Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Obama's Economy: Wall Street Thrives, Main Street Dies
The backdoor bailout of the financial industry revealed.
Watch Out, Your Character Is Showing
"Character is what you do when no one is watching." It's a bit of a trite saying, attributed to coaches, motivational speakers and fortune cookie writers (by the way, whose idea was it to replace fortune cookie predictions with treacly aphorisms from the "Successories" reject pile?). Still, the expression's popularity illustrates the power of the idea behind it. Character is what you do when the only controlling authority is your conscience.
Digging for News vs. Digging Out Obama
As the Obamacare fiasco deepens and broadens, and one watches the panic enveloping Team Obama, which strategy looks more desperate: Defending the indefensible or savaging critics as somehow responsible for this mess? The spin control is actually amusing when you consider that it isn't Team Obama trying to influence the media. It's the media doing damage control for Team Obama.
The Libertarian Era?
I didn't know what a libertarian was when I started reporting. I was just another liberal. I knew the Republicans were icky, and Democrats were more like me -- except they didn't care about debt. I had no idea there was an actual movement of thinking people who want to honor the principles of the Founders -- liberty and limited government. It took me a long time to wake up.
Will Gov't Be Able to Remotely Control Your Car?
It will be brought to you by the same people now bringing you Obamacare. In May, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration published its "Preliminary Statement of Policy Concerning Automated Vehicles." It pointed to a "continuum" of automobile development that "runs from vehicles with no active control systems all the way to full automation and self-driving."
Bros and Hos: Obamacare's Bread and Circuses
Liberal marketing gurus here in Colorado are masters of Obamacare distraction. While customers struggle to apply through the still-broken health insurance exchange and consumers grapple with cancellation notices, these hipster ad designers are partying it up. Who cares about the insurance market meltdown? They've got keg stands and one-night stands! The "Got Insurance?" campaign is the lame brainchild of two "progressive" outfits with dubious nonprofit status: ProgressNow and the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative. Their previous claim to fame: a "Thanks, Obamacare" social media movement to propagandize praise and gratitude for the federal mandate.
Saving Hillary Clinton
The left is scared to death that its favored 2016 candidate, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, could be on the ropes. Hillary's favorable ratings are down dramatically from when she left office -- in April 2013, her favorability rating stood at 56 percent, but by the end of October, it had dropped to 46 percent. Among independents that number dropped to 35 percent; Hillary even saw a dip of 12 points among Democrats, from 88 percent to 76 percent. Young people in particular are not pleased with the former First Lady -- just 38 percent view her favorably, while 53 percent view her unfavorably.
The Coming Betrayal of Israel
In Geneva, Switzerland, The United States and other major powers appeared close to a deal with Iran to curb its nuclear program in exchange for lifting some economic sanctions against the terrorist-sponsoring state. Negotiations, however, fell apart at the last minute when France and Iran balked at the final wording on the interim draft. Talks are expected to resume within a few weeks, but it is worth pausing to consider what was nearly agreed to and what the outcome could likely be.
Boston Beards and Baking Bullies
Now that the World Series is behind us, would someone please explain why the Red Sox players decided to grow those silly-looking beards? While it's true that I have a beard, I grew mine because I hated shaving. But I have a feeling that's not why Dustin Pedroia, David Ortiz and the rest of those guys grew theirs. I suppose it's possible that someone thought it would be a great way to unify the team, but I thought that was the purpose of the uniform and the fact that the same guy was signing their checks.
Does Washington Know Best?
According to some estimates, there are more than 100 million traffic signals in the U.S., but whatever the number, how many of us would like Washington, in the name of public health and safety, to be in sole charge of their operation? Congress or a committee it authorizes would determine the position of traffic signals at intersections, the length of time the lights stay red, yellow and green, and what hours of the day they can be flashing red.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Serving Who Served Us
Every night of every day, Americans sleep in peace because of men and women they've never met -- and some they'll never have the chance to. Even today, with the "war on terror" winding down in the news, there are still flag-draped caskets returning to Dover Air Force Base. There are still fresh graves watered by families' tears at Arlington and across America. And while other veterans suffer from wounds no eye can see, millions of others stand ready, willing to give "the last full measure of devotion" to let strangers pursue the freedom and happiness so many served to give us.
Gitmo Parting Gifts: Job Training & Islam Classes
Obama's conditions for releasing terrorists -- before he sends them to an al-Qaeda safe haven.
A Farm Bill in Name Only
To paraphrase a famous Mark Twain quote, suppose you passed a farm bill. And suppose you passed a food-stamp bill. But I repeat myself. Hard as it may be to believe, 80 percent of the farm bill being hammered out by the Senate and the House of Representatives is made up not of agriculture programs, but of food stamps. If that sounds upside-down to you, you clearly don't live "inside the Beltway," where Orwellian logic is the order of the day.
Learning to Bask in Obama's Comforting Assurances
"The end justifies the means" is an unstated rationale that guides much liberal thinking and rationalizes immoral behavior in service to a supposedly greater good. But a column I've just read stretches this twisted ethical calculus to a new level. Columnist Michael Cohen, in an op-ed for the New York Daily News, tells us, essentially, that President Obama's lie that people could keep their health care plans if they liked them is not just defensible -- because it was in service to the greater good of imposing Obamacare on an otherwise unwilling populace -- but darn near laudable.
If You Want a Conservative Child
In my last column, I proposed some explanations for why many conservative parents have left-wing children. In a nutshell, American parents who hold traditional American values -- such as belief in small government as the basis of liberty, in a God-based moral code, that American military strength is the greatest contributor to world peace and stability, or in American exceptionalism, not to mention in the man-woman definition of marriage or in the worth of a human fetus -- are at war with almost every influence on their children's lives. This includes, most importantly, the media and the schools.
Honoring Our Veterans With a Vision America Needs
"Selfies." You've probably heard of them. They are the photos that teens (and, too often, young adults) take of themselves and post far and wide for the admiration or amusement of friends. Snap-chat, Facebook, and Twitter are full of selfies. Although great fun when used in moderation, they've also become a classic example of teen-age narcissism, self-absorption, and lack of vision -- and the icon of a nation struggling to remember its greatness.
In Politics, Do the Best You Can
As Vince Lombardi, among others, has delicately phrased it, winning isn't everything; it's the only thing. That's what happens with absolute declarations: They get absolute real fast, to the point that, in political terms, it becomes challenging to discuss the prospect of Christopher James Christie as likely candidate for the Republican nomination for president. Christie duly walloped his Democratic opponent in last week's gubernatorial race, drawing majority support from women and minorities. Does that validate his possible candidacy for president? Would conservatives be happier if nobody liked him but those despicable Republicans-in-name-only?
Tea Party at the Crossroads: Part II
In opposing ObamaCare, the Tea Party took a position that increasing numbers of Americans agree with, now that ObamaCare's potential for disaster is becoming clearer by the day. But in trying to defund ObamaCare without the Congressional votes to do so, the Tea Party made a major tactical mistake. Polls show that this mistake has already hurt the Republican Party, the only party that has any chance of repealing ObamaCare. To have any realistic prospect of repealing ObamaCare may require the Republicans to win both the 2014 and 2016 elections.
Jonathan Pollard: The 'Spy' Still Out in the Cold
With all the spying the United States has been doing on foreign leaders, possibly including the pope, why is Jonathan Pollard, a former American civilian intelligence analyst, still in prison nearly three decades after being sentenced to life in prison for taking classified documents he believed contained information important to Israel's self-defense? Prominent individuals support Pollard's release. They include former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, George P. Schultz, former CIA director James Woolsey (who initially was against Pollard's release), former Representative Robert Wexler (D-FL), and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, among others.
Tea Party at the Crossroads
Third parties have had an unbroken record of failure in American presidential politics. So it was refreshing to see in the Tea Party an insurgent movement, mainly of people who were not professional politicians, but who nevertheless had the good sense to see that their only chance of getting their ideals enacted into public policies was within one of the two major parties. More important, the Tea Party was an insurgent movement that was not trying to impose some untried Utopia, but to restore the lost heritage of America that had been eroded, undermined or just plain sold out by professional politicians.