Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
The Christie Crumblers
During the 2012 presidential campaign, somehow each and every Republican presidential contender had a sink thrown at him (or her) via what reporters call "investigative journalism." Every time a Republican rose in the polls, the media tried to knock him or her down, like a game of Whac-A-Mole. The very last man standing was Mitt Romney, who didn't receive the official "Gotcha!" from The Washington Post until May, with a 5,000-word opus on "Teenage Haircutgate." That's why it's so strange the national media would decide so early it was time for journalistic carpet bombing of the Great Squishy Northeastern Hope of 2016, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
Income Inequality
Democrats plan to demagogue income inequality and the wealth gap for political gain in this year's elections. Most of what's said about income inequality is stupid or, at best, ill-informed. Much to their disgrace, economists focusing on measures of income inequality bring little light to the issue. Let's look at it. Income is a result of something. As such, results alone cannot establish whether there is fairness or justice. Take a simple example to make the point. Suppose Tom, Dick and Harry play a weekly game of poker. The result is: Tom wins 75 percent of the time. Dick and Harry, respectively, win 15 percent and 10 percent of the time. Knowing only the game's result permits us to say absolutely nothing as to whether there has been poker fairness or justice. Tom's disproportionate winnings are consistent with his being either an astute player or a clever cheater.
Christie, Hillary and Obama
The first time I saw New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on television, a few years ago, my first reaction was astonishment: "A talking Republican!" It would scarcely have been more astonishing if there had been a talking giraffe. For reasons unknown, most Republican leaders seem to pay very little attention to articulation -- certainly as compared to leading Democrats, who seem to pay little attention to anything else. Governor Christie's nearly two-hour-long press conference last week showed again that he is in a class by himself when it comes to Republicans who can express themselves in the heat of political battle.
Uncle Sam's Drinking Game: Mixing Medicine With Moralism
Does your doctor nag you about your drinking? The federal government wishes he would. Last week the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) noted with alarm that most Americans say they have never discussed alcohol consumption with a health professional. Physicians' reluctance to broach the subject is especially troubling, the CDC said, because "at least 38 million adults in the U.S. drink too much." Most news outlets reported the latter claim as a fact, failing to notice the value judgments embedded in it. Contrary to what the CDC wants you to believe, the question of what it means to drink too much is a matter of moral and medical dispute.
A Political Bridge Too Far
A multiple choice question: Select the scandal(s) that affects the most people and has long-term implications for the country in a time of war, a country with a struggling economy that last month produced the weakest job growth in decades. (According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), nearly 92 million Americans are no longer in the labor force.) A) The closing of traffic lanes in Ft. Lee, N.J., allegedly in retaliation for the refusal of a Democratic mayor to endorse New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie for a second term.
Going Overboard in New Jersey
What a bizarre spectacle. Assuming he did not lie during his marathon news conference last week, the feeding frenzy surrounding New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will be remembered as one of those incredibly odd moments of elite journalistic hysteria that are difficult to explain to people who weren't there or didn't get it. I'm not referring to the scandal itself; that's easy enough to understand. What Christie's team did was outrageous and deserves as much foofaraw and brouhaha as the New Jersey media can muster.
Bitcoin Revolution
The big online retailer Overstock.com now accepts payment in Bitcoin. That's good news for lovers of liberty because Bitcoins give us an alternative to government-controlled money. Bitcoins are a currency created by anonymous, private tech nerds, not by government. Governments don't like competition, and our government sometimes bans competing currencies. But as more of us use Bitcoins, and more businesses accept payment in Bitcoin, it becomes harder for government to dismiss the currency as illegitimate, or ban it. There are two advantages to Bitcoin.
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
Obama's Same-Sex Marriage Ring Leader
Justice Secretary Eric Holder was already held in contempt of Congress -- but a Supreme Court reprimand may not be far behind. Regardless of where the justices fall on the question of same-sex "marriage," they probably had to pick their jaws up off the floor after the country's chief law enforcer put the Court's latest marriage decisions through the paper shredder and promised to validate Utah's same-sex "weddings" *after* the Court's stay on counterfeit marriages. In plain rebellion to the justices' June ruling, Holder announced that DOJ would take matters into its own hands and offer more than 1,000 federal benefits to couples, who, under state law, aren't even legally married!
Why Is America Losing Its Economic Freedom?
Only the U.S. has declined for seven straight years
Gates Portrays Obama as a Different Kind of President
Like just about everybody else in Washington and many across the country, I've been reading the excerpts from former Defense Secretary Robert Gates' book "Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary of War." It presents a significantly more negative picture of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton than Gates' statements in office led anyone to expect. And it presents an interesting contrast with Gates' previous memoir, "From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider's Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War," published in 1996.
The Immorality of Leaving Iraq and Afghanistan
On every level and from every perspective -- from pure national interest to the purely moral -- the decision by the Obama administration and the Democratic Party to withdraw American troops from Iraq and Afghanistan is indefensible. Let's begin with Iraq. Here is how the front-page article in yesterday's edition of USA Today began: "When the last U.S. combat troops departed Iraq in December 2011, they left behind a defeated al-Qaida and an Iraq where traditional rivals Sunni and Shiite Muslims were sharing power in the world's only Arab democracy.
Robert Gates Speaks Out
Retired Defense Secretary Robert Gates breezed back onto the national scene last week by speaking his mind. Oh, and did he speak it -- loudly enough, robustly enough to remind all within earshot what it means to hear an honest man seek to serve the truth. I said "seek" to serve. Did he actually serve, and how would we know for sure? With any of Gates' memorable judgments, ladled out in a memoir called "Duty," we are entitled constitutionally to differ. Is President Obama, as Gates avers, skeptical of his own Afghanistan policy? Are the majority of representatives in Congress "uncivil, incompetent at fulfilling their basic constitutional responsibilities (such as timely appropriations), micromanagerial, parochial, hypocritical, egotistical, thin-skinned and prone to put self (and re-election) before country?" Has Vice President Joe Biden "been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades"? Do foreign policy calculations spring as often as not these days from domestic political reasonings?
Poverty: Another War We've Lost
Because this is the 50th anniversary of Lyndon Johnson's declaring war on poverty, there has been a lot of attention paid to the problem that I'm betting will somehow survive even longer than cockroaches and Twinkies. Over the past half century, more than $20 trillion has been squandered on various programs intended to magically bring those who refuse to be educated, to refrain from using drugs or waiting until marriage to have children, into the middle class. Like all federal programs initiated by liberals, it demands nothing of recipients but that they refuse to change their ways.
Obamanomics Is Killing Jobs; GOP Fiddles
If it weren't for a shamelessly dishonest, hyper-protective liberal media, the American people would know, unanimously and without doubt, that Obamanomics is killing American jobs. There is no silver lining in the December jobs numbers. Experts and analysts were expecting this latest jobs report, released Friday, to show 200,000 new payroll jobs in December, but there were only 74,000, which is 37 percent of the goal. Not 90 percent, not 80, not 70, not even 50 percent. Just 37 percent. If these abominable numbers had occurred under George W. Bush's watch, the GOP would have had hell to pay for decades. But liberal presidents always get a pass in the form of wildly far-fetched excuses and rationalizations for their failed policies.
Interview With Ariel Sharon
Cal Thomas conducted an interview with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Oct. 12, 2003 in which Sharon outlined the five conditions that must be met before the peace process can proceed. Also, Sharon commented on the security wall, which he continued to build in the face of U.N. disapproval, the probability for more attacks in Syria and the value of pre-emptive strikes. In light of Sharon's death, we are releasing this interview as a bonus offering. It is available for immediate release.
Politics Versus Education
Anyone who has still not yet understood the utter cynicism of the Obama administration in general, and Attorney General Eric Holder in particular, should look at the Justice Department's latest interventions in education. If there is one thing that people all across the ideological spectrum should be able to agree on, it is that better education is desperately needed by black youngsters, especially in the ghettoes. For most, it is their one chance for a better life.
Our Crazed Sexuality Standards
The New York Times brings us the "next frontier in fertility treatment." It's about dissolving the prejudice against transgender people having children. "Andy Inkster, a transgender man, had always wanted biological children. So when he embarked on the transition from female to male at age 18 -- changing his name, taking testosterone and eventually undergoing surgery to remove his breasts -- he left his female reproductive organs intact. In his mid-20s, he decided it was time. He stopped taking testosterone and started trying to get pregnant."
Monday, January 13, 2014
For the Historical Record
In a column published in this space last week regarding former Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates' smackdown of Barack Obama, I delved into some long forgotten history regarding Democrats' quest to turn the public against America's involvement in Iraq. Despite the importance of maintaining unity in a nation during wartime, Democrats chose politics over country in an effort to capture the White House in 2004. Included in that column were a series of quotes, mostly from Democrats, utterly destroying the leftist-promoted notion that Iraq was strictly a "neocon" adventure. Since few things bother me more than revisionist fantasies, it is time to set the record straight once again. The subject here is the unmistakeable rise of al Qaeda in the Middle East, and the plethora of lies our current Commander-in-Chief told us to obscure that reality.
Political Means Don't Achieve Moral Ends
It's too early to predict where N.J. Governor Chris Christie's "bridgegate" scandal will lead. What did Christie know and when did he know it about actions of operatives in his administration who engineered the closing of key traffic lanes, leading onto the George Washington bridge outside Fort Lee, New Jersey, as political punishment for a Democratic mayor who did not endorse Christie's reelection.