Right Opinion

Quin: A Full Portfolio Conservative

How Do Ponzi Schemes End?

What's the most important lesson to take away from the bankruptcy of Detroit? It's that when governments promise benefits they are unwilling to pay for, the system can very quickly come to resemble something designed by Bernie Madoff. ... Now here is something interesting -- did you know that it is illegal under federal law for a private corporation to do what Detroit did? ... So here is the obvious public policy question: why do we let cities and towns all across America do what is illegal for private companies to do?

Dealing With Piles

According to a recent Pew poll, 62% of the respondents believe that the GOP is out of touch with the American people. On the other hand, the majority felt that Republicans have stronger principles than the Democrats, which suggests that if Republicans want to connect with the voters and win future elections, they had better lose their principles.

From The Comedy Store

The U.S. Senate passed a bill allowing college students to get student loans at existing market rates. The tuition costs are insane today. They're snecessary to fund half-million dollar salaries for professors, otherwide who do we have to teach kids that wealth is evil?

New Attacks Reyes the Stakes on Censorship

If President Eisenhower were alive today, the five-star general may be shocked to know that his own speeches are too offensive to be quoted in the military he used to command! Just when Americans thought they'd heard it all, an Alaskan military chaplain was taken to task for fulfilling the job description that most spiritual leaders (until recently) were hired to do: talk about faith. In a harmless post for his online website, "Chaplain's Corner," Lt. Col. Kenneth Reyes (USAF) of the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska wrote an inspirational piece called, "No Atheists in Foxholes: Chaplains Gave All in World War II."

How Obama Poisoned Race Relations in America

A legacy of race hatred.

Obama Economy Emphasis Is All Talk

We have a president who loves to give campaign speeches to adoring crowds, but who doesn't seem to have much interest in governing. That was apparent Wednesday, when Barack Obama delivered the first of several promised "pivot to the economy" speeches at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., where he spoke eight years ago as a newly elected U.S. senator. The hour-long speech started off with some characteristic self-referencing -- he didn't have gray hair then, he noted, or a motorcade -- and ended with a quotation from Galesburg native Carl Sandburg.

Obama Hands GOP an Opportunity -- And They're Already Blowing It

Barack Obama isn't pivoting to jobs; he's prepping for battle. What does a president in a perpetual campaign do when national disapproval rates start rising higher than 50 percent? He returns to Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., the site of a Lincoln-Douglas debate and, even more impressively -- as a nearly breathless White House informed us -- the place he delivered his first major economic address as a U.S. senator.

What Happened to the Monica Standard?

Is anyone else confused about the new standard of sexual propriety in the post Clinton impeachment world? So much of what seemed to have been settled has been thrown into disarray this week. Following revelations that "Carlos Danger" was continuing his sexting frolics long after resigning in disgrace in 2011, The New York Times editorial board was disgusted.

Stein's Law

WASHINGTON -- If there's an iron rule in economics, it is Stein's Law (named after Herb, former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers): "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop." Detroit, for example, can no longer go on borrowing, spending, raising taxes and dangerously cutting such essential services as street lighting and police protection. So it stops. It goes bust.

Cynic-in-Chief

"My rival in this race," President Obama announced early in 2007, "is not other candidates. It's cynicism." Sadly, it's now evident cynicism won. In a much-hyped speech at Knox College on Wednesday, Obama sought to pivot back to the economy -- as the journalistic cliché goes -- and shape the issue environment for the 2014 congressional elections. Because of an "endless parade of distractions and political posturing and phony scandals," the president said, "Washington's taken its eye off the ball." The ball here is the economy, in case you didn't know.

Obama the Unembarrassable

Sometimes I marvel at President Obama's apparent lack of an embarrassment sensor. How can he stand before the American people and deliver speech after speech making the same tired points and pretending he is delivering the speech of the century? Is he truly impervious to feelings of self-consciousness, or is he trying to play us for fools?

A Failed Celebr-Ambassador Returns to Washington

Welcome to another installment of No Obama Bundler Left Behind. This chapter stars an elite Hollywood fundraiser who scored a plum diplomatic appointment, slacked off on the job and left her public office in disgrace, and then rebounded from failure as a new Obamacare promoter. Nice crony "work" if you can get it.

Rebuke to Steve King

It's hard to know where to begin in responding to Rep. Steve King's, R-Iowa, recent comments on so-called "Dreamers": illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. when they were children, often brought here as babes-in-arms by their parents. King told the conservative news organization Newsmax that for every valedictorian brought into the country as a young child by his or her parents, there are another 100 out there who "weigh 130 pounds and they've got calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert. Those people would be legalized with the same act."

Nuns Thrown Under the Bus

Last year, Entertainment Weekly magazine honored the arrival of a viciously anti-Catholic tilt on the FX show "American Horror Story: Asylum" by promoting how actress "Jessica Lange returns, this time as a terrifying nun." Bigotry sells -- big -- in Tinseltown. This year, after that "Asylum" season aired, Hollywood has honored the show again by showering it with 17 Emmy nominations. There's a reason Hollywood revels in Catholic-bashing. The Catholic Church best represents for them an ancient organization with a creed, which refuses to genuflect before the modern god of La La Land: untrammeled whims of lust and greed.

Atheist Chaplains: Seeing Isn't Believing!

Atheists aren't just looking for a platform in the military -- they're looking for a pulpit. In one of the more bizarre storylines from the Defense debate, a handful of House Democrats have been working to establish a chapter of non-believing chaplains in the ranks. So far, two representatives -- Rob Andrews (D-N.J.) and Jared Polis (D-Colo.) -- have introduced measures to create "non-theist" chaplains, only to see them flame out in committee. Groups like the Secular Coalition, who helped hatch this crazy idea, argue that nonbelievers suffer the same fear and pain that affects every service member.

Unsung Black People

It must be hard for young black males to always be viewed as criminals by people who notice crime statistics. We've jawboned that sad story for 40 years. Last week, President Obama ran it around the block again in another speech about himself in reaction to the George Zimmerman verdict.

Honest Discussion Needed

Turn on the TV. This week the "big news" is the birth of a British royal. Even Drudge ran the birth of the Prince of Cambridge at the top of his page, treating it like it was the biggest event out of Europe since D-Day. Maybe the media wanted to change the subject to something pleasant -- or completely unimportant -- but the arrival of Kate and William's baby boy was a timely blessing.

The Overrated Art of Diplomacy

Liberals like to say that war is the result of people's failure to utilize diplomacy. I think the truth of the matter is that diplomacy is the coward's attempt to delay the inevitability of war. I'm not saying that war has never been averted by the two sides sitting down to swap lies, but I haven't been able to come up with a single example. Chamberlain went umbrella in hand to convince Hitler to be a good fellow. The Japanese were in Washington trying to soft soap FDR at the same time that their Zeros were bombing our naval fleet at Pearl Harbor.

Vouchers: My Personal Case

"I think you should check out the APEX program," my high school counselor, Mrs. Workman, suggested. APEX stood for Area Program Enrichment Exchange, and involved several L.A. area high schools, including Fairfax High. Intended for "advanced" students, the program allowed them to take courses not offered at their home school. In my case, I had exhausted all of the Spanish courses at Crenshaw High, the predominately black inner-city school I attended. But Fairfax, predominately Jewish, had higher-level courses and would accept me.