Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Putin, the Pope & the Punk
Who would have ever guessed that Vladimir Putin would pull Obama's chestnuts out of the fire? Nothing else could have saved Obama from having Congress deny him the green light to attack Syria. Ironically, even though I opposed hitting Syria unless it was going to be with a nuke, for staking out a position and sticking to it in spite of massive opposition in his own party, I rather admired Obama. It was the first time I can recall that he did anything that he knew would upset his base.
Sept. 18, 2016
WASHINGTON -- Avert your gaze! Show some respect for the deeply troubled. Richard Trumka, the portly president of the AFL-CIO, has come forward with a pathetic acknowledgment of organized labor's weakened condition, and I suggest compassion. In fact, his proposal suggests the moribund condition of the American left, and I urge a dignified silence.
The Decline of College
For the last 70 years, American higher education was assumed to be the pathway to upper-mobility and a rich shared-learning experience. Young Americans for four years took a common core of classes, learned to look at the world dispassionately, and gained the concrete knowledge to make informed arguments logically. The result was a more skilled workforce and a competent democratic citizenry. That ideal may still be true at our flagship universities, with their enormous endowments and stellar world rankings.
Deadly Combination: Political Correctness in a Gun-Free Zone
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., after another mass shooting, predictably wasted no time in demanding still more gun control legislation. This week, a killer with a valid ID entered the Washington Navy Yard in southeast D.C., a military facility where 16,000 people -- mostly civilians -- work. He killed 12 people and wounded several others at the Naval Sea Systems Command headquarters, where 3,000 people work. The suspect, Aaron Alexis, who was killed at the scene, was a 34-year-old former Navy reservist, employed by a military contractor after an honorable discharge. It is unclear which of the three firearms found near his body were brought in by Alexis -- or whether he got them from security guards after he shot them.
Academe's Money Tree
WASHINGTON -- Like baby birds with yawning beaks, college football fans clamor to be fed. So fasten the chin strap on your helmet -- ignore the warning label on it ("No helmet system can protect you from serious brain and/or neck injuries including paralysis or death. To avoid these risks, do not engage in the sport of football.") and enjoy the seasonal festival of physical carnage, institutional derangement and moral seaminess.
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Wellesley Faculty Defend an Endangered 'Colleague' -- in China
Xia Yeliang knows that he may end up behind bars. He knows that his career in academia -- he is a distinguished professor of economics at Peking University -- may be about to end. He knows that he may become a social pariah, as friends and colleagues face mounting pressure to avoid him. He knows the anguish his wife may suffer for her loyalty to him. Like his friend Liu Xiaobo, the 2010 Nobel Peace laureate who has spent much of the past 25 years in Chinese prisons, Xia had few illusions about what he was getting into when he signed Charter 08, a valiant manifesto calling for human rights and an end to one-party rule in China. Since then Xia has grown increasingly outspoken in his defense of liberty and his condemnation of Communist Party censorship and persecution. So when he learned that the economics faculty at his university intends to vote this month on whether to expel him, he understood which way the wind was blowing.
On Benghazi, More Than Meets the Issa
If there's an upside to the President's Syrian debacle, it's that the administration's latest incompetence helped take the spotlight off of the White House's other spectacular failure: Benghazi. While the President was busy drawing his "red line," the first anniversary of the Libyan attack came and went without so much as a formal State Department ceremony for the four Americans brutally killed. At State's headquarters in Washington, a couple dozen staffers gathered to remember the victims in a makeshift memorial service that [didn't include](http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/09/state-department-staffers-benghazi-anniversary.php) Secretaries John Kerry or Hillary Clinton. Together staffers paid tribute to the men who would still be alive today were it not for serious failures on the administration's part. And one year later, Americans are no closer to understanding the reasons for the security lapses than they were on that tragic night. All signs point to senior State officials, who worked for Hillary Clinton and knew the embassy was vulnerable, but continued to downgrade security assets when the threat levels were highest.
The Yin and the Yang
We have spoken of this before: The veneer of civilization is very, very thin. Anyone. Anyone can cause unimaginable horror to happen by virtue of doing something that you or I would never think of. Such an event happened earlier this week at the Washington Navy Yard when a mentally disturbed contractor shot and killed 12 civilians who had gone to work that morning expecting that it would be just another day at the office.
Benghazi: Honor Will Prevail
Yesterday the *Washington Free Beacon* [reported](http://freebeacon.com/cia-employee-who-refused-to-sign-non-disclosure-on-benghazi-suspended/) that a CIA agent who refused to sign a nondisclosure agreement preventing him from talking about Benghazi has been suspended and forced to hire an attorney, according to Congressman Frank Wolfe (R-VA). "The reports on the NDA are accurate. We're getting people who call," Wolf said Monday. Wolfe was appearing at the inaugural meeting of the Citizens Commission on Benghazi, where he [reiterated](http://www.talkradionews.com/audio/2013/09/16/citizens-commission-on-benghazi-aims-to-uncover-truth-one-year-after-benghazi-attacks.html#.UjhpnbwjH1w) his contention that the Congressional investigation into the incident is being bogged down by five separate committees working independently of each other to discover the truth. His call for a House Select Committee has been stonewalled by House Majority leader John Boehner (R-OH).
Obama, Spiked for His Own Good?
President Obama barely noticed, but there was a horrific mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard on Monday. In what has become a signature of this administration, a tone-deaf Obama pressed ahead with his plans to attack the tea party Republicans at an event marking five years since the financial crisis erupted. After some perfunctory remarks of condolence, Obama commenced with what the Associated Press described as a "blistering warning to congressional Republicans."
Will Boehner Protect Even His Own Religious Liberty?
Six months ago, Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston made a very simple and straightforward request to House Speaker John Boehner and other members of the House of Representatives. "I urge you to support H.R. 940 and to help incorporate its policy into upcoming 'must-pass' legislation," O'Malley said in a March 8 letter to all House members. H.R. 940 advances a proposition you might expect any decent person to embrace -- and it does so by making a small amendment to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.
Warning: Our Government Is a Threat to Public Safety
Forget gun control. America needs government control. Have you noticed the common thread among several mass killings and homeland security incidents lately? Time and again, it's the control freaks in Washington who have fallen down on their jobs, allowing crazies, creeps and criminals to roam free and wreak havoc while ignoring rampant red flags. Let's review: Washington Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis: Despite gun-grabbing Democrats' best efforts to blame a nonexistent "AR-15" for this week's horrific Navy Yard massacre, the truth is seeping out about shooter Aaron Alexis. The 34-year-old Navy veteran had been treated since August by the Veterans Administration for a host of mental problems that plagued him for up to a decade.
After Re-election, 'More Flaccidity'
President Obama's whispers to Russia's then-President Dmitri Medvedev were picked up on a hot mic. "This is my last election," the president confided to the Russian under his breath, "after my election, I'll have more flexibility." [ABC's Jake Tapper](http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/03/president-obama-asks-medvedev-for-space-on-missile-defense-after-my-election-i-have-more-flexibility/) reported that exchange in March, 2012, at a G-20 Summit in Seoul, South Korea. It remains one of the most shocking incidents in the history of U.S.-Russian relations. Medvedev quickly chimes in to say: "I understand." And he promised to carry the President's words to Russia's real strong man, Vladimir Putin.
Tolerating Pot with a Frown
Why the Feds Had Little Choice but to Let Legalization Happen
If I Were President
Let it be understood that I don't want to be president, and for a variety of reasons. For one thing, I don't like pomp. At state dinners, I would probably fall asleep even before the soup plates were cleared away. For another, I don't like dressing up. I don't recall the last time I wore a necktie, and the next time will probably be at my funeral, when I won't have any say in the matter and I won't have to tie the darn thing. I also wouldn't want to have to spend all my time with whatever dunce wound up being my vice president, and I certainly wouldn't want to confab, as they say, with politicians. The ones in my own party would be bad enough, but having to be civil to the likes of Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Sheila Jackson Lee and Dick Durbin, would be calling for the impossible.
Make Trade, Not War
What's up with so many Democrats wanting missile strikes on Syria, while Republicans balk? I'm told Republicans are the war party. Is this just hypocrisy? Politicians change their position on military intervention when their own party controls the White House? Historian Thaddeus Russell says it's not. He says it's always been "progressive" Democrats who led America into war: Woodrow Wilson in World War I, FDR in World War II, Truman in the Korean War, Kennedy and Johnson in Vietnam and Bill Clinton in Somalia and Kosovo.
Minimum Wage Madness: Part II
A survey of American economists found that 90 percent of them regarded minimum wage laws as increasing the rate of unemployment among low-skilled workers. Inexperience is often the problem. Only about 2 percent of Americans over the age of 24 earned the minimum wage. Advocates of minimum wage laws usually base their support of such laws on their estimate of how much a worker "needs" in order to have "a living wage" -- or on some other criterion that pays little or no attention to the worker's skill level, experience or general productivity. So it is hardly surprising that minimum wage laws set wages that price many a young worker out of a job.
Obama's Bait-and-Switch on Syria
Chemical weapons are evil, but you could also say they're a curse. They have a talismanic power to bend and distort U.S. foreign policy. You can ask George W. Bush or Barack Obama. In 2003, then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz gave a lengthy interview to Vanity Fair that caused a huge uproar, largely because the magazine shamefully distorted what he was trying to say. Wolfowitz explained that within the Bush administration there were a lot of arguments for why we should invade Iraq. Some had to do with the fact that Saddam Hussein was a state supporter of terrorism. Some had to do with how Hussein treated his own people. Others emphasized alleged links between the regime and 9/11. And so on.
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
ObamaCare in Graves Danger?
Just because some Americans don't have health insurance doesn't mean they want President Obama's! New polling suggests that ObamaCare isn't exactly gaining fans -- even among the people it was designed to help. Regardless of the White House's $700 million PR blitz, time isn't dulling the disgust most Americans feel toward the President's signature policy.
DC's Fight Over ObamaCare Exemption Gets Dirty
The ruling elite resort to gutter politics to ensure they remain above the law.