Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
IRS Gave $14B in Tax Credits to Illegals
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., both said the immigration bill they helped push through the Senate was designed to "bring people out of the shadows." Yet, if illegal aliens are truly in the shadows, why has the Internal Revenue Service been able to find enough of them to pay them more than $14 billion in refundable tax credits? For well over a decade, the treasury inspector general for tax administration (TIGTA) has been pointing to the numerous problems the IRS caused when it made a bureaucratic decision to essentially amnesty illegal aliens for tax purposes and to decline to provide information it has about illegal aliens to federal immigration authorities.
Why the MSM Doesn't Care About Black Kids
While the mainstream media lavished endless attention and emotion on the George Zimmerman trial for the killing of Trayvon Martin last weekend, the body of a 17-year-old black boy was discovered on basement stairs, face down, behind a boarded-up house in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago. His body was so badly decomposed that local news reports originally suggested that he had died of blunt force trauma. An autopsy demonstrated that he had in fact been shot to death. His family blamed his death on his refusal to join a gang at school. The boy's name was Darryl Green. Thus far, no non-local media outlet has told the story of Darryl Green. That's because Darryl Green was likely killed by another black person.
What Egyptians Need
What Egyptian citizens must recognize is that political liberty thrives best where there's a large measure of economic liberty. The Egyptian people are not the problem; it's the environment they're forced to live in. Why is it that Egyptians do well in the U.S. but not Egypt? We could make the same observation about Nigerians, Cambodians, Jamaicans and many other people who leave their homeland and immigrate to the U.S. For example, Indians in India suffer great poverty. But that's not true of Indians who immigrate to the U.S. They manage to start more Silicon Valley companies than any other immigrant group, and they do the same in Massachusetts, Texas, Florida, New York and New Jersey.
Four Reasons to Reject Fed Charges Against Zimmerman
After a Florida jury acquitted George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon Martin on Saturday, President Obama appealed for calm. "I know this case has elicited strong passions," he said. "And in the wake of the verdict, I know those passions may be running even higher. But we are a nation of laws, and a jury has spoken." Although Obama wants us to respect the jury's verdict, that does not necessarily mean he will. His Justice Department is mulling the possibility of prosecuting Zimmerman again, most likely based on the federal hate crime statute. That would be wrong for at least four reasons.
Strangling Life
There are now 175,000 pages' worth of federal laws. Local governments add more. I'm not so cynical that I think politicians pass laws just to control us. Someone always thinks: "This law is needed. This will protect people." But the cumulative effect of so many rules is to strangle life.
Rand Paul's Paleo Problem
Rand Paul is the most interesting contender for the Republican nomination. And when I say interesting, I mean that in the broadest sense. A case in point: Last week, the Kentucky senator hit some turbulence when the Washington Free Beacon reported that Jack Hunter, Paul's aide and the coauthor of his book, "The Tea Party Goes to Washington," was once the Southern Avenger. Who's that? Starting in the 1990s, as a radio shock jock, Hunter would wear a wrestling mask made from a Confederate flag, while making jokes about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and having the South re-secede.
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
The Election of a Black President Has Meant Nothing
The greatest hope most Americans -- including Republicans -- had when Barack Obama was elected president was that the election of a black person as the country's president would reduce, if not come close to eliminating, the racial tensions that have plagued America for generations. This has not happened. The election, and even the re-election, of a black man as president, in a country that is 87 percent non-black -- a first in human history -- has had no impact on what are called "racial tensions."
Racial Incitement in Internet Age
The day after the George Zimmerman verdict was announced, I was at the supermarket. As always, Americans of all races went about their business. An elderly Asian lady got help from a tall Caucasian kid reaching an item on an upper shelf. A black cashier shared a joke with a white customer. A manager who might be Hispanic helped a patron of indeterminate ethnicity with a return. All was calm and composed. Let's call that supermarket America.
The Hook-Up Culture
Among the A-No. 1 reasons for growing indifference to the terms of marriage and family life is ... I guess we could look at a lengthy story this week from The New York Times. To wit: "It is now pretty well understood that traditional dating in college has mostly gone the way of the landline, replaced by 'hooking up' -- an ambiguous term that can signify anything from making out to oral sex to intercourse -- without the emotional entanglement of a relationship."
Time for Obama to Live Up to His Race-Uniting Promise
On the heels of the George Zimmerman verdict, when this nation deeply needs a tense situation defused and soothing, reassuring words of racial unity, the president and attorney general give us just the opposite. We desperately need to strive for racial harmony and unity, but our task is exceedingly more difficult when President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder repeatedly invoke race and stir racial tensions.
Obama Finds Foreign Affairs Do Not Bend to His Whims
Foreign policy is hard. That's a lesson Barack Obama has been learning throughout his presidency. The world is not responding as he expected. It looks simpler from the outside. Promise to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, proclaim yourself the tribune of hope and change, receive the adulation of giant crowds in Europe and accept the Nobel Peace Prize. Obama entered office, as many presidents have, with the assumption that his predecessor's policies were wrongheaded and could readily be reversed.
Zimmerman Verdict and Double Standards
We are so programmed by our history with race in America that reaction to the acquittal of George Zimmerman on charges of murdering Trayvon Martin depends largely upon one's individual, even group experience. If you are African-American, you might react like former Washington, D.C., homicide detective Rod Wheeler. Appearing on Fox News, Wheeler said many blacks look at quarterback Michael Vick, jailed for taking part in an illegal interstate dog-fighting ring, and wonder why Zimmerman gets away with killing a young black man.
Is This Still America?
There are no winners in the trial of George Zimmerman. The only question is whether the damage that has been done has been transient or irreparable. Legally speaking, Zimmerman has won his freedom. But he can still be sued in a civil case, and he will probably never be safe to live his life in peace, as he could have before this case made him the focus of national attention and orchestrated hate.
Monday, July 15, 2013
Run Guillory Against Landrieu for Louisiana Senate Seat
Amid the dense fog and hot air blowing around the Republican Party, a new voice of clarity has emerged. It's the voice of Louisiana State Senator Elbert Guillory, who announced several weeks ago his departure from the Democratic Party, which he calls "the party of disappointment," to become a Republican.
Was Justice Carried?
We often hear about a "miscarriage of justice" but rarely a "carriage of justice." Much as we call people inept, but never say someone is really, really, etp. Ok, there is no such word as "ept" so that doesn't count. The national news corps was all a-twitter -- including being ON Twitter -- when the jury came back with its not guilty verdict in the George Zimmerman trial for the death of Trayvon Martin.
Big Apple Parents Beware
From trans fats to Big Gulps, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has insisted that the city's interest in "public health" excuses his overreach on things like dietary choices. This seems a bit hypocritical for a mayor who just last year told a crowd, "The government should get out of your personal life!" Unfortunately, the Mayor's duplicity doesn't stop with targeting those who frequent the city's restaurants. Parents should also beware.
Peaceful Parenting
Have you ever been around a woman whose calm wisdom and gentle confidence uplifts everyone around her? A woman who confronts the toughest parenting challenges with practicality, patience, and peace? My friend Marianne Clyde is that kind of woman. But she will be the first to tell you that she developed that peaceful perspective (which leads to the most effective parenting) only after foundering for years in the choppy waves of guilt, anxiety, and endless self-criticism. We've all been there, right?
Pearls of Wisdom
Children, someone once said, are a consolation for everything in life, except having children. Casey Stengel once observed "There comes time in every man's life, and I've had plenty of them." And which of us hasn't said the very same thing? One of my readers, Stanley Helfeld, insists "The problem isn't that we have a policy of leading from behind, it's that we have a behind leading us."