Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Republican Surrenderists for Obamacare
During the summer of 2009, conservative activists turned up the heat on Democratic politicians to protest the innovation-destroying, liberty-usurping Obamacare mandate. In the summer of 2012, it's squishy Republican politicians who deserve the grassroots flames. In case you hadn't heard, even if the Supreme Court overturns the progressives' federal health care juggernaut, prominent GOP leaders vow to preserve its most "popular" provisions. These big-government Republicans show appalling indifference to the dire market disruptions and culture of dependency that Obamacare schemes have wrought. GOP Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri, vice chair of the Senate GOP Conference, told a St. Louis radio station two weeks ago that he supports keeping at least three Obamacare regulatory pillars: federally imposed coverage of "children" up to age 26 on their parents' health insurance policies (the infamous, unfunded "slacker mandate"), federally mandated coverage regardless of pre-existing conditions ("guaranteed issue," which leads to an adverse-selection death spiral) and closure of the coverage gap in the massive Bush-backed Medicare drug entitlement (the "donut hole fix" that will obliterate the program's cost-controls).
Improving Health Care
Any day now, the U.S. Supreme will rule on whether the Obamacare insurance mandate is constitutional. Seems like a no-brainer to me. How can forcing me to engage in commerce be constitutional? But there's a deeper question: Why should government be involved in medicine at all? Right before President Obama took office, the media got hysterical about health care. You heard the claims: America spends more than any country -- $6,000 per person -- yet we get less. Americans die younger than people in Japan and Western Europe. Millions of Americans lack health insurance and worry about paying for care. I have the solution! said Obama. Bigger government will give us more choices and make health care cheaper and better. He proceeded to give us that. Bigger government, that is. The cheaper/better/more choices part -- not so much.
Obama's Gay Marriage Contradiction
Last month, when President Obama finally endorsed gay marriage after years of equivocation, he emphasized that he still thinks states should be free to address the issue as they see fit. Since many voters strongly oppose gay marriage, it is clear why Obama advocates a federalist approach to the question. But it is not clear that he logically can. Obama's inconsistency is illustrated by two cases involving gay marriage that the Supreme Court could hear during its next term. Two weeks ago, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit overturned a law that prohibits federal recognition of state-licensed gay marriages, and last week the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit declined to reconsider a case in which it ruled against California's ban on gay marriage. The 1st Circuit case involves Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which the Obama administration stopped defending last year after concluding it is unconstitutional. During the same May 9 ABC News interview in which he declared that "same-sex couples should be able to get married," Obama said DOMA "tried to federalize what has historically been state law."
America's Greece
In California, the mayor of a major city has decided that it's time to renegotiate union pensions, which are bankrupting the municipality; more specifically, he wants to raise the retirement age. The governor of the state wants to revamp the welfare system, forcing people to get back to work within two years rather than four. The state government has worked with the California Highway Patrol to implement furloughs amounting to a 5 percent pay cut. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Unified School District has forced teachers unions to accept 10 furlough days, amounting to a 5 percent pay cut. Here's the crazy thing: All of the governmental officials are Democrats. Reality has smashed the Golden State across the face with an iron fist. In fact, all of the measures that Democrats are taking in California will surely fail -- they're half-measures. The state suffers from a $16 billion deficit and has over $500 billion in unfunded pension liabilities. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's pension reform wouldn't even make a dent. Gov. Jerry Brown's welfare reform would save just $880 million -- and meanwhile, recent studies show that $69 million in welfare cash is spent in casinos, cruise ships and Hawaii every year. The new deal with the CHP won't touch the CHP pension problem, which amounts to more than $3 billion per year. The LAUSD's furloughing will save a few bucks but won't touch its $390 million deficit.
Obama's 'Fine' Mess
The 1990 Italian film "Everybody's Fine" is one of the most depressing films I've ever seen. Starring the late Marcello Mastroianni, it's the story of an old man who tells his wife he's going to visit their grown kids. According to their letters the kids are doing great, but he'd like to see for himself. It turns out that the kids are all doing badly, and the whole trip is drenched in nostalgia and regret for what might have been. When the father gets home, he can't bring himself to tell his wife the truth, even though -- the audience discovers -- she's been dead and buried for years. In the last scene, we see the old man at his wife's grave, reassuring her, "Everybody's fine." Listening to President Obama's defenders spinning his claim that the "private sector is doing fine" reminded me of those kids and their dad, all afraid to admit everything's not fine. One common defense: He was just being ironic or sarcastic.
Reagan's Sign of the Cross Speech
Every American high school student knows, or should know, that President Ronald Reagan went to the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin on this date in 1987. The President said: "If you seek liberalization, open this gate...Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." (Yes, kids, there was a West Berlin then.) American journalists were enchanted by Mikhail Gorbachev in those days. The young and charismatic Kremlin boss was "the human face of Communism" that they'd been seeking. Leader of the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union ), this dynamic man spoke of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (re-structuring). His words were all the rage then.
Duped by Congressional Lies
Some of the responses to my column last week, titled "Immoral Beyond Redemption," prove that Americans have been hoodwinked by Congress. Some readers protested my counting Social Security among government handout programs that can be described as Congress' taking what belongs to one American and giving to another, to whom it doesn't belong -- legalized theft. They argued that they worked for 45 years and paid into Social Security and that the money they now receive is theirs. These people have been duped and shouldn't be held totally accountable for such a belief. Let's look at it. The Social Security pamphlet of 1936 read, "Beginning November 24, 1936, the United States Government will set up a Social Security account for you. ... The checks will come to you as a right." Americans were led to believe that Social Security was like a retirement account and that money placed in it was, in fact, their property. Shortly after the Social Security Act's passage, it was challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court, in Helvering v. Davis (1937). The court held that Social Security was not an insurance program, saying, "The proceeds of both employee and employer taxes are to be paid into the Treasury like any other internal revenue generally, and are not earmarked in any way." In a 1960 case, Flemming v. Nestor, the Supreme Court said, "To engraft upon Social Security system a concept of 'accrued property rights' would deprive it of the flexibility and boldness in adjustment to ever-changing conditions which it demands."
Mr. Obama's Latest Fantasies and Fabrications
It's not often that you get not one, but two ridiculous assertions from the same politician in the same week, but President Barack Obama managed to pull it off. His first gem: "The private sector is doing fine. Where we're seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with state and local government. Oftentimes cuts initiated by, you know, Governors or mayors who are not getting the kind of help that they have in the past from the federal government and who don't have the same kind of flexibility as the federal government in dealing with fewer revenues coming in." The second gem: "The notion that my White House would purposefully release classified information is offensive. It's wrong." First, quote number one. I'll spare you the obvious rebuttals by the GOP, all of which couple together the incredulity and shock that accompanies an outright gift from their main opponent in the upcoming November election. In one fell swoop, Mr. Obama revealed the depth of his economic ignorance and his socialist/Marxist reflexes. Moreover, he revealed them a day after Democrats and their government union allies had their collective butts kicked in Wisconsin, San Diego and San Jose.
A Free Market Brings Down Health Costs
What is the best way to make sure that Americans with chronic medical conditions -- those most likely to need costly or frequent health care -- can afford the insurance they need to meet their bills? The conventional answer, reflected in Mitt Romney's 2006 health-care reform law in Massachusetts and the federal overhaul signed by Barack Obama in 2010, contains these ingredients: (1) Require everyone to have health insurance, with subsidized plans for low-income citizens. (2) Compel insurers to accept anybody who applies for coverage and to charge roughly the same premium for everyone, regardless of health status. (3) Make all health plans cover a fixed array of medical treatments, providers, and conditions that many customers may not need or want. The orthodox view, in short, is that to shield people with serious medical needs from undue financial hardship we must suppress the normal workings of a free market -- supply and demand, competition, flexible prices. There's just one problem with this approach: It doesn't work.
Bringing Eric Holder to Justice
House Republicans' planned effort to rein in the corrupt attorney general is long overdue.
Is the Star-Spangled Banner an 'Abomination'?
Talk show host, Bill Press, doesn't like the Star-Spangled Banner. Imagine: a liberal talk show that's not on NPR! His radio show is simulcast on Current TV. Bill Press likes provoking conservatives, but I'm not sure we should be provoked by his outburst against the National Anthem. Bill Press seems to be testing the old philosopher's question: If a tree falls in the forest and there's no one there to hear it, does it make a noise? If you say something on Current TV, does anyone hear it? Press adds: "It is a major crusade of mine to get rid of the Star-Spangled Banner. Now I know you're going to say I am not a true American, I'm not patriotic. I don't think patriotism has anything to do with it. The National Anthem is just absolutely monumentally un-singable. I mean there's so much wrong with it. I don't know where to start. It's an abomination."
And About _____Time, Too!
What some of us -- well, anyway I do -- refer to as the Slobbification of America made a good showing the other day on the front page of The Wall Street Journal: the tale of a town talking up a ban on public profanity of the grosser sort. Which ban is up for consideration by the assembled citizenry of Middleborough, Mass. The local police chief, the Journal reported, wanted to fine anyone $20 who "accosts or addresses another person with profane or obscene language in a street." I write before the actual vote. I think I know the outcome all the same: futility, of the constitutional or the cultural sort, likely both. The Journal quotes a retired policy officer -- and supporter of the chief's move -- as saying, "Back when I was younger you wouldn't think of saying foul language on the street, but now it's (bleep) you or stick it up your whatever. It's not unique to this town..."
Science Demands Big Government!
The quotation of the week last week had to be that of Harvard professor Daniel E. Lieberman in an opinion piece for the New York Times. Lieberman, a professor of human evolutionary biology, was among those who publicly defended New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's plan to ban the sale of sugared soft drinks in cups larger than 16 ounces. And he did so using, of all things, evolution. Now, we all know that humans have always needed -- or evolved to need -- carbohydrates for energy. So how could evolution argue for Mayor Bloomberg's ban on sugar, a pure carbohydrate?
Obama Tries to Reprise 2008 Race
President Obama ran a successful campaign in 2008 against George W. Bush. Yes, yes, John McCain's name was on the ballot, but that was a detail. Obama campaigned against Bush. McCain even laughed about it at the Alfred E. Smith dinner, joking that Obama's "pet name for me" is "George Bush." The president is hoping to reprise the same race in 2012. Speaking in Iowa last month, he said of Republicans: "They either want to do nothing at all or they want to double down on the same failed policies that got us into this mess." So it's the anti-Bush campaign, version 2.0. Will it succeed? How can you run for re-election on the hope that voters won't notice you've been in the White House for four years? Some Democrats fondly recall Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1936 re-election. Roosevelt brought back the ghost of Herbert Hoover -- who would remain a prop of Democratic campaigns for two decades -- and campaigned vigorously against the rich, proposing an "undistributed profits tax" and a "wealth tax." He won by a landslide.
The Private Sector Is Sucking Wind
President Obama continues to prove how out of touch he is with the plight of the American people under his anemic economy. No, Mr. President, the economy and the private sector are not "doing fine." Sure, Obama is pretending that he didn't mean it the way it sounded. But I am not buying that it was a gaffe. I watched the video, and he stated the point clearly and deliberately. Obama is an incorrigible leftist ideologue who believes that only his statist policies can stimulate the national economy. He thinks that without the prodding, deficit spending and wisdom of the federal government, the private sector cannot recover on its own, much less flourish. Now he has put his theories to the test, having run up unprecedented national debt in the process and producing nothing but failure. Even President Franklin D. Roosevelt's treasury secretary Henry Morgenthau admitted that FDR had spent a record amount of federal money for eight years and had amassed extraordinary debt without creating jobs or stimulating the economy. Why can't Obama learn from his own mistakes?
She Warned Us
LONDON -- One of many things left out of the film "The Iron Lady" was Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's warnings on the effects a single currency would have on the economies of European nations. Thatcher's premonitions place her among the great political prophets of all time. On the single currency, Peter Oborne, a columnist for the London Daily Telegraph, writes, "Mrs. Thatcher foresaw with painful clarity the devastation it was bound to cause. Her autobiography records how she warned John Major, her euro-friendly chancellor of the exchequer, that the single currency could not accommodate both industrial powerhouses such as Germany and smaller countries such as Greece." Thatcher predicted the currency would harm poorer countries because it would "devastate their inefficient economies." The idea of a European Union modeled on the United States was unlikely to succeed from the beginning because, unlike American states, European countries lack a common bond. There are different languages, different histories (Colorado, for example, never invaded Nebraska) and different religions, including for six decades, atheism imposed by communist dictators in Eastern Europe.
Socialist or Fascist?
There are important distinctions that few Americans these days understand.
The Gaffe That Keeps on Giving
Two weeks ago the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics dropped a bomb on the Presidential campaign of Barack Obama when it released data showing only 66,000 jobs had been created in May -- far below estimates -- and that the top-line unemployment rate rose from 8.1 to 8.2 percent. This past Friday at a press conference, in response to a question about the GOP's contention that it is his Administration's policies that are strangling job growth, President Obama said, "the private sector is doing fine." He went on to explain that the rise in unemployment is largely due to budget difficulties at the state and local government level because mayors and governors are not getting the "kind of support they need from the federal government."
The End Nears for a 50-Year Mistake
In retrospect, there were two conspicuous giveaways that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was headed for victory in last week's recall election. One was that the Democrats' campaign against him wound up focusing on just about everything but Walker's law limiting collective bargaining rights for government workers. Sixteen months ago, the Capitol building in Madison was besieged by rioting protesters hell-bent on blocking the changes by any means necessary. Union members and their supporters, incandescent with rage, likened Walker to Adolf Hitler and cheered as Democratic lawmakers fled the state in a bid to force the legislature to a standstill. Once the bill passed, unions and Democrats vowed revenge, and amassed a million signatures on recall petitions.
Exposing the Palestinian 'Refugee' Charade
The truth behind the demographics chicanery bolstering the war against Israel.