Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Will Dunbar Rise Again?
Dunbar High School in Washington is becoming a controversial issue again -- and the controversy that is beginning to develop has implications for American education well beyond the District of Columbia. There has not been much controversy about Dunbar High School for a long time. Since sometime in the late 1950s, it has been just one more ghetto school with an abysmal academic record -- and that has been too common to be controversial. What is different about the history of Dunbar is that, from its founding in 1870 as the first public high school in the country for black students, until the mid 1950s, it was an outstanding academic success.
Up From Racism
There is something decidedly odd about the use of racially loaded terms in America today. Black personalities use these terms on occasion, and no controversy whatsoever is attached to the event. Even when the terms are enunciated in public for all to see and to hear. When whites -- often old and over the hill -- use these terms and ideas -- often behind closed doors -- all hell breaks loose. The latest occasion of this occurred when Donald Sterling, the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, a basketball team, was taped uttering racially divisive words and ignorant ideas to his obviously disgruntled lover. She handed over a tape of the conversation, apparently surreptitiously made, to online scandal sheet TMZ and kaboom. Suddenly, Sterling became one of the most notorious men in America and, of course, a modern American bigot. Of a sudden, the columnists and talking heads commenced a new round of chatter about how racism is still with us. After all, an 80-year-old billionaire is spouting racist swill in the comfort of his own home.
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Leftist Hate Crime Hysteria
Democrats' new plans to monitor hate speech and racial bias in law enforcement.
Sterling's Words Were Vulgar and Bigoted, but Private
A few thoughts on the Donald Sterling scandal, but first a personal disclosure: I have sometimes uttered words in the heat of a domestic squabble that I later regretted. I have expressed thoughts in personal conversation that I would never want to share with the world. On occasion I have yielded to impulses in private that I would be loath to be judged by in public. Maybe you have too.
Ain't That a Kick in the HUD...
The government may be desperate for homeless shelters -- but not desperate enough to give up their liberal agenda. Instead of partnering with ministries, the Obama administration seems bent on preventing them from helping the hurting. At Cincinnati's City Gospel Mission Roger Howell says the group has more needs than it has beds -- a problem it hoped to solve by moving into a brand new building. Unfortunately for Cincinnati's neediest, there's one thing in the organization's way: the federal government. Under what are called "fair housing restrictions," the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is taking issue with the Mission's male-only housing rule. Fox News's Todd Starnes, who broke the story, said city officials have agreed to waive the requirement because of the Mission's faith motivations. HUD, on the other hand, has not. "We are a faith-based Christian organization," Howell explained. "That is crucial to all of our programs. All of our staff adhere to those beliefs and live it. That's important." They refuse to budge on those beliefs -- even if it means losing the building. "There's no question from our point of view that we will continue to operate our program in a way that is consistent with what we believe the Bible says -- and will live within the law."
American Dreaming
Did you know that I started Facebook? Really! Well, sort of ... When I was in college at all-male Princeton, I tried to make money by adding photos to a snarky guide to neighboring girls' schools. The guide had been a profitable publishing success, and my idea was simply to add the girls' pictures. Schools like Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, Vassar, etc., already published those pictures, so all I had to do was get permission from administrators at those schools. Surprisingly, they gave it to me. Unfortunately for me and my "Face Book," there was no Internet then. So I don't own a company worth $180 billion. The book, "Who the Girls Are," was a flop. Oh, well.
The New Age of Gay Mr. Manners
The times they are a-changing in ways even Bob Dylan didn't foresee. I have an early childhood memory riding my bike and coming across a discarded booklet on proper social etiquette. It had the perfunctory rules. *Gentlemen always open doors for ladies. Stand when a lady comes in the room.* And so on. But the one I remember vividly is this: *A lady always extends her hand first in greeting.* Why? Fifty years ago I could understand the concept, but even then, I thought it was a bit much. Today that rule's been abandoned. Who decides these things anyway? Miss Manners (Judith Martin) entered the arena in 1978 and instantly became America's politeness pundit, writing thousands of columns printed in more than 200 newspapers ever since. She's arguably the nation's most influential arbiter of social etiquette.
Obama Finds His Clemency Pen
As an Illinois legislator, a U.S. senator and a presidential candidate, Barack Obama repeatedly criticized our excessively punitive criminal justice system. But after he was elected to the White House in 2008, the Obama who worried about nonviolent offenders serving outrageously long prison terms seemed to disappear, replaced by a president with one of the weakest clemency records in U.S. history. Once he had the unilateral power to free people who do not belong in prison, Obama showed almost no interest in exercising it, shortening just one sentence during his first term. But judging from clemency criteria unveiled by the Justice Department last week, he plans to make up for lost time. If he delivers on that promise, it may be his most admirable legacy, ameliorating some of the many injustices committed in the name of the war on drugs.
The Constitution or Good Ideas?
Let me run through a few good ideas. I think it's a good idea for children to eat healthful, wholesome foods. In the raising of our daughter, before-dinner treats were fresh vegetables, and after-dinner treats were mostly fruits. I arrive at my gym sometime between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m., at least four times a week, to lift weights and use the treadmill. During the warmer months, the treadmill is substituted by a weekly total of 40 to 60 miles on my bike. My exercise regimen is a good idea. Another good idea is to wear a bike helmet while bike riding and wear a seat belt when driving my car. Among many other good ideas is the enjoyment of two, maybe three, glasses of wine with each evening meal.
Black Ninnies in the News
Both Barack Obama and his mini-me, Eric Holder, felt the necessity of addressing the goony birds who flocked to Al Sharpton's annual National Action Network, a confab that gives racially inclined extortionists the opportunity to get together and compare notes. When it was Holder's turn to bellyache at the dais, he said, "What other Attorney General has ever had to deal with that kind of treatment?" He was referring to his appearance before a congressional committee a day earlier, at which Republican representatives had the temerity to wonder when he would actually produce documents relating to the IRS targeting of conservatives.
Demonizing the Helpers
It is not easy to demonize people who have spent hundreds of millions of dollars of their own money to help educate poor children. But some members of the education establishment are taking a shot at it. The Walton Family Foundation -- created by the people who created Walmart -- has given more than $300 million to charter schools, voucher programs and other educational enterprises concerned with the education of poor and minority students across the country. The Walton Family Foundation gave more than $58 million to the KIPP schools, which have had spectacular success in raising the test scores of children in ghettoes where the other children are far behind in academic performance.
Big Government GOP's Common Core Rebrand Hustle
This weekend on "Fox News Sunday," anchor Chris Wallace credited his guest, Republican Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, with leading the nation as the "first state to fall out of the Common Core national education standards." If only it were true. Wallace didn't do his homework. And presidential aspirant Pence was too busy daydreaming about 2016 to correct him. Reality check: Last week, Pence faced the anger of hundreds of Indiana parents, educators and activists at a public Indiana Business Roundtable meeting to discuss his phony charade. The protesters openly booed Pence's derision of critics as out-of-staters and elitists. They roared their disapproval when he claimed that his "new" standards were superior and homegrown.
Of Donald Sterling's Racism and the Rise of Thoughtcrime
In November 2009, Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling settled a lawsuit in which the Department of Justice alleged that Sterling had discriminated against Hispanics, blacks and families without children in his rental properties. The lawsuit contained testimony that Sterling had suggested Hispanics were poor tenants because they "smoke, drink, and just hang around the building," and that "black tenants smell and attract vermin." The settlement cost him and his insurers $2.73 million. The NBA and the national media said virtually nothing. That same year, the NAACP gave him a Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2005, Sterling signed a check for more than $5 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that he had attempted to prevent non-Koreans from renting in his facilities in Koreatown.
Did Illegals Misusing SSNs Earn More on Average Than U.S. Women?
If you simultaneously accept estimates published by the Census Bureau and the Chief Actuary of Social Security, then illegal aliens who misused Social Security numbers to work illegally in the United States in 2010 earned more on average than American women did. The Office of the Chief Actuary published an analysis in April 2013 entitled, "Effects of Unauthorized Immigration on the Actuarial Status of the Social Security Trust Funds." It included this question and answer: "Question: Of the unauthorized workers paying OASDI (Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance) taxes, what is the average level of earnings upon which the taxes are levied and how does that level compare with the broader U.S. labor force?
The Myth of the Wild
The pristine natural world has been gone for a long time; get used to it. Nearly all of the earthworms in New England and the upper Midwest were inadvertently imported from Europe. The American earthworms were wiped out by the last Ice Age. That's why when European colonists first got here, many forest floors were covered in deep drifts of wet leaves. The wild horses of the American West may be no less invasive than the Asian carp advancing on the Great Lakes. Most species of the tumbleweed, icon of the Old West, are actually from Russia or Asia.
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
The Establishment Republican-Leftist Alliance
Anti-Tea Party interests conspire at Amelia Island.
The Left's Trafficking Cops
Liberals care about fighting sex trafficking -- but not all care enough to partner with Christians who are. To them, the church's involvement is less about helping the hurting and more about a hidden agenda of religious conversion. In an eye-opening piece by Melissa Gira Grant, Salon.com treats the faith-based movement's involvement with deep suspicion, insisting that Christians are using the issue as a pretense for mass proselytizing and political conversion. Grant, who starts out to discredit the church's outreach, ends up showing just how transformational these programs have been for victims and their families. At one point, she even bemoans the faith-based organizations' "real influence on policy and policing." To the Left's dismay, more and more communities are turning to groups like Shared Hope International and its protégés -- largely because its model works. Unlike liberals, whose only answering to trafficking is more contraception and abortion, former U.S. Representative Linda Smith's approach is full restoration and care of girls who were trapped in that lifestyle.
Playing Dirty on Pensions
Government-employee unions tar those who would resist benefit bankruptcy
Thomas Piketty Wants Income Equality – And the Hell With Growth
French economist Thomas Piketty's book "Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century" has been inspiring a lot of comment and controversy. The English translation published last month zipped to No. 1 on amazon.com. It has given a lift to economists on the Left who have cheered on Barack Obama's flagging attempts to make income inequality a voting issue. They have hailed it as "truly superb" and "extraordinarily important." Others, not all on the Right, have taken a jaundiced view. "All wrong" was the verdict of one. "The main argument is based on two (false) claims," concluded another.
GOP, Rediscover Your Backbone
Please explain this: Obama is incredibly unpopular, and Obamacare is one of the main reasons, yet some Republicans are now saying it's here to stay. That is flat-out unacceptable. GOP -- heal thyself. You don't have to be a radical to understand that the GOP is afraid of its own shadow half the time, that it is suffering from an identity crisis and that it often lacks the courage of its convictions. We've learned that it's not enough for Obama to be the worst president in the past billion years. Republicans have to give the voters a reason to vote *for* them and not just against his party.