Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Doubling Down on Crazy
While rehabilitating from my operation, I keep seeing TV ads in which an off-screen voice tries to lure business to New York State by insisting "it's open to innovation, ambition and bold ideas." Clearly it's not the voice of Gov. Cuomo, who has said that unless you are in favor of abortions and homosexuals, and opposed to the Second Amendment, New York is no place for you, no matter how bold your ideas happen to be. But that is consistent with the way that liberals think or, rather, fail to think. Consider the way they muddy up the language. The opposite of Pro-Life, after all, is not Pro-Choice; it's Pro-Death. And only liberals would think of naming the world's biggest abortion mill Planned Parenthood.
The ACA's Four-Word Waterloo?
Someone you probably are not familiar with has filed a suit you probably have not heard about concerning a four-word phrase you should know about. The suit could blow to smithereens something everyone has heard altogether too much about, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (hereafter, ACA). Scott Pruitt and some kindred spirits might accelerate the ACA's collapse by blocking another of the Obama administration's lawless uses of the Internal Revenue Service. Pruitt was elected Oklahoma's attorney general by promising to defend states' prerogatives against federal encroachments and today he and some properly litigious people elsewhere are defending a state prerogative that the ACA explicitly created. If they succeed, the ACA's disintegration will accelerate.
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Obama, the Media's Favorite Autocrat
Everyone proposes drinking games for the State of the Union speech. But it's not just the president that can drive you to drink; it's the opportunistic media elites deciding which branches of government have too much power, depending on which branches the Democrats presently control. After a lot of stalemate in 2013, the partisan media think it's high time for the executive branch to go completely around the legislative branch. They think that now that Congress has proven itself unwilling to provide President Barack Obama with the historical greatness he deserves, they should and must be driven around like roadkill. They'll have no talk of an imperial presidency, let alone autocracy.
Income Gap? Not Many Are Obsessed
Though president Obama keeps insisting that income inequality is the "defining challenge of our time," most Americans beg to differ. "What do you think is the most important problem facing this country today?" asked Gallup in a nationwide survey this month. Dissatisfaction with the federal government -- its incompetence, abuse, dysfunction, venality -- topped the list, with 21 percent of respondents saying it was their key concern. The overall state of the economy was second, at 18 percent. Unemployment and health care were tied for third, with each cited by 16 percent as the nation's most pressing problem. How many shared Obama's view that the gap between rich and poor is the issue that should concern us most? Four percent.
The Marshall Plan... on Marriage
Virginia and Washington, D.C.may be separated by a state border, but there's very little separating them on marriage policy. Unfortunately for the Commonwealth, the President's legacy of lawlessness seems to be bleeding into state politics, where new Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, fresh off a razor-slim victory, seems intent on making a bad first impression. With less than 1,000 votes separating Herring from his Republican opponent, the new attorney general hardly has a mandate. Still, that hasn't stopped Herring from seizing control -- not just of the state's top law enforcement post, but of Virginians' will on marriage.
How Hollywood Is Killing Same-Sex Marriage
In May 2012, Vice President Joe Biden floated a political trial balloon: He came out in favor of same-sex marriage. In the process, he stated that the way had been paved for the same-sex marriage movement by Hollywood. "I think 'Will & Grace' probably did more to educate the American public than almost anything anybody's ever done so far." Biden, of course, was absolutely right: Hollywood's personalization of the societal issue of same-sex marriage has shifted millions of minds. Now, unfortunately for same-sex marriage advocates, Hollywood is busily shifting those minds back.
Powering Down America
Americans may look back in a few decades and see that 2007 was the year that production of electricity peaked in the United States and our nation began powering down. This may make many on the environmentalist left -- including President Barack Obama's top science and technology adviser -- very happy. But it will not make life better for you, your children or your grandchildren. According to data published by the Energy Information Administration, the United States generated a total of approximately 4,157 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2007. We had never produced that much before. We have never produced that much since.
Clinton 'Regrets' Benghazi
The shaping of the narrative for the 2016 presidential campaign begins.
Standing Up Against Wealth-Shaming
America, we have a bullying epidemic. No, not the school bullying issues that get constant attention from Hollywood, the White House and the media. No, not the "fat-shaming" and "body-shaming" outbreaks on Facebook. The problem is wealth-shaming. Class-shaming. Success-shaming. The State of the Job Creator is under siege. Last week, a prominent self-made tech mogul dared to diagnose the problem publicly. His passionate letter to The Wall Street Journal decried the "progressive war on the American 1 percent." He called on the left to stop demonizing "the rich," and he condemned the Occupy movement's "rising tide of hatred."
Politics of Hate and Envy
Part of the progressive agenda is to create hate and envy. One component of that agenda is to attack the large differences between a corporation's chief executive officer's earnings and those of its average worker. CNNMoney published salary comparisons in "Fortune 50 CEO pay vs. our salaries." Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf's annual salary is $2.8 million. CNN shows that it takes 66 Wells Fargo employees, whose average salary is $42,400, to match Stumpf's salary. It takes 57 Wal-Mart employees, who earn $22,100 on average, to match CEO Michael Duke's $1.3 million. At General Electric, 44 employees earning $75,300 a year match CEO Jeff Immelt's $3.3 million salary. For people with little understanding, such differences seem patently unfair. Before touching on the fairness issue, let's look at some high salaries that progressives ignore.
Re-State of the Union
President Barack Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday wasn't what I wanted to hear. This is what the president *should* have said: "I cannot imagine what I was thinking when I pushed Obamacare. I now see it is folly to entrust government, which cannot balance its books and routinely loses track of billions of dollars, with even greater power over health care. "If something as simple as a website is too much for government to get right, imagine what government will do to complicated medical pricing and insurance plans. "Foolishly, my plan destroyed many sensible insurance plans -- some offering catastrophic-only coverage for a lower price -- exactly the insurance so many people need.
Let 50 Cannabis Flowers Bloom
President Obama says he opposes marijuana legalization but thinks Colorado and Washington should be able to try it. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who sought to run against Obama in 2012 as a Republican presidential contender, takes the same position. You might call this policy federalism -- but not if you are Barack Obama. According to the president, he has the authority to enforce the federal ban on marijuana even in states that have legalized the drug. But he chooses not to exercise that authority, because he is curious to see how these experiments turn out.
Hollywood, Propaganda and Liberal Politics
The legendary media tycoon William Randolph Hearst believed America needed a strongman and that Franklin D. Roosevelt would fit the bill. He ordered his newspapers to support FDR and the New Deal. At his direction, Hearst's political allies rallied around Roosevelt at the Democratic convention, which some believe sealed the deal for Roosevelt's nomination. But all that wasn't enough. Hearst also believed the voters had to be made to see what could be gained from a president with a free hand. So he financed the film "Gabriel Over the White House," starring Walter Huston. The film depicts an FDR look-alike president who, after a coma-inducing car accident, is transformed from a passive Warren Harding type into a hands-on dictator. The reborn commander in chief suspends the Constitution, violently wipes out corruption and revives the economy through a national socialist agenda. When Congress tries to impeach him, he dissolves Congress.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
A Smarter Strategy Needed in Afghanistan
A residual force would prevent return to terrorism sanctuary
State of the Dictatorship
President Obama is a big proponent of recycling -- and he's proven it with his last several State of the Union speeches. While America's problems keep piling up, the White House keeps trotting out the same tired solutions. Early reports of tonight's address suggest that the President is intent on regifting the failed priorities of the past five years -- only this time, he isn't asking Congress, he's *telling* them. Legislating is tough business -- too tough, apparently, for President Obama. This year, the White House has a not-so-new strategy for muscling through its agenda: unilateralism. Tonight, as part of his push for climate change, infrastructure spending, and education, the President plans on declaring his independence -- from Congress. Taking what his staff calls a "[pen and phone](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2014-01-26/obama-s-plan-to-use-executive-action-triggers-criticism.html)" approach, the administration is gearing up for a season light on consensus and heavy on executive orders. "We need to show the American people that we can get something done, either with Congress or on our own," said the White House's Dan Pfeiffer.
Shut Up, She Explained
The thing about Mike Huckabee is that the uproar he occasioned over federal provision of contraception reveals the depth and extent of modern America's moral/cultural dysfunction. Will we get around to talking about it once the uproar dies down? Not likely. The matter is too hot -- meaning too fundamental. It speaks to personal identity questions never heretofore raised in American life and unresolved for that very reason. Let us recount. In a weekend speech, the TV host and former Arkansas Republican governor assailed the idea that women depended on the government for access to "a prescription each month for birth control," being unable otherwise to "control their libido or their reproductive system."
Downgraded: Insurance Companies Taste Wrath of ObamaCare
The beginning of the downward spiral.
Jay Leno: Mr. Nice Guy
Anyone in the news business will tell you that a side benefit is the diverse number of people one gets to meet. Jay Leno, who leaves "The Tonight Show" on Feb 6 after a 22-year run (retire is not the right word in his case), is one such person. The circumstances surrounding our first meeting involved a column I wrote 15 years ago in support of his wife's activism on behalf of Afghan women. Jay and Mavis Leno invited my wife and me for a visit. Things progressed from there.
Will Anyone Watch Tonight's Speech? Why?
Only 28 percent of respondents to a recent Harris Poll say they plan to watch the State of the Union address. Some of those are lying. It's clear the Obama charm has worn extremely thin. The rapturous excitement President Barack Obama once elicited was based, at least in part, on the idea that he had something new to offer, that he transcended the "old politics." It's not enough to say that those expectations were misplaced -- that was obvious from the beginning. But he has proved to be one of the most polarizing leaders of the modern era, encouraging a corrosive sense of grievance between Americans and undermining people's faith in the essential justness of their country.
I Am a Little Sister of the Poor
In one of the few Hollywood epics that wasn't entirely wretched, there was a stirring moment in "Spartacus" when the Roman general stands before the slaves huddled on the ground and demands that Spartacus, the leader of the revolt, stand and identify himself. As Spartacus (Kirk Douglas) begins to get up in order that his fellow prisoners not be tortured on his behalf, the others rise, each of them insisting "I am Spartacus." I think that when Obama and his thugs demand that an order of nuns or anyone else who holds sincere religious beliefs caves to the power of the state, it behooves us to stand and declare, whatever our religion or gender, that we are all Sisters of the Poor.