Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Humiliation Nation(s)
What is it about Western leaders from Neville Chamberlain to George W. Bush who want to find good in men of bad character? Acting as if he were endowed by special insight bestowed upon no one else, President George W. Bush declared in 2001 that he had looked Vladimir Putin in the eye and "was able to get a sense of his soul." According to the Daily Caller.com, in a 2010 interview with talk radio host Hugh Hewitt, Bush, who was promoting his book "Decision Points," was asked about his ability to see into the souls of men. The former president explained, "The reason why I said that is because I remembered him talking movingly about his mother and the cross that she gave him that she said she had blessed in Jerusalem."
Exodus II?
The former President of Lebanon, Amine Gemayel, is a Maronite Christian. He recently warned of "an exodus approaching biblical proportions." Gemayel told [a gathering in Zurich of Christian Solidarity International (CSI)](www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/former-lebanese-president-warns-of-crisis-of-pluralism-in-middle-east-250336691.html) and other human rights activists that the current wave of church burnings, murders, and riots against Christians in the Mideast is the work of radical Islamists. The former Lebanese leader's own brother had been assassinated in Beirut by these same jihadists. President Gemayel's warnings echo those issued two years ago by Vienna's Catholic prelate. Christoph Cardinal Schönborn in 2012 told a religious freedom roundtable in Washington that Egypt and Syria "must not become Iraq." He was referring to the ethnic cleansing that had led the post-Saddam government of Iraq to turn a blind eye to the killing or the driving out of more than half of that war-torn Arab country's pre-invasion Christian population of 1.6 million.
Abuse of Power Endangers the Nation's Health
When liberal pro-Obama scholars question the legality of President Barack Obama's actions to implement Obamacare, the issue of illegal presidential use of power moves from partisan to frightening. George Washington Law School's Jonathan Turley is the second most quoted law professor in the nation and a two-time Obama voter. He recently testified before Congress on Obama's extensive use of executive orders and administrative actions to make unilateral changes in Obamacare, immigration policy, minimum wage and the IRS qualifying standards for non-profit status. As to Obamacare, Obama, so far, changed it in at least a dozen major ways, including, but not limited to, postponing the employer mandate, allowing insurance carriers to let their insured keep an old policy, and, more recently, redefining the Obamacare "hardship" exemption so broadly as to nullify the individual mandate for at least two more years.
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Piers Morgan Missed His Target in America
New York Times columnist David Carr thinks that Piers Morgan got the heave-ho from CNN because of his British accent. Well, we know what Mr. Carr thinks of the rest of us Yanks, don't we? He told fellow superior liberal Bill Maher several years ago that Alabama and Kansas are not "smart states." And when you absolutely have to go to the Heartland, to places Timesmen call "flyover country," you need to be aware you are dancing "the dance of the low-sloping foreheads." That line got quite the chuckle on Maher's cable show. Maher guffawed along with Carr.
Female Share of Federal Workforce Declining Under Obama
"Women are still the ones that are carrying the greatest burden when it comes to trying to balance family and work," President Obama said last week to a group of women who serve in the U.S. Congress. With this in mind, he is now planning a "White House Summit on Working Families" to take place this summer. Obama is no doubt preparing to cast stones at the private sector. He really ought to look at his own administration. Since Obama has been in office, according to data from the Office of Personnel Management, the percentage of women in the civilian federal work force has been shrinking. Before Obama took office, it was already smaller than the percentage in the overall national civilian labor force. Under Obama, it has gotten smaller still.
The Pornified Professor Versus Pro-Life Youth
The other day, this story hit the New Media. It's one the Old Media will simply never report. Two sisters, 16 and 21, and members of Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust, were holding a pro-life sign while demonstrating at the University of California, Santa Barbara. A choppy cell phone video caught the scene: Students hurl obscenities at the young girls while a large, imposing woman, with two accomplices in tow, march off with the sign, having ripped it from one girl's hands. The girls follow the thugs to the elevator, and as the video continues recording, the intimidating woman sneers at the girls, taunts them and dares them to try retrieving the stolen sign while her accomplices laugh.
Revolt Against the Testing Tyrants
Have you had enough of the testing tyranny? Join the club. To be clear: I'm not against all standardized academic tests. My kids excel on tests. The problem is that there are too damned many of these top-down assessments, measuring who knows what, using our children as guinea pigs and cash cows. College-bound students in Orange County, Fla., for example, now take a total of 234 standardized diagnostic, benchmark and achievement tests from kindergarten through 12th grade. Reading instructor Brian Trutschel calculated that a typical 10th-grade English class will be disrupted 65 out of 180 school days this year alone for mandatory tests required by the state and district. "It's a huge detriment to instruction," he told the Orlando Sentinel last month. The library at one Florida middle school is closed for a full three months out of the 10-month school year for computerized assessments.
Don't Republicans Abuse Executive Power?
Last week the House of Representatives passed yet another bill with an awkward, acronym-enabling title: the Executive Needs to Faithfully Observe and Respect Congressional Enactments of the Law Act. The ENFORCE the Law Act (get it?) would allow either chamber of Congress to authorize litigation aimed at correcting the president's "failure to faithfully execute the laws." While the bill's name is ridiculous and its mechanism is dubious, the basic premise of its supporters, almost all of whom are Republicans, is correct: As the House Judiciary Committee's report on the bill puts it, Obama has engaged in a "pattern of overstepping (his) constitutional bounds." But so did his Republican predecessor -- a fact the report seems designed to obscure.
Why No One Minds His Own Business Anymore
When I was a kid -- which wasn't that long ago, given that I just turned 30 in January -- I recall hearing a popular phrase on the playground: "Mind your own business." MYOB reared its head whenever somebody threatened to rat out a fellow student for anything from harmless roughhousing to juvenile delinquency. The phrase is sometimes attributed to the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, a rough translation of which states: " ... make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody."
From the Greenhouse to the Big House...
When liberals said global warming causes crime, no one knew it was because they planned on prosecuting their opponents! Late last week, climate alarmist Lawrence Torcello didn't do his movement any favors when he lobbied for jailing global warming skeptics (which, after yesterday's storm, might have included the entire city of Washington). It was a new low for an environmental movement that is already God's gift to late-night comedy.
Economic Growth Is the Greatest Anti-Poverty Program
When it comes to what ails the economy, there is a miracle cure. It's called growth. For the last 50 years real income per person in the United States has grown at a rate of about 2.3% per year. That may not sound like such a big deal, but it adds up year after year. So much so that real incomes will actually double every 31 years. If we think of the average year for childbirth as close to 31, then income will double for every generation. Let's assume you're in an average-income family earning about $50,000 a year. If your children also earn an average income, by the time they grow up and reach your age they'll be earning $100,000 a year -- in current dollars.
Facts and Factions
At a time when polls show public opinion turning against the Democrats, some Republicans seem to be turning against each other. Even with the prospect of being able to win control of the Senate in this fall's elections, some Republicans are busy manufacturing ammunition for their own circular firing squad. A Republican faction's demonization of their own Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, is a classic example. If you listen to some of those who consider themselves the only true conservatives, you would never guess that Senator McConnell received a lifetime 90 percent ranking by the American Conservative Union -- and in one recent year had a 100 percent ranking. Ann Coulter -- whose conservative credentials nobody has ever challenged -- points out in her column that Mitch McConnell has not only led the fight for conservative principles repeatedly, but has been to the right of Ted Cruz on immigration issues.
Not Your Father's Cold War
Will everyone please stop talking about a new Cold War? However badly things work out between Russia and the United States and the West, a new Cold War isn't in the cards because Russia today isn't the Soviet Union. Sure, there are similarities. We are in a diplomatic and geostrategic conflict with Russia, which was the heart of the old Soviet Union. Also, Russia wants much of the real estate that belonged to the Soviet Union before it collapsed. And Vladimir Putin is a former KGB colonel who now waxes nostalgic for the good old days. That's about it.
The Late Barack Obama
I apologize if some of you read the title of this piece and leapt to the conclusion that Joe Biden had ascended to the Oval Office, not that that would be cause for dancing in the street. Biden, after all, is a great champion of the Affordable Care Act and has been wrong when it comes to foreign affairs for nearly as long as Obama has been alive. No, I was referring to Obama's lack of punctuality. He is not only late when it comes to delivering his annual budgets, laughable as they are, but he's even late when it comes to delivering his speeches, and we all know how much he loves the sound of his own voice.
Spring Clean Government
Spring cleaning is a healthy tradition. If only politicians did it! They don't. When Barack Obama ran for president, he promised to clean house, "I'm not a Democrat who believes that we can or should defend every government program just because it's there. There are some that don't work." I cheered when I heard that! But politicians *always* say they'll get rid of waste. Then, once in power, they spend *more*. Obama sure has.
Is There Wage Stagnation?
Many economists, politicians and pundits assert that median wages have stagnated since the 1970s. That's a call for government to do something about it. But before we look at the error in their assertion, let's work through an example that might shed a bit of light on the issue. Suppose that you paid me a straight $20 an hour in 2004. Ten years later, I'm still earning $20 an hour, but in addition, now I'm receiving job perks such as health insurance, an employer-matched 401(k) plan, paid holidays and vacation, etc. Would it be correct to say that my wages have stagnated and I'm no better off a decade later? I'm guessing that the average person would say, "No, Williams, your wages haven't stagnated. You forgot to include your non-monetary wages." My colleagues Donald Boudreaux and Liya Palagashvili discuss some of this in their recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, "The Myth of the Great Wages 'Decoupling'."
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Popular Medicare Drug Plans Under Assault
A proposal made in January by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services would cause almost 14 million seniors to lose their Medicare Part D stand-alone drug plans next year, essentially banning the most popular Medicare drug plans by 2015. Nearly 39 million Medicare beneficiaries, including both seniors and the disabled, have subsidized drug coverage through the Medicare Modernization Act (MMA) of 2003. Of these, nearly 36 million individuals are enrolled in drug plans known as Medicare Part D. [See Figure I.] However, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has proposed new regulations that would eliminate the most popular plans: ones that offer seniors lower premiums (and lower cost sharing) in return for patronizing a *preferred pharmacy* network.
Qualified Ambassador Applicants Need Not Apply
Obama's envoy nominees lack necessary experience
Noah: One of the Most Moral Stories Ever Told
Next week, the film "Noah" opens. Having taught the Torah (the Five Books of Moses) from the Hebrew for more than 40 years (hundreds of hours are available by download through my website), I consider the biblical flood story one of the world's most profound moral teachings. As I will show, it means that God cares about goodness more than anything else. Let me explain by answering the most frequent challenges to the story.
Return of the '70s
"The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun." -- Ecclesiastes 1:9 This is true even in politics. Maybe especially in politics, where the recycling of bad and good decisions reflects the recycling, according to democratic practice, of bad and good leaders. As the Russians push their imperial agenda in the Ukraine, and Western leaders wring their hands, the '70s come painfully to mind. I bring up the '70s -- of god-awful memory -- as much to nourish hope as to enlarge perspective on current events in the world and the nation along with it.