Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Monday, May 27, 2013
Obama Uses 1917 Espionage Act to Go After Reporters
There is one problem with the entirely justified if self-interested media squawking about the Justice Department snooping into the phone records of multiple Associated Press reporters and Fox News's James Rosen. The problem is that what the AP reporters and Rosen did arguably violates the letter of the law. The search warrant in the Rosen case cites Section 793(d) of Title 18 of the U.S. Code. Section 793(d) says that a person lawfully in possession of information that the government has classified as secret who turns it over to someone not lawfully entitled to posses it has committed a crime. That might cover Rosen's source.
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Coming: A Two-Tiered Health Care System
I believe we are moving toward two different health systems. Which tier do you think you will be in? In one system, patients will be able to see doctors promptly. They will talk to physicians by phone and email. They will have no difficulty scheduling needed surgery. If they have to go into a hospital, a "hospitalist" (who reports to them and not to the hospital administration) will be there to make sure their interests are looked after. They may even have an independent agency that reviews their medical records, goes with them when they meet with specialists and gives them advice on every aspect of their care.
'Alice in Wonderland' Coercion
Barack Obama, vowing to elevate Washington to the level of his fastidiousness, came from Chicago, where the political machine inoculates itself from scandals by the proliferation of them: Many scandals mean merely cursory scrutiny of most. Now, notice the scant attention being given to an assault on civil liberties by the misconceived Education Department's misnamed Office for Civil Rights.
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Navigating the ObamaCare Maze
On Oct. 1, millions of Americans are supposed to be able to go online and acquire health insurance on electronic exchanges in the states where they live. But here is a question that is being increasingly asked by people in the insurance industry: What happens if the exchanges aren't ready on time? Already, the Department of Health and Human Services has thrown in the towel on small-business exchanges that were supposed to allow employees to choose among competing health plans. The opportunity to make those choices has been put off for at least a year, leaving small-business employees with only their employer's plans as options. Prospects for the individuals acquiring insurance on their own aren't much better.
Tone at the Top
Lucky for Barack Obama, he's the president of the United States and not the CEO of a major corporation. If he were the latter, his board would be busy seeking a replacement about now. But the American people have no such recourse. We elected him, and we're stuck for another three years and eight months, no matter the scandals that emerge in his administration nor how incompetent a chief executive he proves to be. There is something more than a bit unseemly when the man in charge won't own up to his own responsibilities when his subordinates act improperly. But that's exactly how the president behaved when asked about the IRS' targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.
The IRS Hits the Century Mark
It is just possible that 1913 was one of the worst years in American history. Not only did Woodrow Wilson, a role model for Obama, become president, but the 16th Amendment was passed, giving Congress the right to levy income taxes on us. And as anyone who has been paying attention lately realizes, when you place that much power in the hands of federal bureaucrats, you're just asking for trouble. It was recently disclosed that our own tax collectors are every bit as evil as those that plagued Robin Hood. But as you may have noticed, these days there's never a master archer around when you really need one.
From The Comedy Store
President Obama called in the Marines to hold an umbrella over his head during his Rose Garden press conference. Let's face it. We just don't have the military capability to protect our Middle East diplomats and the president's suits at the same time.
Friday, May 24, 2013
Tom Ridge
The official portrait of the first Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security was unveiled yesterday at the Department headquarters on Nebraska Avenue, in Washington, DC. Tom Ridge left that post in 2005 and it is now 2013 but that is, as we say here, close enough for government work. DHS was conceived out of the emotional, as well as the physical rubble of the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Boston Bomber Linked to 9/11 Anniversary Murder of Jews
The bloody fingerprints of Jihad.
Terrorism Is Never Justified
Broadcasting from Boston the day after the Marathon bombing, a correspondent for the French-Canadian TV channel LCN explained why Americans shouldn't be surprised when such atrocities occurred. It's the price they have to pay for being a superpower, Richard Latendresse told his viewers. It may be *"un peu tragique,"* he conceded. But hey, that's what happens when a nation takes so much pride in its military power -- and has inflicted similar suffering on others.
Obama's Bloody Recipe for More Benghazis
Gird your loins, America. President Obama intends to empty out Guantanamo Bay and send scores of suspected Muslim terror operatives back to their jihadist-coddling native countries. Goaded by anti-war activists and soft-on-terror attorneys (including those from Attorney General Eric Holder's former private law firm), Obama announced Thursday that he'll lift a ban on sending up to 90 Yemeni detainees home and will initiate other stalled transfers out of the compound. This radical appeasement of Obama's left flank is a surefire recipe for more Benghazis, more U.S.S. Coles and more innocent lives at risk.
The 'Assassinate Wall Street' Movie
Usually moviemakers strive to stay ahead of the cultural curve. It makes them "visionaries" who are "cutting edge" because they "push the envelope." Two years ago, "Occupy Wall Street" was the hot fad, stoking the usual left-wing outrage at bankers and the finance industry. They were the ones portrayed as greed-heads never held accountable for their crimes. Businessmen just twirl their mustaches and laugh evil laughs. But that was two years ago. Time for something fresh -- and edgy. A new movie suggests that movement was for sissies. It's time for someone to start a new campaign: Assassinate Wall Street.
First Amendment Clause-Trophobia
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." That's the full text of the First Amendment. But (with apologies to the old Far Side comic), this is what many in the press, academia and government would hear if you read it aloud: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, blah blah blah, or abridging the freedom of the press, blah blah blah blah." Don't get me wrong: The revelation that the Obama Justice Department has gone to unprecedented lengths to hamper or punish journalists is real news. DOJ trawlers dropped a gill net over the Associated Press in the hope of landing a single fish.
There's a Fly in My Soup
WASHINGTON -- "Horrible customer service." That's what the newly fired IRS commissioner averred was the agency's only sin in singling out conservative political groups for discriminatory treatment. In such grim proceedings one should be grateful for unintended humor. Horrible customer service is when every patron in a restaurant finds a fly in his soup. But when the maitre d' screens patrons for their politics and only conservatives find flies paddle-wheeling through their consomme, the problem is not poor service. It is harassment and invidious discrimination. And yet both the acting and the previous IRS commissioners insisted that the singling out of groups according to politics was in no way politically motivated. More hilarity. It's definitional: If you discriminate according to politics, your discrimination is political. It's a tautology, for God's sake.
Liberty, Where Have You Gone?
A sagacious Bible scholar told me how important it was for the Israelites to look back and remember what God had done for them in the past because it gave them the strength to persevere through difficult times. Sometimes we need to look back, too, and remember what we have to be grateful for in this country and what it is that is worth preserving. In the Old Testament book Lamentations, the Prophet Jeremiah was expressing his overwhelming sorrow at Babylon's destruction of Jerusalem. Jeremiah's grief reached a climax in the very center of the book when he was completely overwhelmed with despair. "My strength has perished, and so has my hope from the Lord."
Obama and the Law
If you Google "George W. Bush shredding the constitution," you will get many millions of hits. The New York Times railed, "Ever since 9/11, we have watched Republican lawmakers help Mr. Bush shred the Constitution in the name of fighting terrorism." President Bush attempted to listen in on the international calls of suspected terrorists, he used waterboarding on exactly three terrorists, and he put detainees in Guantanamo. Mr. Obama -- greeted rapturously in 2008 as the "constitutional law professor" who would restore respect for our founding document -- has demonstrated a contempt for law unseen since Nixon.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
IRS's Lois Lerner Pleads the Fifth
Rep. Darrell Issa promises to haul her back to Congress to testify.
Obama May Survive, but Scandals a Blow to Left
For all the complaining the left has done about those shadowy outside political groups subverting the democratic process, we recently learned that no one has the means to undercut freedom of expression quite like an enthusiastic government agency. Appropriately, nearly everyone in Washington is professing and/or pretending to be outraged that the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups. Yet if we're to believe recent polls, an uninformed President Barack Obama (similarly outraged as he watches events unfold on the news) hasn't shouldered much of the blame for scandalmania just yet -- and perhaps he may never be damaged.
Weathering the Politicians
Yesterday I read an interesting article in Newsweek about the connection between tornadoes and climate change. Newsweek's story explained how top climate scientists were concerned about several ominous and fundamental changes occurring in Earth's weather patterns. Evidence that Earth's climate was changing in the wrong direction, the article said, included a shorter growing season in England, higher average temperatures at the equator and an increase in tornadoes like the monster than killed at least 24 people in Tornado Alley this week.
When Did We Vote to Become Mexico?
At first I thought the IRS scandal was leaked to distract from the Benghazi scandal. But that didn't make sense because the IRS scandal is a more obvious abuse of power than the White House lying about the murder of four Americans in Libya. Before I had resolved which scandal was distracting from which, we found out the Department of Justice was spying on The Associated Press -- not to protect national security, but to prevent the AP from scooping the White House. Then, this week, it broke that the Department of Justice was also spying on Fox News for reasons that remain unexplained. Meanwhile, Sens. Marco Rubio, Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham and John McCain are working feverishly to turn the country into Mexico.