Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
A Federal Takeover of Elections?
Why critics say a new executive power-grab is in the offing.
Dzokhar Tsarnaev and the Death Penalty
According to a Washington Post-ABC poll released last week, 70 percent of Americans want Dzhokhar Tsarnaev put to death if he is convicted of the Boston Marathon bombing. Support for execution was higher among some respondents (conservatives, the elderly, whites) and lower among others (liberals, young adults, blacks). But no matter how the results were sorted, within every demographic subgroup there was majority support for the death penalty in this case. That is no anomaly. It is a reminder that despite the well-funded efforts of death-penalty abolitionists, the true level of approval for the death penalty in America remains very high.
Disabled Nation: Small Fraction Leave Disability Because They Work or Get Better
When President Dwight Eisenhower -- a big-government Republican running for re-election -- signed the federal disability program into law in 1956, he suggested this new form of welfare would increase government efficiency, rehabilitate the truly disabled and roll back government dependency. "The law initiates new programs of grants to train more skilled social workers and to support research in ways of helping people overcome dependency," Eisenhower said. "We will, of course, endeavor to administer the disability provisions efficiently and effectively, in cooperation with the states," he said. "I also pledge increasing emphasis on efforts to rehabilitate the disabled so that they may return to useful employment."
Operation Smear Benghazi Whistleblowers
It's on. As the White House grapples with a growing backlash over its Libya lies and lapses, President Obama's apologists are gearing up for battle. Put on your hip-waders. Grab those tar buckets. Get ready for Operation Smear Benghazi Whistleblowers. Capitol Hill hearings this Wednesday on the deadly 9/11 consulate attack by jihadists will feature three compelling witnesses, all State Department veterans: Gregory N. Hicks, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya and highest-ranking U.S. diplomat in the country at the time of the Benghazi jihad attacks; Mark I. Thompson, a former Marine who now serves as deputy coordinator for operations in the agency's Counterterrorism Bureau; and Eric Nordstrom, a diplomatic security officer who was the top security officer in Libya.
Ted Cruz Has All the Right Enemies
The Washington Post offered a splashy profile of freshman Sen. Ted Cruz on Tuesday, and the most surprising thing about it was a lack of venom. The reporter described "the self-assured, nonstop talker who won national debate championships as an undergraduate at Princeton." Cruz "honed his reputation early in his career as a dazzling Supreme Court advocate" and now "has bashed into the national conversation," most notably in attacking establishment Republicans, who've called him and other young Senate conservatives "wacko birds." This story, however, wasn't as surprising as James Carville's declaration on ABC's "This Week." He was typically blunt -- but in a wholly unexpected direction. "I think he is the most talented and fearless Republican politician I've seen in the last 30 years."
Live Free or Move
Forty-three million Americans moved from one state to another between 1995 and 2010 -- about one-seventh of Americans. It's good that we can move! Moving provides one of the few limits on the megalomania of state bureaucrats. Americans have moved away from high-taxed, heavily regulated states to lower-taxed, less-regulated states. Most don't think of it as a political decision. They just go where opportunities are, and that usually means where there's less government. They're leaving my state, New York, in droves. California, despite its great weather, also lost people, and wealth. Other biggest losers were Illinois, New Jersey and Ohio.
Honest Examination of Race
One definition given for insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results; it might also be a definition of stupidity. Let's look at some cities where large percentages of black Americans live under poor conditions. Experiencing a violent crime rate of 2,137 per 100,000 of the population, Detroit is the nation's most dangerous city. Rounding out Forbes magazine's 2012 list of the 10 most dangerous cities are St Louis; Oakland, Calif.; Memphis, Tenn.; Birmingham, Ala.; Atlanta; Baltimore; Stockton, Calif.; Cleveland; and Buffalo, N.Y. The most common characteristic of these predominantly black cities is that for decades, all of them have been run by Democratic and presumably liberal administrations. Some cities -- such as Detroit, Buffalo, Newark, N.J., and Philadelphia -- haven't elected a Republican mayor for more than a half-century. What's more is that in most of these cities, blacks have been mayors, chiefs of police, school superintendents and principals and have dominated city councils.
Words That Replace Thought
If there is ever a contest for words that substitute for thought, "diversity" should be recognized as the undisputed world champion. You don't need a speck of evidence, or a single step of logic, when you rhapsodize about the supposed benefits of diversity. The very idea of testing this wonderful, magical word against something as ugly as reality seems almost sordid. To ask whether institutions that promote diversity 24/7 end up with better or worse relations between the races than institutions that pay no attention to it is only to get yourself regarded as a bad person. To cite hard evidence that places obsessed with diversity have worse race relations is to risk getting yourself labeled an incorrigible racist. Free thinking is not free.
Will Tyranny Ever Come to America?
Last week, President Obama traveled to Ohio to speak at the Ohio State University commencement. There, he trotted out his new favorite line of attack against Second Amendment advocates: He said it is unpatriotic to believe in the possibility of government tyranny. Why? According to Obama, the Founding Fathers created our government. The American dream and American government are one and the same. By definition then, believing in the possibility of government tyranny means opposing the Founding Fathers and the American dream. Here's how Obama expressed this nasty notion. He said that the Founders left us "the keys to a system of self-government, the tools to do big things and important things together that we could not possibly do alone ... To conquer fascism and disease; to visit the Moon and Mars; to gradually secure our God-given rights for all our citizens, regardless of who they are, or what they look like, or who they love."
The Cannabis Is Out of the Bag
This week, the Colorado General Assembly put the finishing touches on legislation aimed at taxing and regulating the commercial distribution of marijuana for recreational use. The process has been haunted by the fear that the federal government will try to quash this momentous experiment in pharmacological tolerance -- a fear magnified by the Obama administration's continuing silence on the subject. Six months after voters in Colorado and Washington made history by voting to legalize marijuana, Attorney General Eric Holder still has not said how the Justice Department plans to respond. But if the feds are smart, they will not just refrain from interfering, they will work together with state officials to minimize smuggling of newly legal marijuana to jurisdictions that continue to treat it as contraband. A federal crackdown can only make the situation worse -- for prohibitionists as well as consumers.
Niall Ferguson's Blooper
At an investment conference last week, Harvard historian Niall Ferguson created a huge mess for himself. He glibly speculated that maybe because economist John Maynard Keynes was a childless, "effete" homosexual, he embraced a doctrine that favored immediate economic gratification. Keynes' bon mot "in the long run, we are all dead" takes on new meaning when you realize he didn't have kids to worry about. Following the usual script, but at a much faster clip, an uproar ensued on Twitter and in various blogs. Ferguson quickly offered an apology that rivaled John Cleese's in "A Fish Called Wanda" in its abjectness. It was all over before the mob could get their pots of oil to full boil.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Amnesty & the Bankrupting of America
Can the country afford $6.3 trillion for yet another mass legalization program?
Free Breakfasts: Another Destructive Progressive Idea
The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) announced last week that it will discontinue the free school breakfast plan it initiated last year. Called "Food for Thought," the plan provides school breakfasts to about 200,000 students. It was funded by the LAUSD and the nonprofit Los Angeles Fund for Public Education, whose goal is to raise the number who participate to about 450,000 students (out of a total of 645,000 in the entire district). If you go to the fund's website (lafund.org), you are greeted with these messages: "Learn to dream" (in English and in Spanish) and "Imagine your life without limits." These are essentially meaningless messages. But, as we shall see, the fund's breakfast program is not only meaningless; it is quite destructive.
The Age of the Talkers: Politics in 2013
On the one hand, here's hyper-talkative Barack Obama losing presidential traction every day, it seems, on account of the apparent gap between his oratorical gifts and his political abilities. On the other hand, here's James Carville, of Clinton White House fame, thumping hyper-talkative Ted Cruz on the back for pepping up Republicans more than anyone Carville has seen in 30 years. What goes on here?
The Most Incorrigibly Political and America-Bashing President
President Barack Obama has to be the most partisan and most ideological president we've seen in a long, long time. He cannot or will not refrain from injecting his partisan politics into almost every occasion. Did he go to Mexico last week to improve our relationship with our southern neighbor or to use Mexico, as he does anything else he can find, as a political prop to bash Republicans and as a platform to criticize the United States? What other American president has so often sidled up to foreign countries on the backs of his own countrymen? Obama's defenders deny, hallucinogenically, that he apologizes for the United States, but our lying eyes keep telling us otherwise.
Would Things Go Better With Koch?
"Mainstream media" are alarmed by reports that billionaires Charles and David Koch are considering the purchase of Tribune Company's eight daily newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times. When Warren Buffett spent $344 million to purchase 28 newspapers, there were mostly sighs of relief from journalists glad to keep their jobs. However, reaction to reports of the Koch brothers' interest in buying the Tribune papers was quite different. Charles and David Koch, you see, are conservative libertarians, not liberals. Will the Kochs, gasp, force their conservatism on readers? Will they sully journalism's good name? Truth is, no one knows what the Kochs plan to do.
Benghazi Ghosts Haunt White House
My iPhone buzzes on a regular basis with "news alerts" from Politico, The Hill and other sources. Politico provides breathless, this-cannot-wait-till-you-get-to-your desk "breaking news" sirens on every hiccup emanating from the White House. On April 22, for example, the news flash permitted me to learn without delay that "President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama will on Thursday attend a memorial service for the victims of last week's explosion in West, Texas." When three career employees of the State Department announced their intention to testify before Congress -- contradicting the Obama administration's carefully constructed storyline about events in Benghazi, Libya -- my phone was silent. News is very much in the eye of the beholder.
Bouncing Ball Politics
If you are driving along and suddenly see a big red rubber ball come bouncing out into the street, you might want to put your foot on the brake pedal, because a small child may well come running out into the street after it. We all understand that an inexperienced young child who has his mind fixed on one thing may ignore other things that are too dangerous to be ignored. Unfortunately, too much of what is said and done in politics is based on the same tunnel vision pursuit of some "good thing," in utter disregard of the repercussions. For years, home ownership was a big "good thing" among both liberal Democrats like Congressman Barney Frank and Senator Christopher Dodd, on the one hand, and moderate Republicans like President George W. Bush on the other hand.
Monday, May 6, 2013
Study Devastating for ObamaCare Backers
Within the White House, within the Democratic chambers in Congress and among the (overwhelmingly liberal) health policy community there was considerable anguish this week. The reason: a new study finds that (as far as physical health is concerned) there is no difference between being in Medicaid and being uninsured. It's hard to exaggerate what a blow this is to the people who gave us the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare). Everything about ObamaCare -- from the money we are spending to the damage being done to the labor market to the hassles the whole nation is going through -- depends on one central idea: that enrolling people in Medicaid will give them access to more health care and better health.