Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Fast and Furiously Diverting Attention from the Economy
As I said last week, this administration will do virtually anything to get Americans to take their eyes off the economic ball. That's not to say Mr. Obama invoking executive privilege to help Eric Holder cover up a gunwalking scandal isn't big news. It is, unless you're part of a mainstream media determined to keep this president propped up at all costs. Two observations before I get to the main point here. First, it is almost beyond belief that anyone in the Democrat party or the mainstream media (forgive me for being redundant) could call a scandal in which hundreds of people were *killed*, a "witch hunt." Try selling that offal to the parents of slain border agent Brian Terry, or the National Border Patrol Council, whose president called Mr. Holder's stonewalling "a slap in the face to all Border Patrol agents who serve this country" and "an utter failure of leadership at the highest levels of government." Second, and kudos to former DOJ attorney J. Christian Adams for this one: "Pay attention to how often (the media) use the term 'botched' gun running operation. This is government-generated language...there was nothing 'botched' about Fast and Furious except the architecture. The government wants you to think the builders screwed up, not the anti-Second Amendment architects." Adams is referring to the increasingly credible idea that the real motive behind operation Fast and Furious was an attempt to enforce more intrusive gun control policies under the guise of "protecting" Americans.
Politics 101
I used to think that if the GOP could ever get a sufficient number of black Americans to leave the huge plantation known as the Democratic Party, liberals would never again win a presidential election. After all, I knew for a fact that the last Democrat to garner a majority of the white vote was Lyndon Johnson, and that was 48 years ago. But I recently discovered that there is an even larger hurdle to get over, and that, I'm sad to say, are female voters. While I understand that roughly one in seven American females is black, the same holds true when it comes to the percentage of male voters. So, although I am rarely shocked, I must confess I was absolutely flummoxed when I went back and checked the statistics for every election since 1980 and found a gender gap that led me to reconsider the wisdom of the 19th Amendment. Now, I'm not one of those Neanderthals who thinks women should be kept barefoot and pregnant, but the evidence strongly suggests they shouldn't be allowed to get too near a ballot box.
The Union Bailout
We all know how the Obama administration likes to portray the auto bailout: A generous infusion of money enabled the government to save General Motors and Chrysler. Jobs that would otherwise have disappeared were rescued by this taxpayer-funded largesse. It was expensive, but we had no choice. The reality is far less uplifting: Administration officials could have ensured that the bailout didn't cost you and me a dime. All they had to do was require the United Auto Workers to accept standard bankruptcy concessions. Instead, the UAW got special treatment. Subsidizing the UAW's above-market pay and benefits was expensive. The union workers at GM and Chrysler are among the highest-paid workers in the country. Some $26.5 billion of what the government paid for the bailout went toward making sure that these workers could continue to enjoy compensation that many Americans can only dream about. As labor expert James Sherk puts it, "The auto bailout was actually a UAW bailout." For perspective, $26.5 billion is more than what we spend on foreign aid each year.
The LOST Sinkhole
WASHINGTON -- There they go again. Like those who say climate change is an emergency too obvious and urgent to allow for debate, some proponents of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, aka the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), say arguments against it are nonexistent. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says any such arguments "no longer exist and truly cannot even be taken with a straight face." Favoring condescension over persuasion, she ridicules people who she says think that because the treaty was negotiated under U.N. auspices, "the black helicopters are on their way." Clinton's insufferable tone is not a reason for the necessary 34 senators to reject ratification. It is, however, a reason for enjoying their doing so. LOST, approval of which is supposedly somehow suddenly imperative, emerged from the mists of U.N. deliberations that began in the 1950s. The result, three generations later, is pernicious when it is not superfluous.
Hatred of Israel Brings the KKK and Democrats Back Together
Congressional race in New York highlights the growing strand of extremism on the Left.
Coal Matters - Even in Manhattan
Coal today may seem of little relevance to many residents of New York City or other American urban centers. It long ago ceased to fuel the furnaces of their homes and apartment buildings in winter. But long after it disappeared from the uses most visible to city dwellers, coal is still the critical fuel behind the everyday functions of their lives.
A New Mourning in America
When Obama said he found it offensive that anyone would suspect his White House of leaking national security information, I had no option but to laugh so hard I nearly did myself bodily injury. The gall of the man! He has meetings with three or four close advisors, and the next thing you know, New York Times paperboys are on the sidewalk, shouting, "Extry! Extry! Read all about it! A Pakistani doctor told the CIA where Osama bin Laden was hiding!" or "Read all about how the United States and Israel successfully hacked into Iran's nuclear computers!" or "Read all about how Barack Obama personally directs drone attacks from the 16th tee!" Everyone, including those on Obama's side of the aisle, knows exactly how the NY Times was fed those various items intended to make Obama look like a combination of Alexander, the philosopher king, and Gen. George "Old Blood and Guts" Patton. As I see it, he either placed a phone call, had Eric Holder run an errand or hand-delivered the self-aggrandizing information himself.
From The Comedy Store
President Obama was ripped by conservatives for his decree that overturned the defeat of his Dream Act in Congress. The act allows illegal alien children to stay in the U.S. but placed a ten percent tax on tanning salons. Leave it to Democrats to subsidize brown people who want to be Americans and tax Americans who want to be brown people.
Friday Stuff
Lots of things for a Friday morning. This week marked the first day of summer in Your Nation's Capital. We had a temps in the high 90's to mark the occasion. A lovely young woman from the office said we missed Spring. I said, "No we didn't. We had Spring in January." I got that kind of look that 65 year-old-man gets from a 20-something woman who is begging the elevator to go faster. As you know all too well, two of my major shortcomings are legal issues and arithmetic. On the legal front, all I know about Presidential claims of Executive Privilege is that they result in screams of "Cover up!" from the opposition party and "Your Guys Did it, Too" from the President's party. Both are correct.
Fast and Furious Goes Nuclear
Media can no longer ignore the Obama administration's bloody scandal.
Pathetic Dan Savage
June is Gay Pride Month, which immediately begs two questions: 1. Says who? 2. How is it that we have become a nation of such compliant sheep that we accept this rubbish? The Viacom corporation, on the other hand, thinks it's the perfect opportunity for its MTV and gay Logo channels to announce they're creating a second "It Gets Better," anti-bullying special starring their favorite gay bully, Dan Savage. On the cusp of this news, Savage denounced the gay group GOProud for endorsing Mitt Romney for president: "The GOP's house faggots grab their ankles on this one." This F-bomb has destroyed careers in Hollywood -- see Isaiah Washington, the former star of "Grey's Anatomy." But Savage just signed with Creative Artists Agency to line up his business offers. One wonders if the reporters who cover television will ever dare to ask the Viacom brass how they square Savage's routine bullying bursts -- whether into a microphone or into a keyboard -- with the transparently false anti-bullying persona they're promoting to make themselves look community-minded.
Russian Reset, Part II
WASHINGTON -- According to press reports from sycophants in the mainstream media, Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin had a productive, 2-hour, private meeting of the minds during this week's G-20 summit in Los Cabos, Mexico. Don't believe it. The Obama-Putin meeting did indeed last two hours. And when it was over, the two leaders actually stood on the same platform where they read from prepared statements -- and parted with the obligatory handshake after just 11 minutes -- without taking questions from reporters. It's the shortest U.S.-Russian bilateral press availability since Mikhail Gorbachev walked out on Ronald Reagan in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1986. Putin took three minutes to tell the assembled Fourth Estate that they had discussed "security," "economic relations" and "the Syrian affair." He also expressed thanks for the "support rendered to Russia with our accession to the World Trade Organization" and his hope this will somehow "promote the creation of jobs in both countries." He made no mention of Iranian aspirations to acquire nuclear weapons or Russian threats to veto United Nations sanctions against Iran and Syria.
An Arrogant and Lawless Cover-Up
Few principles are more important to our constitutional scheme than the separation of powers, which is precisely why President Obama's bogus assertion of executive privilege to thwart Congress' investigation into Fast and Furious is so inexcusable. Executive privilege is an important safeguard against congressional overreach and to preserve the separation of powers. The inherent right of the executive to protect highly sensitive information has long been recognized, and the privilege was judicially established during the Watergate era. As such, Congress should not go on fishing expeditions against a president to score political points. But neither should a president assert the privilege to obstruct a legitimate investigation when there appears to be no colorable claim to the privilege. This trivializes the privilege and the separation of powers it is designed to protect. Legal experts agree that the privilege applies to communications to which the president or an adviser acting on his behalf is a party. But they disagree about whether it applies to internal communications within executive agencies when neither the president nor his representative were involved in those communications.
The Coming DNC Disaster
There aren't Greek columns tall or wide enough to camouflage Barack Obama's impending North Carolina catastrophe. In September, the campaigner-in-chief will travel to Charlotte for his party's presidential nominating convention. For once, the incurable jetsetter may wish he had stayed home. Obama's stage managers envision a triumphant, unifying coronation reminiscent of their 2008 DNC production in Denver. But the southern swing state is turning into a Democratic disaster zone. Start with the North Carolina Democratic Party. At the state party convention last week, Obama for America was AWOL. The glaring absence of high-level national Obama surrogates was noted "as odd," according to the Charlotte News and Observer. There's good reason to steer clear. The party is embroiled in a sordid sex scandal that won't go away. Earlier this year, former party communications staffer Adriadn Ortega, 26, accused former NCDP executive director Jay Parmley of repeated sexual harassment and physical groping. Documents leaked to the conservative Daily Caller news site revealed a hush-hush financial settlement involving the two men. Ortega was fired; Parmley resigned; state Democrats went into panic mode.
America Hater
They always get the benefit of the doubt, these America haters -- from our enemies, of course. But also from our celebrities, our "mainstream" press and other organs of liberal opinion. The case of Julian Assange, would-be scourge of America, is depressingly typical -- if slightly surprising because the administration he sought to embarrass and discredit was Obama's. There's discomfiting news about Assange this week, which we'll get to, but first, a review. Remember the respectful treatment the Wikileaks founder received? After publishing 250,000 confidential documents obtained by an Army private -- some of which provided names and addresses of Afghan civilians who had cooperated with NATO against the Taliban, others that simply provided embarrassing diplomatic scuttlebutt -- Assange got a sympathetic "60 Minutes" interview. It was conducted at the country estate where he was under house arrest (or "mansion arrest" as the Daily Mail put it). A little matter of rape and sexual assault charges leveled in Sweden.
Obama's Truthiness
It's becoming increasingly clear that President Obama is not burdened with too heavy a commitment to honesty. This is hardly a shock about any politician, but revelations of dishonesty hurt some more than others. Announce that Bill Clinton has been speaking falsely, and it hits the ears with as much force as the news that birds fly, fish swim and dogs lick their own nether regions. But Obama was supposed to be different. He was a "lightworker," an ocean tamer and cynicism slayer. In short, he was supposed to be too good to be true -- and it turns out he was. That's one obvious conclusion to be drawn from the all-too-delayed vetting of the president's biography, most notably in David Maraniss' aptly titled new book, "Barack Obama: The Story," but also at news outlets such as National Review Online and Big Journalism.
The Immigration Bombshell: Naked Lawlessness
WASHINGTON -- Those laws remain on the books. They have not changed. Yet Obama last week suspended these very deportations -- granting infinitely renewable "deferred action" with attendant work permits -- thereby unilaterally rewriting the law. And doing precisely what he himself admits he is barred from doing. Obama had tried to change the law. In late 2010, he asked Congress to pass the DREAM Act, which offered a path to citizenship for hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants. Congress refused. When subsequently pressed by Hispanic groups to simply implement the law by executive action, Obama explained that it would be illegal. "Now, I know some people want me to bypass Congress and change the laws on my own. ... But that's not how our system works. That's not how our democracy functions. That's not how our Constitution is written."
It's Nice to be Emperor
If you don't like something or want to get something done, you don't let little things like the Constitution get in your way. For more than three years Emperor Obama has been behaving as if the separation of powers is a pesky fly to be swatted away whenever it becomes too annoying. If Congress doesn't pass the legislation he desires, he uses his executive powers and regulatory agencies to get his way. If he doesn't like a law or thinks it's unconstitutional, he tells his minions and bureaucrats not to enforce it. In the past Emperor Obama used the EPA to create new cap-and-trade laws and the Department of Health and Human Services to force Catholics and other religious groups to go against their own consciences and provide their employees with abortion and birth-control coverage in their health care packages.
Why the 'Disrespect' for President Obama?
Last week, a "right-wing activist" (according to Michael Eric Dyson, guest-hosting for Ed Schultz on MSNBC) interrupted President Barack Obama as he explained his executive order that bars deportation for at least 800,000 illegal aliens who came to America -- "brought to this country by their parents" -- before the age of 16. As Obama stood in the White House Rose Garden and outlined the plan, Neil Munro, a reporter with a conservative website, shouted, "Why do you favor foreigners over American workers?" Based on his colleagues' reaction, one would have thought he'd thrown a shoe at the President. Reporters and pundits called him unprofessional, rude and even racist for interrupting Obama. Never mind Munro asked a legitimate question -- one that probably wouldn't have even occurred to amnesty-supporting media: Will this harm the job prospects for struggling young American citizens? (Nor has anyone had the chance to ask Obama why, only a year ago, he told a Univision audience that he lacked the power to suspend student deportations via an executive order.)
Vulgarians on the Loose!
A Michigan legislator, Lisa Brown, gave a speech in the statehouse last week that would have made her right at home in a women's studies course at a local community college, but a wacko in a group of actual legislators. She commented on a pending abortion bill by first announcing that she was Jewish, kept kosher, described her various sets of plates, and then saying that Jewish law makes abortion mandatory to save the life of the mother. This had absolutely nothing to do with the bill being considered, but it may explain why there are no Jewish Tim Tebows. Then she said: "I have not asked you to adopt and adhere to my religious beliefs. Why are you asking me to adopt yours?" Her smashing crescendo was: "And finally Mr. Speaker, I'm flattered that you're all so interested in my vagina, but 'no' means 'no'!" It's not clear where Rep. Brown got the idea that the Republican caucus was planning on date-raping her, but I think there's been a terrible misunderstanding. The bill under consideration merely ensured the safety of women having abortions -- and, in a small way, the safety of the fetus, whom the U.S. Supreme Court has prohibited legislatures from protecting directly.