Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Saturday, December 21, 2013
From The Comedy Store
Barbara Walters selected rap star Kanye West to her list of the Ten Most Fascinating People in America. He just said he wants to be the Obama of fashion. To achieve that end, he's introducing a clothing line nobody wants and selling it on a website that doesn't work.
Friday, December 20, 2013
Killing the Middle Class
The Federal Reserve continues to sign on to Obama's war on the poor.
A Beard's Eye View of Intolerance
A&E wanted a reality show. Trouble is, they weren't ready for the realities that came with it. Anyone who's watched "Duck Dynasty" (and there are close to 90 million of you) knows the Robertson family stands unapologetically for Christ. And if they didn't know, they found out in May, when patriarch Phil Robertson told the network, "God and guns are part of our everyday lives [and] to remove either of them from the show is unacceptable."
GLAAD: Lethal Enforcers of the Left's Tolerance Mob
"Duck Dynasty's" Phil Robertson is not alone. He's the latest in a long, long lineup of politically incorrect targets of the left's sensitivity mob. Founded in 1985, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) gangstas won't stop until both the cultural and legal enforcement of their agenda are the norm. The A&E network (Atheists & Elitists) suspended the reality TV patriarch and self-made businessman on Wednesday for the Biblical views he expressed in an interview with GQ. Robertson was asked by the liberal magazine what he viewed as sinful. Drawing on the condemnation of sexual immorality in Corinthians 6:9, he cited "adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers -- they won't inherit the kingdom of God."
The Left's Militant, Proactive Intolerance
I must admit I've never watched "Duck Dynasty," but this brouhaha over A&E's suspension of the show's star, Phil Robertson, for his remarks on homosexual behavior in an interview with GQ has little to do with "gay" issues and everything to do with thought and speech control -- and the left's intolerance. Robertson first expressed, in admittedly vulgar terms, his incredulity that some men find other men more attractive than women. Fine. Call him insensitive, but it's hardly a debatable point that heterosexuals don't quite grasp the allure of homosexuality.
Punk Rockers Knock Christmas
What's been called the "War on Christmas" is often a case of secular liberals wanting to engage in Christmas denial. In the name of not wanting to offend people of minority faiths (or no faith), they remove the C-word from department store catalogs and Christmas songs from public school concerts, leaving us with lame messages about snow. But there's another kind of Christmas denial: the kind that simply stomps on Christianity as ridiculous and kicks over the nativity set. Take the atheist punk band Bad Religion and its new record of Christmas songs they found "hilarious" to record.
Daughters and Sex
Columnist Ross Douthat has stirred up a hornet's nest by commenting on a new study suggesting that being the parent of a girl may nudge people toward the Republican Party. Douthat speculated that watching daughters cope with a "social landscape in which sex has been decoupled from marriage" and in which young men cruise through the sexual marketplace, leaving broken hearts in their wake, may cause mothers and fathers to embrace more conservative mores regarding love and sex.
Outrage Over 'Reality' Star's Comment Smacks of Artificiality
So rednecks need to be politically correct now? Wait, before the National Association of Rednecked Persons attacks me, let me be clear that I don't mean "redneck" as an insult. Indeed, Redneck Pride has been on the rise ever since Jeff Foxworthy got rich informing people they "might be a redneck." (Some clues: if your school fight song was "Dueling Banjos"; if you've ever raked leaves in your kitchen; if your boat hasn't left your driveway for 15 years; if birds are attracted to your beard, etc.)
Story of the Year
The lie of the year, according to Politifact, is "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it." But the story of the year is a nation waking up to just how radical Obamacare is -- which is why it required such outright deception to get it passed in the first place. Obamacare was sold as simply a refinement of the current system, retaining competition among independent insurers but making things more efficient, fair and generous. Free contraceptives for Sandra Fluke. Free mammograms and checkups for you and me. Free (or subsidized) insurance for some 30 million uninsured. And, *mirabile dictu*, not costing the government a dime.
ObamaCare Shows America's Aversion to Big Gov't Policies
As the fifth year of the Obama presidency draws to a close, it may be time to examine the unspoken but powerful assumption behind the policies of the president and his party. That is the assumption that in times of economic distress Americans would be, more than usual, supportive of or amenable to Big Government programs. The assumption was widely shared, and not just by Democrats. And it has pretty well been disproven, insofar as any abstract proposition can be disproven, in the five years of the Obama presidency.
Put Some Clothes On
I saw one at the airport on Monday and then another in the elevator on Wednesday. I see them on the street, at coffee shops around town, often at the grocery. Now Obamacare supporters have adopted one as the face of their new public relations campaign. I'm speaking of adults of both sexes and all ages -- though the style seems to be most popular among those under 30 -- who can't be bothered to change out of their pajamas when they go out in public. The latest entry into the fashion craze is Pajama Boy, the now infamous, plaid-clad twerp pushing Obamacare on Twitter. At least Pajama Boy is dressed in his onesie only in cyberspace, not sitting on an airplane at four o'clock in the afternoon.
Thursday, December 19, 2013
Mental Health Laws Are Trouble for Democrats
Instead of always taking incoming fire, how about Republicans start sending some back? It's great that they stopped HillaryCare, but if they had actually fixed health care by forcing health insurance plans to be sold in a competitive free market, there would have been no opportunity for shyster Democrats to foist Obamacare on us. It's fantastic that we caught the Boston Marathon bombers, but why don't Republicans fix an immigration system that brings foreign terrorists and mass murderers to our country? Let the Democrats explain why we couldn't make room for a Danish surgeon because we needed another Chechnyan terrorist.
Focus on Winning
Will Republicans ever learn? Will they get their own house in order in time to take control of the Senate in 2014 and the White House in 2016? Will they stop fighting with one another in public over internal family matters and focus the GOP's collective eye on those crucial political prizes before it's too late to save the country? It sure doesn't look like it.
Govt. Preventing Colleges From Saving Money
With skyrocketing tuition, there is no denying that college is too expensive. My friend, Professor Richard Vedder of Ohio University, has produced a lifetime of work showing that colleges' hefty price is directly related to students' easy access to Federal Pell grants and student loans. Those taxpayer subsidized funds allow universities to handsomely compensate tenured professors who rarely teach and ensure administrators at state institutions remain the highest paid public employees in America.
Big Brother 2013
In his classic novel "1984," George Orwell warned about the evils of a totalitarian state dominated by a single ruling party with total power over its inhabitants. Oceania, his fictional superstate, is under complete surveillance by the authorities. The character known as "Big Brother" reminds everyone he is constantly monitoring the citizens of Oceania, mainly by "telescreen." At the end of 2013, the federal government may not yet have telescreens, which in Orwell's imagination had the ability to eavesdrop on people's conversations and broadcast propaganda, but it does have the nonfiction equivalent -- data collection, drones and other technological invasions of privacy.
'Lie of the Year' Aided and Abetted by the Media
PolitiFact has awarded their "Lie of the Year" to President Barack Obama for his promise that "if you like your health care plan, you can keep it." PolitiFact, a feature of the Tampa Bay Times, purports to rate the truthfulness of statements/assertions made by politicians. The accurate are rated "true," then slide down the scale to "mostly true," 'half true," "mostly false" and "false." The biggest "lies" -- the most egregious -- are awarded, as PolitiFact puts it, a "Pants on Fire!" rating. (Full disclosure: As I recently wrote, PunditFact, its sister feature, recently gave me an undeserved "mostly false.")
Salsa Subsidy Highlights Worst Queso Scenario
Why go to the mall when you can do your shopping on the floor of Congress? Over the past 12 months, plenty of members have dipped into taxpayers' pockets to deliver gifts to the special interests in their lives. And, thanks to Senator Tom Coburn's (R-Okla.) annual "Wastebook," Americans are learning just how generous they were forced to be. As always, this year's top 100 projects will have you laughing at someone's expense -- yours! With the theme "Waste more, want more!" it's obvious that the USDA's prune junket (p. 106) isn't the only thing keeping spending regular.
Impeach Obama? Not a Chance
As the president's approval ratings decline, some of his most fervent critics want the House of Representatives to charge him with "high crimes and misdemeanors" and have the Senate vote on removing him from office. Grassroots activists stage small but energetic pro-impeachment rallies around the country. State-level political parties are adopting resolutions demanding that the president be impeached. In blog posts and op-ed articles, legal scholars and congressional experts argue that impeachment is a tool the Framers intended to be used when a president threatens American liberties. "There is no remedy short of impeachment to protect us from this President," writes one former House member, who served on the Judiciary Committee in 1974 when it recommended the impeachment of Richard Nixon.
A Nation in Decline
When people used to say "Only in America," they intended it as praise, highlighting the promise that anyone -- no matter his religion, his nation of origin or the circumstances into which he was born -- could succeed in America beyond anyone's expectation. But when you see a Marxist slacker like Obama twice elected to the highest office in the land, the words take on a cynical connotation, and are definitely no longer a compliment.
A Presidential Museum of the Absurd
It has been a grim Christmas around the White House. Frankly, I think President Barack Obama must be wondering why. Has anyone on the White House staff seen him tee off lately? He is really walloping the old ball, and his putting game has improved too. Moreover, he has been taking many not-to-be-forgotten trips on Air Force One, most recently his trip to South Africa to solemnize the expiry of Nelson Mandela, which was only marred by the sign-language interpretations of Thamsanqa Jantjie. Jantjie stood to Obama's immediate left gesticulating sheer gibberish to the world's hard-of-hearing, and, oh, yes, there was that blot on his police record. It turns out that Jantjie was arrested for a particularly grisly murder in 2003, but he never served time so it could not have been that bad. He spent something like a year under psychiatric evaluation before embarking on his new career of incomprehensible hand gestures.