Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Cheated: Sham Education for Minority Students in Dem-Run Philadelphia
Another Democratic stronghold, another wasteland of public schooling.
Pedophilia Is the Problem
The bosses of the Boy Scouts of America surprised everyone this week by postponing their decision on whether to allow gay leaders and gay Scouts to join their ranks. If the BSA's long-standing ban on gays is lifted by national officials in May, the choice to admit gays may be left to local Boy Scout chapters -- as it should be. Churches and civic groups that sponsor Boy Scout troops wouldn't be forced by the national organization to admit gays. And parents can choose whether they want their child to be in a troop led by a gay man.
The Republicans' Primary Problem
Having just lost an election, many Republicans are anxious to remake our party in the image of Democrats. The theory seems to be that whatever we're doing isn't working, so we better change everything. But in fact, whatever Republicans did in 2012 -- other than an overly long primary fight -- worked amazingly well, given the circumstances. In a detailed analysis of the 2012 election, William A. Galston, a fellow with the liberal Brookings Institution, makes a number of fascinating observations that Republicans would do well to consider before embracing amnesty, abortion, gay marriage and Beyonce. In my analysis of his analysis, the single most important factor in the election was simply that Obama was an incumbent. As Galston notes, beating an incumbent president is a feat that has happened only five times since the turn of the last century. Republicans have done it only once.
'Zero Dark Thirty' Threatens the 'Bush-the-Incompetent' Narrative
In "Zero Dark Thirty," the movie about the killing of Osama bin Laden, one of the first scenes shows a terrorist being waterboarded, where useful information gets extracted. The movie thus asserts the controversial practice leads to actionable intelligence. Not only was former President George W. Bush criticized for "authorizing torture," his critics argued that "torture doesn't work." During the 2008 presidential campaign, then-Sen. Barack Obama said: "Torture is how you get bad information, not good intelligence. ... No more secret authorization of methods like simulated drowning. When I am President, America will once again be the country that stands up to these deplorable tactics." "Zero Dark Thirty " threatens that narrative.
At Last, Republicans Make Their Case to Main Street
The House Republicans, in serious trouble with public opinion as they blinked facing the "fiscal cliff" over New Year's, seem suddenly to be playing a more successful game -- or rather, games -- an inside game and an outside game. The inside game can be described by the Washington phrase "regular order." What that means in ordinary American English is that you proceed according to the rules. Bills are written in subcommittee and committee and then go to the floor. When the House and Senate pass different versions -- likely when Republicans control the House and Democrats have a majority in the Senate -- the two are taken to conference committee to be reconciled.
Torture Helped Get bin Laden?
"Zero Dark Thirty," the film about the hunt for and killing of Osama bin Laden, got a fresh infusion of buzz over the weekend when outgoing Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta confirmed again that enhanced interrogation techniques aided the effort to find bin Laden. "Some of it came from ... interrogation tactics that were used," he said. "But the fact is we put together most of that intelligence without having to resort to that. I think we could have gotten bin Laden without that." In other words, the movie exaggerates the role played by enhanced interrogation techniques -- torture to some -- but they did have a role in the hunt for bin Laden. But why stop there? Like most films about real events, "Zero Dark Thirty" exaggerates all sorts of things. For starters, the hunt for bin Laden wasn't conducted single-handedly by a very attractive red-haired woman, recruited from high school by the CIA.
Cults, Religions & Te'o
What I find so fascinating about atheists is that they are so certain there's no God that they've gone and created a religion based on that conviction. But they're not alone in their lunacy. Take the rabid environmentalists, if you will. Their central belief is that Earth would be far better off if it weren't for people. Now I happen to feel that way about California, but it's not the same thing at all. It's one thing to look around at the beauty of this state, with its temperate climate and magnificent coastline, and not muse about how glorious this place would be if it weren't infested with liberals.
A Case to Bind the Spenders
WASHINGTON -- The arguments against a constitutional amendment to require balanced budgets are various and, cumulatively, almost conclusive. Almost. The main arguments are: The Constitution should be amended rarely and reluctantly. Constitutionalizing fiscal policy is a dubious undertaking. Unless carefully crafted, such an amendment might instead be a constant driver of tax increases. A carefully crafted amendment that minimizes this risk could not pass until Republicans have two-thirds majorities in both houses of Congress, which they have not had since 1871. Furthermore, requiring a balanced budget would incite creative bookkeeping that would make a mockery of the amendment and the Constitution. For example, New York, which like 48 other states (all but Vermont) has some sort of requirement for a balanced budget, once balanced its by selling Attica Prison to itself: A state agency established to fund urban redevelopment borrowed $200 million in the bond market, gave the money to the state, and took title to the prison. The state recorded as income the $200 million its agency had borrowed, declared the budget balanced, then rented the prison from the agency for a sum adequate to service the $200 million debt.
Incoherent Immigration Reform
Nothing about illegal immigration quite adds up. Conservative corporate employers still support the idea of imported, cheap, non-union labor -- in a strange alliance with liberal activists who want the larger blocs of Latino voters that eventually follow massive influxes from Latin America. Yet how conservative are businesses that in the past flouted federal law -- and how liberal are activists who undermined the bargaining power of American minimum-wage, entry-level workers, many of them minorities? The remedies for illegal immigration under discussion are just as incoherent. If the government now plans to offer some foreign nationals a pathway to citizenship, does it also suddenly have the will to determine who among illegal immigrants does not qualify for citizenship?
Football After Beyonce
WASHINGTON -- In the aftermath of the Super Bowl, it is perhaps salutary to take stock of professional football and to suggest a few reforms that might make the game more wholesome. First, let me say that, in my humble estimate, this past season was, if not the best in my lifetime, surely one of the best. To be a mediocre player in the NFL today is to be a marked man among giants. Then, too, there is another point to be made. Someone failed to pay the electric bill. It was sobering to be reminded that even the NFL is not so powerful as to intimidate a Louisiana utility company. Next year I suggest that the NFL's hierarchy see to it that all bills are paid before Super Bowl Sunday, even the halftime entertainments' advances. What if Beyonce had gone on strike or refused to sing one of her trademark songs with their dirty, albeit moronic, lyrics? Or what if she had dressed in a burka? Actually I would have found that last gesture amusing and sophisticated to the utmost, though the perpetual teenagers in the audience would probably not have shared my amusement.
Drone Double Standard
An unsigned and undated Justice Department white paper, obtained by NBC News, reports The New York Times, "...is the most detailed analysis yet to come into public view regarding the Obama legal team's views about the lawfulness of killing, without a trial, an American citizen who executive branch officials decide is an operational leader of Al Qaeda or one of its allies." The proviso is they must pose "an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States." If "an informed, high-level official" of the government decides they are a threat, the paper says, and if capture is not feasible, they may be killed. There hasn't been a huge outcry from those on the left who attacked President Bush for his doctrine of pre-emptive strikes against terrorists. Recall, too, the vitriol directed at Vice President Dick Cheney for defending "enhanced interrogation" techniques on suspected terrorists in order to obtain information that might prevent new attacks against Americans.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
A Guaranteed Flop
The Massachusetts film tax credit program has been a flop, a taxpayer rip-off that enriches one of the nation's most profitable industries while choking off funds from more pressing public needs. Naturally some legislators are now eager for a sequel. The Bay State has been lavishing corporate welfare on movie producers and Hollywood actors since 2006. It gives production companies a 25 percent tax credit on anything they spend to make a film or TV show in Massachusetts -- credits they can sell for cash to third parties. Like most schemes that use public funds to bribe industries into doing business in Massachusetts, the film tax credit program has been a loss-maker from the outset. The Department of Revenue's most recent annual report on the program noted that while filmmakers in 2010 collected $14.6 million in tax credits, their productions generated only $0.8 million in new state revenue. That amounted to a paltry 5 cents of tax revenue for every $1 in tax credits the commonwealth gave away. (In 2009, Massachusetts awarded credits worth $83.3 million, but reaped only $10.4 million in revenue -- 12 cents of tax revenue for every $1 in subsidies.)
MPs & J-School Students
Rabat, Morocco -- Yesterday I had the great opportunity to meet with, and do some teaching to, women Members of the Moroccan Parliament and, a little later in the day, the journalism school students who want to, one day, cover them. This trip is sponsored by Legacy International through a grant from the U.S. Department of State. It was not all that long ago that women Members of Congress in the U.S were still an oddity, and women members of the Senate were a rarity. In the 113th Congress, including non-voting Members, there are 81 women Members of the House and 20 female Senators. In the Moroccan Parliament there are 67 women among the 395 total members; a slightly lower percentage than the Congress, but still a pretty good level of representation.
Grand Bargain Baloney
Maybe it's just me, but the older I get, the less patience I have for steaming loads of b.s. being presented as either reasonable, or novel, arguments. Few things strain my patience more than the latest bit surrounding the so-called "grand compromise" regarding illegal aliens. First, note the term "illegal aliens," by far the most accurate description of those people at the center of this discussion -- which is why there has been an unrelenting effort by the American left and their useful idiots in the media to portray that phrase as tantamount to nativist, jingoistic xenophobia, with a little bigotry tossed in for good measure. They prefer the Orwellian term, "undocumented immigrant," as if people who knowingly broke the law to enter this country are nothing more than victims of some bureaucratic snafu that requires nothing more than a quick paperwork fix, along with a simple adjustment -- of the entire American public's psyche. If you believe that nonsense, you're a progressive -- or an illegal alien.
Karl Rove Is Not a Conservative
Karl Rove -- "The Architect," as President George W. Bush called him -- crafted Bush's two presidential campaigns and served as a key player in Bush's White House. Now, with an assist from The New York Times, Rove is presenting himself as a conservative leader. On Sunday, the Times reported that American Crossroads, the super PAC Rove started, was beginning a new program called "The Conservative Victory Project." This project, as the Times put it, will "recruit seasoned candidates and protect Senate incumbents from challenges by far-right conservatives and tea party enthusiasts." But Rove is no conservative.
Karl Rove vs. the 'Far Right'
If I were launching a new conservative venture, the last venue I'd choose for the announcement would be the New York Times. Karl Rove has gone to the Times to announce that he has created a new "conservative" entity "to recruit seasoned candidates and protect Senate incumbents from challenges by far-right conservatives and Tea Party enthusiasts." Rove argues that Republican fortunes have been ruined by "far-right conservatives," but he's shamelessly calling this entity the "Conservative Victory Project." Yes, and I could call myself Ray Lewis, but it doesn't make it so. Whaddaya know? The liberal Democrats at the Times love this idea. They call it "the most robust attempt yet by Republicans to impose a new sense of discipline on the party." They would love a group to "discipline" conservatives right out of the GOP nominating process. What the heck? They could call themselves "conservative," too.
Rove vs. the Tea Party
During the 2012 election cycle, Tea Partiers were told by their supposed betters that their ignorance of everyday politics meant that they should take a back seat to the Republican Party establishment. Brandishing the so-called Buckley Rule with quasi-religious fervor -- the notion that Republicans should run the most conservative candidate who can win -- the establishment GOP proclaimed that the *only* presidential candidate who could win was Republican Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. They suggested that four-term former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson was a shoe-in for the Senate. They explained that the Tea Party was responsible for failed Senate candidates like Todd Akin (false) and Richard Mourdock (true). They knew best. The only trouble was, they didn't.
The Company Sen. Sleaze-Bob Menendez Keeps
Put on your shocked faces: Since my bipartisan call last week for Democratic women to join the Ladies Against Senator Sleaze-Bob movement, not a single Democratic woman in Washington has signed up. Here's the thing. The brewing scandal involving N.J. Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez, the new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is not just a "sex scandal." It's a crony corruption scandal of sordid, soap operatic proportions. Maybe if Menendez were a contestant on "The Bachelor," he'd finally command more widespread female attention. For their part, the Democratic women on Capitol Hill seem as uninterested in the alleged exploitation of underage prostitutes as they are in cozy donor deals, tax evasion and Medicare fraud.
The Perils of Pushing Pot Prohibition
Three months ago, voters in Colorado and Washington approved ballot initiatives aimed at legalizing the possession, production and distribution of marijuana. A month later, Attorney General Eric Holder said the Justice Department would settle on a response to this historic development "relatively soon." How soon is that? I have been trying to get a response to that question from Justice Department spokeswoman Nanda Chitre for about a month, but she is not returning my calls. Meanwhile, the U.S. attorney's offices in Colorado and Washington decline to give any indication of how they will treat the state-licensed marijuana stores that are scheduled to open next year.
Women in Combat
A senior Defense Department official said the ban on women in combat should be lifted because the military's goal is "to provide a level, gender-neutral playing field." I'd like to think the goal of the military should be to have the toughest, meanest fighting force possible. But let's look at "gender-neutral playing field." The Army's physical fitness test in basic training is a three-event physical performance test used to assess endurance. The minimum requirement for 17- to 21-year-old males is 35 pushups, 47 situps and a two-mile run in 16 minutes, 36 seconds or less. For females of the same age, the minimum requirement is 13 pushups, 47 situps and a 19:42 two-mile run. Why the difference in fitness requirements? "USMC Women in the Service Restrictions Review" found that women, on average, have 20 percent lower aerobic power, 40 percent lower muscle strength, 47 percent less lifting strength and 26 percent slower marching speed than men.