Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Thursday, January 9, 2014
Our Irrational Immigration System
The state of California tossed the conservative media another hunk of red meat last week when its Supreme Court granted an illegal alien a law license. You probably heard plenty of outrage on your favorite talk-radio show about how the liberal Left Coast judges rewarded a lawbreaking immigrant instead of deporting him or throwing him in jail. Mindless outrage is probably all you heard.
Could We Get Some Immigrants Who Can Take a Poll?
With Republicans tying themselves in knots over the Democrats' destructive, but superficially appealing, demand that unemployment benefits be extended to two and a half years, I return to my suggestion that Republicans stop playing defense and go on offense. For every issue that MSNBC loves to prattle on about, gloating that it will cost Republicans this or that demographic, there's an equivalent issue to use against the Democrats. (The difference is: Our proposals would actually be good for the country.)
They Will Lie to Your Casket
The New York Times recently published a 7,500-word cover-up to exculpate the Obama administration in their atrocious dereliction of duty with respect to killing of four Americans at Benghazi in 2012. Like a frightened octopus, the left is exuding a vast cloud of ink, hoping to cover the failures of President Obama and then-Sec. of State Hillary Clinton. Times reporter goes to great length to show that al Qaeda was *not* part of the murderous attack that claimed the life of the U.S. ambassador, Chris Stevens. He was the first U.S. ambassador killed in the line of duty in thirty years. Their overlong piece also takes pains to try to extricate Hillary Clinton from any blame in this catastrophe.
A Bad Apple for the Big Apple
I am afraid that fewer than one million out of the 4.3 million registered voters of New York City have settled upon the Big Apple a bad apple for mayor, the Hon. Bill de Blasio. What some three million registered New Yorkers were doing when 752,604 of their fellow citizens elected this Bad Apple to the mayor's mansion, I do not know. New York City embraces a very sophisticated citizenry, possibly the most sophisticated of any city in America. So perhaps they were all at a museum on Election Day or writing poetry or learning ancient Greek. But while they were indulging themselves, the moron vote brought from obscurity to Gracie Mansion a clod.
Liberalism by Gesture
The era of Gesture Liberalism is at hand. It may be more amusing than consequential. Americans who exercise consumer sovereignty wherever Barack Obama still tolerates it are constantly disappointing him. For generations they persisted in buying what he calls "substandard" policies from what he calls "bad apple" health insurers. They stopped only when he forced them to stop -- when he rescued them from their ignorance by banning their benighted preferences.
Define Income Inequality
Democrats are revving up for a huge national "conversation" on income inequality. This is in no small part because the Obama administration and congressional Democrats would rather talk about anything other than Obamacare. But it would be unfair to say this is all a cynical effort to gain partisan advantage. For instance, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is certainly sincere in his desire to take "dead aim at the Tale of Two Cities" in the Big Apple. He and his team want to fix the distribution of income in New York by distributing it differently.
The Pot Escape
A Colorado family experienced a frightening surprise last week when their toddler, for no apparent reason, became groggy and unable to walk. A trip to the local emergency room found the cause: the child had eaten a cookie from the ground outside the family's apartment. Only this was no ordinary cookie. It had been laced with THC, the mind-altering chemical in marijuana, and wreaked havoc on the two-year old's system. Thankfully, she's now recovered.
CNN's Crowley: Why Would the Out-of-Work Vote Republican?
CNN's Candy Crowley seems absolutely, positively astonished that Republicans could oppose raising the minimum wage and extending unemployment benefits. To her Republican guest, Crowley asked this "question": "If I am an unemployed American ... or if I am a minimum wage worker and I see Republicans who say, 'You know what? It's artificial, it messes with the marketplace, it might mean some teens can't get into the job market,' why would I become a Republican?"
Is China Copying the Old Imperial Japan?
In the 1920s, Japan began to translate its growing economic might -- after a prior 50-year crash course in Western capitalism and industrialization -- into formidable military power. At first, few of its possible rivals seemed to care. America and condescending European colonials did not quite believe that any Asian power could ever dare to threaten their own Pacific interests.
Bye, Bye Phil Everly
One mark of a good song is that it makes Billboard's top 10 list. An even greater indicator is its staying power; whether it is remembered decades after it was a hit. Perhaps the highest accolade is whether the artist influences other musicians. All of these standards were met by the singing duo the Everly Brothers, one of whom, Phil, has died days shy of his 75th birthday. At age 16 I was a disc jockey for a suburban Washington, D.C., radio station. I hosted a weekend music program called "The Top Fifty Show." The Everly Brothers were always at or near the top of my list.
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
Taming the Regulatory Tax Monster
Government rules need pruning, starting with the worst
Common Core and the EduTech Abyss
The Common Core gold rush is on. Apple, Pearson, Google, Microsoft and Amplify are all cashing in on the federal standards/testing/textbook racket. But the EduTech boondoggle is no boon for students. It's more squandered tax dollars down the public school drain. Even more worrisome: The stampede is widening a dangerous path toward invasive data mining. According to the Silicon Valley Business Journal, the ed tech sector "is expected to more than double in size to $13.4 billion by 2017." That explosive growth is fueled by Common Core's top-down digital learning and testing mandates. So: Cui bono?
Escape Poverty: Graduate, Work, Get Married, Have Kids
Fifty years ago today, in his State of the Union Address, President Lyndon Johnson declared an "unconditional war on poverty in America." Over the next two years, he massively expanded the federal government, creating Medicaid, Medicare and the food stamp program, and increased federal involvement in public education. What impact did this have on poverty?
Why Socialism Is on the Rise
It took capitalism half a century to come back from the Great Depression. It's taken socialism half that time to come back from the collapse of the Soviet Union. In New York City, avowed socialist Mayor Bill de Blasio has declared that his goal is to take "dead aim at the Tale of Two Cities" -- the gap between rich and poor. In Seattle, newly elected socialist city Councilmember Kshama Sawant addressed supporters, explaining, "I wear the badge of socialist with honor." To great acclaim from the left, columnist Jesse Myerson of Rolling Stone put out a column telling millennials that they ought to fight for government-guaranteed employment, a universal basic income, collectivization of private property, nationalization of private assets and public banks.
Pathetic Pot Prohibitionists
On Monday, less than a week after Colorado's state-licensed marijuana shops began serving recreational consumers, the anti-pot group Project SAM thanked three public figures who "have galvanized our movement." One of them was Tina Brown, former editor of Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The Daily Beast, whose contribution consisted of this insight, which she offered to her 75,000 Twitter followers last Friday: "Legal weed contributes to us being a fatter, dumber, sleepier nation even less able to compete with the Chinese." This is what passes for smart commentary among pot prohibitionists. Colorado's path-breaking legalization of the marijuana business has revealed the intellectual bankruptcy of people who think violence is an appropriate response to the consumption of psychoactive substances they do not like.
The Liberal 'Least Productive' Complaint
Liberals are angry President Barack Obama won a second term, and yet, they didn't get the liberal agenda items they wanted passed in 2013, including gun control and amnesty for illegal aliens. The complaint at the end of the year is that this was the "least productive Congress" in 66 years, with production always being measured by the amount of legislation passed. But the media complaint here isn't about just any legislation; it's about a liberal wish list. Washington Post reporter Paul Kane laments the "shrunken ambitions" of congressional Democrats in a front-page story: "Back in 2009, during the heady days of hope and change, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) introduced 90 pieces of legislation. In 2013, amid gridlock and dysfunction, he sponsored just 35 bills. None of them became law."
How Does the Army Spell Extremism? S-P-L-C
The United States may not negotiate with terrorists, but it certainly hasn't minded using curriculum tied to them in official Army briefings. Despite being linked in federal court to a case of domestic terrorism, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has been a go-to "source" of the Obama Pentagon in a string of military training sessions. Americans saw the fruits of that partnership in October, when base instructors shocked service members by warning them that Christians and conservatives were "extremists" who posed a threat to the nation. In subsequent briefings, groups like American Family Association (AFA) were specifically targeted as "hateful," using propaganda pulled directly from SPLC's website ([the same website](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hgjI3wavx-I), incidentally, that directed shooter Floyd Corkins to FRC's front door).
The Rabbi's Advice
One of the many oddities of this administration is that while it's constantly referring to congressional Republicans as bomb-throwing terrorists, villains with whom it's useless to negotiate, they are always willing to give away the store to actual bomb-throwing terrorists in Syria, Iran, Afghanistan and Palestine. The fact is that they were so fearful that the Palestinians were going to walk away from peace talks with the Israelis, Kerry slipped them a $75 million bribe to stay at the table and continue the charade. Even though everyone knows that the Palestinians have no desire to reach a peaceful agreement with the Jews, with this administration, everything is finally about optics, and Obama and Kerry thought it would look bad if the Arabs left in a huff.
Equality Versus Liberty
President Barack Obama says income inequality is "dangerous ... the defining challenge of our time." The pope is upset that capitalism causes inequality. Progressives, facing the failures of Obamacare, are eager to change the subject to America's "wealth gap." It's true that today, the richest 1 percent of Americans own a third of America's wealth. One percent owns 35 percent! But I say, so what? Progressives in the media claim that the rich get richer at the expense of the poor. But that's a lie.
A Millennial's Rolling Stone Rant Offers Up Some Tired Old 'Solutions'
"In America," Oscar Wilde quipped, "the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience." And they often do it in the pages of Rolling Stone. Last week, the magazine posted a mini-manifesto titled "Five Economic Reforms Millennials Should Be Fighting For." After confirming it wasn't a parody, conservative critics launched a brutal assault on its author, Jesse A. Myerson. Myerson's essay captures nearly everything the unconverted despise about left-wing youth culture, starting with the assumption that being authentically young requires being theatrically left wing.