Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Friday, June 21, 2013
Uncovering the Camp Bastion Cover-Up
All it takes is one crack for a stone wall to start crumbling. Nine months after the deadly 9/14 raid on Camp Bastion in Afghanistan, the families of two fallen Marines may finally get some answers. Real accountability, of course, is another story. A formal internal investigation into lax security at the base -- a British-run NATO compound that adjoins our Marines' Camp Leatherneck -- is now under way. A few members of Congress are putting pressure on the administration for the truth. And a couple of mainstream reporters are digging deeper.
Hitting a Wall in Berlin
WASHINGTON -- The question of whether Barack Obama's second term will be a failure was answered in the affirmative before his Berlin debacle, which has recast the question, which now is: Will this term be silly, even scary in its detachment from reality? Before Berlin, Obama set his steep downward trajectory by squandering the most precious post-election months on gun-control futilities, and by a subsequent storm of scandals that have made his unvarying project -- ever bigger, more expansive, more intrusive and more coercive government -- more repulsive. Then came Wednesday's pratfall in Berlin.
America Sidelined, Barely Relevant
The war in Syria, started by locals, is now a regional conflict, the meeting ground of two warring blocs. ... President Obama's dodge was his chemical-weapons red line. In a conflict requiring serious statecraft, Obama chose to practice forensics instead, earnestly agonizing over whether reported poison gas attacks reached the evidentiary standards of "CSI: Miami." ... Obama is learning very late that, for a superpower, inaction is a form of action. You can abdicate, but you really can't hide. History will find you.
Does Health Insurance Improve Health?
An Oregon study casts doubt on whether health insurance improves health
Thursday, June 20, 2013
From the GOP, Some Real Pain Management
It was anything but business as usual on the House floor yesterday, as the two parties bitterly fought over a bill to ban abortion after 20 weeks. Emotions were raw from the opening gavel, when Democrats objected to Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) managing the debate on a bill that they called "stupid" (Rep. Charlie Dent, D-Pa.), "offensive" (Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla.), "cowardly," (Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y.), "cruel," (Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y.), "blatantly unconstitutional," "borne of ignorance," and an "insult to the intelligence of women."
The Terror Plots the NSA Program Stopped
And how partisanship is imperiling counter-terrorism's future.
Talking to the Taliban
After 12 years of fighting, the Taliban in Afghanistan have announced they are ready to talk peace with the United States. The Taliban opened a political office in Qatar. The talks will take place there, but without the Afghan government, which is refusing to take part in the "peace" talks. President Obama says there will be "a lot of bumps in the road" during the talks. More like sinkholes. The history of talks with Middle East terrorist groups, apparently, has taught us little. It appears such groups use talks like these to mostly re-arm and/or advance their cause until they can either get back to the killing field or enforce their political and religious will on the masses.
Mexico Held Back by Corruption
What the heck is wrong with Mexico? It's got everything it needs to be a prosperous First World country. It's got a $1.7 trillion free-market economy -- the 12th largest in the world. It's got 116 million of the hardest working people on the planet. It's got its own oil, gas, silver and other natural resources. It's got beautiful beaches and ancient ruins to attract tourists. So why is Mexico such a mess?
Avoid the Need for Spying Using One Not-So-Weird Trick
Well, of course the government is spying on Americans! Look at the havoc caused by American citizens engaging in terrorism. There's "American citizen" David Coleman Headley, who conspired with Pakistani military officers to commit the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, that left more than 160 people dead. Headley's ancestors served under Gen. George Washington -- no, I'm sorry, Headley was born "Daood Sayed Gilani" in Washington, D.C., to a Pakistani father. Like your typical American boy, he enjoyed TV's "Happy Days" and murdering innocent people in terrorist attacks.
The Media's Shameful Coverage of the Abortion Debate
Here's what we know about the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would ban most abortions after 20 weeks: The Associated Press tells us that the "GOP-led House on Tuesday passed a far-reaching anti-abortion bill." But don't worry, Politico adds. It is "largely symbolic: The bill will be dead on arrival in the Senate." All well and good -- and maybe even true -- but consider this: When the Gang of Eight immigration bill finally passes the Senate and the House refuses to take it up, will Politico or any other mainstream news outlet refer to the matter as "largely symbolic"? Have any of the president's many doomed agenda items been treated similarly? Hardly.
Exit the IRS Stage Left
WASHINGTON -- Who is Gary Muthert? Well, he is the Internal Revenue Service officer in Cincinnati who gathered applications in 2010 -- presumably from the Tea Party and other conservative organizations seeking tax-exempt status. He did it, he says, at the behest of a local Cincinnati IRS manager who incidentally remains unidentified. According to transcripts of Muthert's testimony to the House investigative committee, the unidentified manager informed Muthert that "Washington, D.C. wanted some cases." That is to say, Tea Party cases. Who is Elizabeth Hofacre? She too is an employee of the IRS in Cincinnati. She somehow received Muthert's cases, and whether on her own or at the direction of someone else she sought help with these cases from the Washington, D.C. office whose purview it is to oversee tax-exempt organizations. This gets complicated. Why were Muthert's cases not sent directly to Washington as the unidentified manager requested? How did Hofacre get involved?
Sanity Takes a Holiday
We have all come to expect split-decisions from the Supreme Court, but we don't expect the four on the losing side to consist of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and...Antonin Scalia! But there he was lurking with the three left-wing harpies when it came to the recent decision involving DNA. In case you missed it, Alonzo Jay King had been arrested for assault. As part of the booking process, the cops took a swab of his cheek. The DNA test resulted in his being connected to a rape in Maryland for which he was subsequently tried and found guilty.
Oh, Yeah, the Economy
The recent Obama administration scandals shift the spotlight from the economy. Yet the recovery remains depressingly sluggish, with the labor force participation rate at a 34-year low as millions of able-bodied, able-minded Americans simply stopped looking for work. With President Obama in the fifth year of his presidency, let us examine the effect of the stimulus program, tax hikes, Obamacare and additional regulation on the economy. It isn't pretty.
When Untruth Undermines Democracy
Truth is the lifeblood of democracy. Without honesty, the foundations of consensual government crumble. If the Internal Revenue Service acts unlawfully, our voluntary system of citizens computing their own taxes implodes. Yet Lois Lerner, one of the IRS's top officials, would not answer simple questions about her agency's conduct during congressional testimony, instead pleading the Fifth Amendment. Any taxpayer who tried that with an IRS auditor would end up fined and in court.
A Case for Upward Mobility
WASHINGTON -- A quarter of a millennium later, that couplet from a colonial American almanac defines an urgent challenge. Modern society increases how, and the predictability of how much, people differ in the sequel. If America is to be equitable, with careers open to all talents and competent citizens capable of making their way in an increasingly demanding world, Americans must heed the warnings implicit in observations from two heroes of modern conservatism. In "The Constitution of Liberty" (1960), Friedrich Hayek noted that families are the primary transmitters of human capital -- habits, mores, education. Hence families, much more than other social institutions or programs, are determinative of academic and vocational success. In "The Unheavenly City" (1970), Edward C. Banfield wrote: "*All* education favors the middle- and upper-class child, because to be middle or upper class is to have qualities that make one particularly educable."
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Two Pandering Poseurs at the Final Senate debate
Gallup reported last week that Americans' confidence in Congress has fallen to just 10 percent -- an all-time low. After watching last night's debate between Ed Markey and Gabriel Gomez, I don't think the next US senator from Massachusetts is likely to reverse the public's low opinion.
Headwinds for Obama
There is almost no good news for President Barack Obama in the CNN/ORC poll that was released earlier this week. As the President giggled and played rock, paper, scissors with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-8 Conference in Ireland, the bloom appears to have begun to come off the Obaman Rose as far as the American people are concerned. This is one poll taken last week (Tuesday through Thursday) so it might not signal a trend, but it certainly won't generate confidence in the West Wing.
Government's War
As Americans obsess over NSA spying, abuse by the IRS and other assaults on our freedom, I can't get my mind off the thousand other ways politicians abuse us. In their arrogance, they assume that only they solve social problems. They will solve them by banning this and that, subsidizing groups they deem worthy and setting up massive bureaucracies with a mandate to cure, treat and rescue wayward souls. Their programs fail, and so they pass new laws to address the failures. It's one reason that 22 million people now work for government. Some of the things they do seem like bigger assaults on our freedom than NSA spying, although we've become accustomed to the older abuses.
De Facto Allies in Syria's Civil War: Obama, McCain, al-Qaida
President Barack Obama, Sen. John McCain and al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri now share a common goal: They support Syrian rebels seeking to overthrow Bashar Assad. Zawahiri announced his support for the Syrian rebels last year in an online video. "I appeal to every Muslim and every noble, free man in Turkey, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon to come to support his brothers in Syria with all that he possesses with himself, his wealth, his opinion and information," said the al-Qaida leader.
The Amnesty Mob vs. America
You can try to put "conservative" lipstick on the lawless amnesty mob. In the end, however, it's still a lawless mob. The big government/big business alliance to protect illegal immigration got a lot of mileage using foolish Republicans Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan as front men. But the true colors of the open-borders grievance-mongers always show through. After America said no to a pork-filled security-undermining amnesty bill in 2007, the No Illegal Alien Left Behind lobbyists changed their overtly thuggish tactics. They put down their upside-down American flags, stopped wearing their commie Che Guevara T-shirts and cloaked their radical "Aztlan" aspirations in the less divisive rhetoric of "reform" and "opportunity."