have been too much with us. Talking incessantly, they have put politics unhealthily at the center of America's consciousness. Promising promiscuously, they have exaggerated government's proper scope and actual competence, making the public perpetually disappointed and surly. Inflating executive power, they have severed it from constitutional constraints. So, sensible voters might embrace someone who announced his 2016 candidacy this way: "I am ambling -- running suggests unseemly ardor -- for president. It is axiomatic that anyone who nowadays will do what is necessary in order to become president thereby reveals character traits, including delusions of adequacy and obsessive compulsive disorder, that should disqualify him or her from proximity to powers concentrated in the executive branch. Therefore, my campaign will initially consist of driving around the Obnoxiously Entitled Four -- Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada -- trying to interest their 3.8 percent of America's population in a minimalist president.
Saturday, May 24, 2014
How Political Insiders Control the Ballot
Ballot-access hurdles are a classic incumbent-protection device, one of the techniques political insiders use to protect their monopoly from pesky challengers and citizen initiatives. So it's tempting to chortle when one of those hurdles trips up an incumbent as seasoned as Representative John Conyers Jr., a Detroit Democrat serving his 25th term in Congress, who was disqualified last week from the Democratic primary ballot for failing to submit the 1,000 valid voter signatures Michigan law requires. There are plenty of reasons why voters in Michigan's 13th congressional district might want to usher Conyers into retirement. The man is 85, he has been in Congress for half a century, and in recent years he has compiled an embarrassing record of ethical lapses and controversies. He is often visibly befuddled; veteran Detroit News editor Nolan Finley notes that "stories abound about Conyers' gaps in lucidity."
Blame Socialism, Not Shinseki
The VA problem is not Shinseki; it's socialism. The Veterans Affairs health care system is completely government run. It is a pure single-payer program. National Review Editor Rich Lowry calls it "an island of socialism in American health care." He is right. I've been arguing this all week. So perhaps Democrats and Republicans will get together to sack VA Secretary Eric Shinseki. But that won't change a thing. In fact, it's a distraction. The long waits for treatment, with excessive delays resulting in as many as 40 deaths, are a tragically predictable outcome. This is the result of bureaucratic rationing, price controls, inefficiencies and the inevitable cover-ups. It was the late James Buchanan, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, who taught us all about bureaucratic incentives in his seminal work on public choice.
The Bogus Era
I doubt if there has ever been a time when obvious lies and sheer humbug were ever as widespread as they've been over the past couple of decades. But, then, I don't believe we have ever had as many really stupid people eating, breathing, voting and taking our parking spaces, as we have today. I believe there are many causes for this dismal state of affairs. To begin with, there was the generation that came of age in the 1960s, arguably the largest group of arrogant and narcissistic youngsters America had ever seen up to that point. Alas, they, in turn had millions of children and grandchildren, even though they trumpeted the Roe v. Wade decision as if it were the Second Coming. Those louts then elected Jimmy Carter, who betrayed the Shah of Iran, thus ushering in three decades of Islamic terrorism; Bill Clinton, who first tried foisting HillaryCare on us and then settled for turning military bases into gun-free zones; George W. Bush, who kept insisting, parrot-like, that Islam was a religion of peace; and Barack Obama, whose litany of sins is simply too lengthy to list.
From The Comedy Store
Nancy Pelosi put five Democrats on the House committee looking into the Benghazi attack. They want to know where Obama and Hillary were that night during the consulate attack. They already asked Joe Biden where he was between nine and twelve, and he replied the third grade.
Friday, May 23, 2014
Internet Gambling Puts Governors at Odds
Legalizing online gambling is an all or nothing proposition, even the American Gaming Association (AGA) knows this. Wednesday, the industry group representing the nation's casinos decided to withdraw its support of online gambling, citing differences between casino operators. They know from a strictly business perspective, online gambling would change the face of their industry and so it makes sense to be united moving forward. Unfortunately, another more important association thinks differently. The National Governors Association (NGA), the "collective voice of the nation's governors," issued a letter earlier this week to Congressional leaders raising concerns that a nationwide ban on internet gambling would, as authors Gov. Robert Bentley (R-Ala.) and Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin (D-W.Va.) see it, interfere with state's abilities to regulate the issue themselves.
Feminism: Still Considered Man-Hating
Shailene Woodley is fast-rising movie star, and at age 22, she's already thrown the country's most uptight feminists into a tizzy. Time magazine asked Woodley: "Do you consider yourself a feminist?" To say she didn't give the Hollywood answer would be an understatement. "No, because I love men, and I think the idea of 'raise women to power, take the men away from the power' is never going to work out because you need balance." Many women continue to reject "feminism" because it evokes an ideological rigidity grounded in the hostility toward men. That, in turn, drives feminists around a bend.
How America Treats Illegal Aliens vs. Veterans
A government that fails to secure its borders is guilty of dereliction of duty. A government that fails to care for our men and women on the frontlines is guilty of malpractice. A government that puts the needs of illegal aliens above U.S. veterans for political gain should be prosecuted for criminal neglect bordering on treason. Compare, contrast and weep: In Sacramento, Calif., lawmakers are moving forward with a budget-busting plan to extend government-funded health insurance to at least 1.5 million illegal aliens.
Uncle Sam Needs DREAMers
A plan to allow some young people to serve in the U.S. military even if their parents brought them to America illegally as young children may be the opening some Republicans need to support at least limited immigration reform. The so-called ENLIST Act would grant to undocumented young immigrants the right to join the U.S. military and be eligible for citizenship after four years. But the measure already suffered one defeat when its sponsor, Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Calif., tried to add it as an amendment this week to a must-pass defense policy bill. Still, Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., both have said they don't have a problem with the principle of allowing so-called "DREAMers" to serve in the military and earn an expedited path to citizenship.
Why Conservatives Shouldn't Boycott Chipotle
For those of you who haven't heard, Chipotle Mexican Grill, which for years allowed local laws to dictate policy for the restaurant chain regarding open or concealed weapons, has decided to "ask" customers not to bring firearms into its restaurants after some zealous gun owners paraded around with "military-style assault rifles" at a Chipotle in Texas. What's more probable, though, is that well-funded anti-Second Amendment activists exploited a single unfortunate incident to badger a pliable corporation into a bad decision. This is neither new nor unexpected. Cue the calls for a boycott from Second Amendment fans.
Hillary Stacks the Benghazi Select Committee
The Democratic establishment isn't out to find the truth. It's out to protect Hillary.