Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
The Left's Callous Disinterest in Black Shooting Victims
While Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson were continuing to stir up racial animosity in Sanford Florida, one of the worst mass shootings in Florida history was taking place in Miami. Last Friday, 14 people were shot and two men were killed during a funeral for 21-year-old Morvin Andre. A 5-year-old girl was wounded in the exchange as well. Why no outrage or calls for massive demonstrations? Because the shooters were allegedly black gang members attending the funeral.
If Obama Had a Son
When he was first sworn in as Attorney General, Eric Holder made one of the more obtuse comments in political history. When it comes to issues of race, Holder declared, we are "a nation of cowards ... we, as average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race." Really? It seems to me that we talk endlessly, and usually unproductively, about race. We love nothing better in America than a good racial angle. The Trayvon Martin case pushes all the buttons. Black provocateurs such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton get to strut their stuff. The liberal media get to distort and cheerlead for one side. Conservatives get to indulge their disdain for the race hustlers, and everyone's blood pressure rises.
Scaring the Horses: Britain's Tories Back Unmarriage
Britain's Conservative Party, the Tories, lost an empire when America rebelled against their tyranny and foolishness. Edmund Burke said then: "Great empires and little minds go ill together." Now, the Tories are preparing to lose Britain itself. How so? The Tories are ending marriage. Of course, that's not what they think they are doing. They think they are simply acknowledging that Sir Elton and his significant other are as "married" as any other British couple. It used to be said of the Britons with their stiff upper lips that they don't care what you do so long as you don't scare the horses. But the Tories bid to end marriage should scare all of Britain -- horse, foot, and dragoons.
The Invincible Dogma
A long-standing legal charade was played out again recently, when Federal Express paid $3 million to settle an employment discrimination case brought by the U.S. Department of Labor. Federal Express was accused of both racial discrimination and sex discrimination. FedEx denied it. Why then did they pay the $3 million? Because it can cost a lot more than $3 million to fight a discrimination case. Years ago, the Sears department store chain spent $20 million fighting a sex discrimination charge that took 15 years to make its way through the legal labyrinth. In the end, Sears won -- if spending $20 million and getting nothing in return can be called winning.
They Don’t Know Us
Apparently, many liberals were disappointed in the administration’s performance before the Supreme Court. They felt that the government’s lawyer, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, did not respond effectively to the challenges of some of the conservative justices. The editor of Commentary, John Podhoretz, offered an explanation on his magazine’s blog. “American liberals,” he wrote, “know their own language, but they don’t know the language of their ideological and partisan opposite numbers. ... Conservatives speak liberal, but for liberals in the United States, conservatism might as well be Esperanto.”
Got Hope? God's Promises in Uncertain Times
Part of our worry comes from the fact that most Americans aren't used to it! We've had relatively little to worry about in life. Sure, these are hard times, but this is not the Great Depression. And while the nightly news gives us cause to bemoan the loss of moral absolutes in society, Christians have always found themselves -- and will always find themselves -- living in the midst of a depraved culture. But no matter how dark a place or an age in time, God has never allowed the light of the Church to be extinguished. Plagues, persecutions, poverty -- Christians have lived victoriously in the midst of a depraved culture.
I Get Email
I'm well aware that every radio talk show host insists he has the smartest listeners, but I suspect I have the smartest readers. I don't say that simply because they're wise enough to read what I write, which would certainly be a strong indicator, but because I read what they write. For instance, I recently heard from Patrick Miano, of Phoenix, Arizona. In his opening, he mentioned that not too long ago a wealthy, charitable Arizona couple named Shapiro had been brutalized, robbed and murdered by a gang of five professional criminals. Recalling the way the liberal media had jumped all over the lunatic who had killed six people and injured a dozen others, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, insisting on the basis of absolutely no evidence that he was a right-wing fanatic, Mr. Miano sent the following letter to Ed Montini, a liberal columnist for the Arizona Republic:
Rev. Wright's Role in the 'Destroy Israel March'
On March 30th, the Global March to Jerusalem (GMJ), an attempt to mobilize millions of demonstrators aimed at converging on the state of Israel and inevitably breaching its borders, took place. Joining the likes of Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Mavi Marmara flotilla veterans, were the inevitable horde of useful idiots from the West, including British anti-Semite George Galloway, anti-war Bush-basher Cindy Sheehan, Truther conspiracy advocate Richard Falk, and radical race theorist Cornel West. Yet it was one of the movement's "official advisers" whose name stood out: president Obama's former spiritual advisor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright.
On Wisconsin
The GOP Primary Campaign Parade marches through Wisconsin, the District of Columbia and Maryland tomorrow night. If projections turn out to be correct will mark the end of the end of the process. As of last night, according to RealClearPolitics.com, Mitt Romney had 566 delegates, Rick Santorum had 263, Newt Gingrich - 140, and Ron Paul – 67. The magic number, as everyone has known since Iowa's caucuses on January 3, is 1,144 meaning Romney is 578 delegates short.
Americans Are Worrying About the Constitution Again
"I don't worry about the Constitution," said Rep. Phil Hare, Democrat of Illinois, at a town hall meeting where voters questioned his support of the legislation that became Obamacare. You can find the clip on youtube.com, where it has 462,084 hits. That was before the 2010 election, in which Hare, running for a third term in a district designed by Democrats to elect a Democrat, was defeated 53 to 43 percent by Bobby Schilling, proprietor of a pizza parlor in East Moline.
Restoring Fiscal Sanity
"I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared," Thomas Jefferson once wrote. "To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt." Fast forward to 2012, and the notion of "perpetual debt" is no longer a condition to be avoided. It's a reality we must confront -- a crisis we must solve. This is especially true because, as Jefferson warned, our very liberty is at stake if we fail to do so.
Sin Taxes vs. Sin Subsidies: Redefining Bad Behavior
Back in the 1970s, acclaimed psychiatrist Karl Menninger wrote a classic book, Whatever Became of Sin? Menninger said that although our society has dropped the sin category, sin remains, and our failure to identify sin as sin has made dealing with it even more difficult. Well, the great man was only partly right. While some behaviors are no longer called sinful, there's a growing list of behaviors that government officials now consider to be socially destructive, and thus, subject to what are called "sin taxes."
Batter Up!
WASHINGTON -- Think you're ready for Opening Day? Prove it. Name the person or persons who...
Trayvon Martin – And Sharpton's Latest Racist Lying Game
Al Sharpton remains one of the driving forces behind the effort to turn the Trayvon Martin case into an indictment of America itself. To earn his daily bread, Sharpton is well aware that he must continuously convince black Americans that they live in a hopelessly racist nation, not because it's true, but because any genuine progress made by blacks themselves is inimical to his own interests. Forgotten in the controversy surrounding the Martin case are the dark levels Sharpton has stooped to in order to ensure the survival of his public persona, which are worth recalling here.
Emptying the Attic
In this fast-moving world, it is next to impossible to keep track of all the zany stuff that takes place on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis. It's a lot like finding yourself in a movie whose cast combines the Three Stooges with the Four Marx Brothers. For instance, I often find myself wondering why left-wingers continue to promote communism. I mean, speaking of people named Marx, it would be different if Karl had just recently introduced "Das Kapital" to the world. But that happened way back in 1867. In the intervening 145 years, as we've seen his philosophy morph from mere words in a book to one bloody tyranny after another in the real world, how is it that anyone can see what it has led to in Russia, China, Cuba, Cambodia, Venezuela and North Korea, and continue defending it?
From The Comedy Store
Congress passed a bill banning insider trading by House members. It's a watered down version of the original bill. It strictly bans insider trading by members of Congress but it has exceptions for stocks, bonds, real estate, currency and precious metals.
There Obama Goes Again
As Ronald Reagan famously said, "There you go again." Of course, Reagan was blaming Jimmy Carter for launching false attacks during a debate. And that line was so effective, it not only helped Reagan win the debate, but a presidential election that would change American history. But "there you go again" can apply equally to President Obama. Once again this week, the president was out on the campaign trail bashing and oil and gas companies. And he continued to spread major falsehoods about this industry, which I guess is the polite way to put it.
The Death of Mrs. G
Although we all know that death is inevitable, we are still seldom fully prepared for the death of someone who has been important in our lives. So it was with the recent death of Dr. Marie D. Gadsden, at the age of 92. Mrs. Gadsden's only official connection with me was that she taught me freshman English at Howard University, more than half a century ago. But she and Professor Sterling Brown were my two idols when I was a student there -- and both remained so for the rest of my life.
Whose Movie Is Propaganda?
It's more than a little shocking when someone makes a movie that deals harshly with abortion. This is Hollywood after all. Abortion is a feminist sacrament. The movie "October Baby" just debuted on 390 screens and registered in eighth place for the weekend, with an estimated $1.7 million gross. "October Baby" is a drama loosely based on the real-life story of Gianna Jessen, born with cerebral palsy after she survived a failed abortion procedure and now a celebrated pro-life speaker. In the film, the lead character, Hannah, discovers her adoptive parents hid from her that she was never meant to be born.
Conservative interpretations
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg likes the Indian Healthcare Improvement Act and other ingredients of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka "ObamaCare." Why, she asked toward the end of three days of hearings, shouldn't the court keep the good stuff in ObamaCare and just dump the unconstitutional bits? The court, she explained, is presented with "a choice between a wrecking operation ... or a salvage job. And the more conservative approach would be salvage rather than throwing out everything."