Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Monday, August 19, 2013
Pastors Must Take Back Civil Rights Movement
The purging of Grammy Award winner Donnie McClurkin from performing at a concert commemorating the 50th anniversary of the 1963 civil rights March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech should serve as yet another wakeup call to Christian black Americans. McClurkin, a black pastor and gospel music superstar, was asked to step down from his featured performance by Washington Mayor Vincent Gray as result of pressure from homosexual activists. McClurkin preaches against the homosexual lifestyle from his pulpit and says he himself departed and was saved from this lifestyle through God's mercy.
An Invitation from the Sunshine State
Days after Massachusetts residents began feeling the sting of new tax increases, Florida's Republican governor, Rick Scott, cheerfully reminded them that they have other options. On Aug. 6, Scott sent letters to 100 Massachusetts business owners, inviting them to relocate to the Sunshine State "because we have the perfect climate for your business." He trumpeted his state's "incredible economic turnaround," and drew a few pointed contrasts: "While Florida's unemployment rate has seen the second-largest drop in the country, Massachusetts' June unemployment rate increased to the highest since November 2011," Scott wrote. "While Florida ranks fifth in the nation for our business tax climate, Massachusetts is stuck at No. 22, according to the Tax Foundation." And now that taxes are up again -- Beacon Hill raised taxes on gasoline and cigarettes, and enacted a 6.25 percent sales tax on software and computer services that has the tech sector in an uproar -- "it's bound to get worse in Massachusetts."
Iraq Wants Jewish 'Trove,' but Not Jews
Some fifty-three percent of Americans told the Gallup Poll last spring they regarded theIraq war as a mistake. The numbers were not evenly divided. The vast majority of Democrats (73%) say it was a mistake while only a minority (30%) of Republicans agree. So, how should we think about this story in this week's Washington Post: "Securing Iraqi Jews' Past?" Staffers at our National Archives are restoring a "trove" of documents, photographs,books, and other records from the Iraqi Jewish community. Our troops uncovered this stash of Jewish memorabilia when we invaded Iraq in May, 2003. Many of these precious items were found in the blasted headquarters of Saddam Hussein's Mukhabarat, the dreaded secret policeof the Baathist regime in Baghdad.
Apocalypse Now
We live in very weird times. How weird? I recently heard that atheists are insisting that the U.S. Navy accept atheist chaplains into its ranks. What on earth would their function be, you ask? I can't imagine, unless there really are sailors who would find comfort in being assured as they go into combat that there's no God and no afterlife. I had long heard that there were no atheists in foxholes, and assumed the rule held true for fighting men aboard ships.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Is ObamaCare Hurting the Economy?
Consider that ObamaCare aims to insure an additional 27 million people. If economic studies are correct, once they are insured these people will try to double their consumption of health care. On top of that, millions of employees and their employers will be forced to upgrade their health insurance -- making it more generous (and more expensive) than it currently is. ... Then there is a lengthy list of preventive services everyone is supposed to insure for, with no copayment or deductible. ... What we are describing is a huge increase in the demand for care. But the Affordable Care Act does nothing to increase supply. This is virtually guaranteed to put upward pressure on prices. To the extent that prices are prevented from rising, it will create enhanced rationing by waiting. And almost anything patients and doctors do to circumvent the cost of waiting will also add to the money cost of care.
Starved by the Sequester
BETHESDA, Md. -- The pedigree of human beings, Thomas wrote, probably traces to a single cell fertilized by a lightning bolt as the Earth was cooling. Fortunately, genetic "mistakes" -- mutations -- eventually made us. But they also have made illnesses. Almost all diseases arise from some combination of environmental exposures and genetic blunders in the working of DNA. Breast cancer is a family of genetic mutations. The great secret of doctors, wrote Thomas -- who was a physician, philosopher and head of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center -- "is that most things get better by themselves; most things, in fact, are better in the morning." But many things require intelligent interventions -- cures. So, to see the federal government at its best, and sequester-driven spending cuts at their worst, visit the 322 acres where 25,000 people work for the National Institutes of Health.
Saturday, August 17, 2013
Obama Skips the Kennedy Tax Cuts
After delivering a number of "economic growth" speeches this summer, President Obama has failed to inspire any confidence, falling all the way back to square one in a recent Gallup poll. Actually, make that less than square one. Gallup reported that Obama's approval rating on the economy has sunk to 35 percent in August, from 42 percent in early June. Why should we be surprised?
Diogenes II
All I knew about the original Diogenes is that he was said to carry a lantern even during daylight hours, explaining he was searching for an honest man. He also founded the Cynic philosophy. So you can see where I might identify with him. Where we part company is that, being poor, he made a virtue of poverty. That would be like my making a virtue of being short and bald. But I dare say I have spent at least as much time as he did searching for an honest man. I have found a few, but in most cases, being honest in 2013 is even harder than it was in 323 BC. That's because one can either be truthful or politically correct, but not both. And cowards invariably take the path of least resistance.
From The Comedy Store
Michelle Obama will appear in a rap video that urges minorities to eat well and start exercising by using a bouncy hip-hop song. It's not for everybody. In a clumsy attempt to expand his appeal, Joe Biden just released a hip-hop album called Plain White Wrapper.
Friday, August 16, 2013
ABC's Good Morning Sex
Network morning "news" shows are aimed directly at women aged 25 to 54. ABC's "Good Morning America" is routinely winning the ratings race by skipping the boring "hard news" and focusing heavily on real-life soap operas, such as the Jodi Arias murder trial or the Ariel Castro kidnapping outrage. It isn't news at all. It's infotainment. But what really caused jaws to drop recently was ABC promoting its latest sex-drenched Sunday night soap opera to those women. Viewers saw a naked man and woman in bed, with a side breast shot and the man's hand grasping the top of the woman's thigh -- on TV at breakfast time. As usual, this eye-grabbing sex scene wasn't between spouses. That's never scandalous enough.
Leading From Behind
President Barack Obama has cancelled joint military exercises with Egypt in the wake of a government crackdown on demonstrators demanding the return of deposed president Mohammad Morsi. That crackdown (through yesterday afternoon) had led to the deaths of 525 people and the injury to more than 3,700 others. Friday in the Muslim world is the equivalent of Sunday in the West (or Saturday in Israel) and it is likely those numbers will rise dramatically.
Russell Simmons, Rape Video Clown
Oh, what a tangled web libs weave when first they practice to aggrieve! Let's review: Democrats and civil rights leaders are busy conducting a ridiculous witch hunt against a harmless Missouri rodeo clown who dared to wear an Obama mask. Oprah played the race card on a Swiss shop owner, whom she dubiously accused of denying her a look at a $35,000 handbag because she is black. P.C. mau-mau-ers steamrolled Paula Deen over three-decade-old comments. And feminists continue smearing Republicans as "War on Women" misogynists, while enabling Democratic perv predators Bob Filner and Anthony Weiner for years.
Can Obama Write His Own Laws?
WASHINGTON -- As a reaction to the crack epidemic of the 1980s, many federal drug laws carry strict mandatory sentences. This has stirred unease in Congress and sparked a bipartisan effort to revise and relax some of the more draconian laws. Traditionally -- meaning before Barack Obama -- that's how laws were changed: We have a problem, we hold hearings, we find some new arrangement, ratified by Congress and signed by the president.
Off-Year Elections Will Turn on Personal Factors, Not Issues
Sometimes off-year elections provide insight into national political trends and voters' views on issues. That was true in 2009, when the issues in the governor elections in New Jersey and Virginia were congruent with the issues facing Congress and the president. In both states the Republicans campaigned for lower spending and taxes, in contrast to the Obama Democrats' policies. Heavily Democratic New Jersey voted narrowly for Republican Chris Christie, and in Virginia, the state voting closest to the national average in 2008 and 2012, Republican Bob McDonnell won a landslide victory.
GOP Must Shed Establishment Defeatism
What are establishment Republicans so afraid of? Why are they so convinced that if they stand up to Obama -- even on issues the public agrees with them on -- they will be spanked at the ballot box? Playing it safe sure has paid big dividends, huh? Every time we've had a fight over a budget ceiling or a continuing resolution, the establishment has told us we must not allow the government to shut down because Republicans would be blamed for it. The actual facts of the particular situation don't matter -- even if the Republicans' position is justified, defensible or over an issue that aligns them with the electorate. The establishment has decreed that we couldn't possibly, ever, come out on top in such a battle.
The 'To Hell With Them' Doctrine
Maybe everyone is misreading America's views on foreign policy? Among Republicans, there's a big argument between the so-called isolationist wing of the party and the ostensibly interventionist wing. On the left, there's a similar debate (though liberals are never described as isolationists no matter how isolationist they might be). Among Democrats, the dividing lines are murkier if for no other reason than the Democratic Party takes its lead from President Obama, and his own views are murky, to put it charitably.
Thursday, August 15, 2013
Oprah's Witch-Hunt
With baseless racism accusations, Winfrey attempts to destroy a powerless shopgirl.
Racism Card Looking a Little Dog-Eared
Do liberals have any arguments for their idiotic ideas besides calling their opponents "racist"? The two big public policies under attack by the left this week are "stop-and-frisk" policing and voter ID laws. Democrats denounce both policies as racist. I'm beginning to suspect they're getting lazy in their arguments. Stop-and-frisk was a crucial part of the package of law enforcement measures implemented by New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani that saved the city. Under David Dinkins, who preceded Giuliani, murders averaged about 2,000 a year. There were 714 murders in New York the year Giuliani left office. Continuing Giuliani's policing techniques, Mayor Michael Bloomberg's New York had only 419 murders last year.
Single Mom Pays $8,173 Obamacare Penalty -- for a Marriage License
Obamacare attacks the liberty and financial viability of the traditional family, and nothing demonstrates this more clearly than the system of federal subsidies it puts in place starting next year. This system rewards people who don't marry, don't work and don't take care of their own children. It punishes people who do marry, work hard and take care of their own children.
Terry McAuliffe's Gift
WASHINGTON -- It is called the Taranto Principle, having been named after he who coined the principle, the inimitable James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal. According to the Taranto Principle, the left-wing media, in their fawning treatment of left-wing politicians, only encourage the pols' worst instincts: encouraging Jean-Francois Kerry's sophomoric wind-surfing during his presidential race or Howard Dean's blood-curdling scream upon losing the Iowa caucuses. And then there is President Barack Obama. At his press conference the other day, he finally commented on the traitor Edward Snowden. Obama said, "You know, if I had a son, he'd look like Edward." OK, OK -- I made that up, but who doubts that he is capable of such excesses? Barack Obama might say anything, and the left-wing press will generously indulge him, thus encouraging him to ever-greater pratfalls.