Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Obamacare: Will the Court Vindicate Itself?
If there has ever been a case that could vindicate the Supreme Court as a guardian of liberty or incriminate it as freedom's thief, it is the court's present consideration of the Affordable Care Act. At the founding of the republic, the Anti-Federalist opponents of the Constitution warned that to grant the power to declare laws unconstitutional to an unelected and life-tenured Supreme Court could subvert the democratic republic and threaten our liberties.
Unburdening Myself
We all realize that the members of the media, including several of the talking heads who appear regularly on Fox News, have one thing in common; namely, that Barack Obama plays a leading role in all of their favorite wet dreams. But, still, wouldn't you think that just once, some reporter would ask Obama to explain why Warren Buffet and all of his other millionaire and billionaire chums, the guys who plunk down $35,000 to hear him deliver a campaign speech, don't simply send more money to the IRS?
In Obama Campaign Video, It's Not Morning in America
President Barack Obama's 17-minute video, "The Road We've Traveled," gives us an idea of how he wants to frame the issues in the fall election. The first thing you notice about the video is that the atmosphere is dark, wintry, minor key. You see but don't hear the election night crowd in Grant Park, and then the video switches to graphics about the economic meltdown that followed the financial crisis of 2008.
Progressive Promotion of Selective Law Enforcement
If one wishes to understand the ultimate destination of progressive ideology, California is a bellwether. Last Friday, the Los Angeles Police Department announced that it would no longer enforce a state law that requires police to impound the vehicles of unlicensed drivers for 30 days. Why? Because the majority of unlicensed drivers in that city are illegal aliens, and the policy purportedly inhibits their ability to get to their jobs. It also imposes an undue burden on them when they attempt to retrieve their vehicles -- because they must pay a fine to do so. "It's about fairness. It's about equal application of the law," contends Police Chief Charlie Beck, a man seemingly oblivious to the Orwellian dimensions of such a statement.
Modern Culture
The Hunger Games. The film did about $155 million in its opening weekend. I had never heard of it, or the trilogy of novels by Suzanne Collins of which the first formed the basis of this film. It is not a particular surprise that something this big is going on completely out of my ken. The Mullings Director of Standards & Practices planned her entire evening last night around the season opener of "Mad Men" on the AMC network. I have yet to watch a single frame of this award-winning series' first four seasons.
Romney, Republicans, and the Young
"I don't mean to be flip with this," said Mitt Romney during a Q-and-A with students at the University of Chicago last week. "But I don't see how a young American can vote for a Democrat." He cheerfully apologized to anyone who might find such a comment "offensive," but went on to explain why he was in earnest. The Democratic Party "is focused on providing more and more benefits to my generation, mounting trillion-dollar annual deficits my generation will never pay for," Romney said. While Democrats are perpetrating "the greatest inter-generational transfer of wealth in the history of humankind," Republicans are "consumed with the idea of getting federal spending down and creating economic growth and opportunity so we can balance our budget and stop putting these debts on you."
Smearing Our Troops
Sergeant Robert Bales stands accused of murdering 16 Afghans, including 9 children. Many top American military officials, including Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, have intimated that even the death penalty "could be a consideration" should Bales be found guilty of the crime. On cue, the Left has used this tragic incident as an opportunity to impugn the entire military and the nation, claiming the killing is on par with My Lai and is representative of our servicemen and women generally.
Obamacare's Contract Problem
On Monday the Supreme Court begins three days of oral arguments concerning possible -- actually, probable and various -- constitutional infirmities in Obamacare. The justices have received many amicus briefs, one of which merits special attention because of the elegant scholarship and logic with which it addresses an issue that has not been as central to the debate as it should be.
Prostitutes, Druggies & Unwed Mothers
There is a widely-held belief in this country that there are such things as victimless crimes, but that is essentially a myth. Anything that tears at the moral fabric of society makes victims of us all. You don't have to be an evangelical or Rick Santorum to acknowledge that prostitution and drug addiction not only destroy the lives and souls of those who indulge in the buying and selling of their bodies and the baking of their brains, but wrecks the lives of their friends and family.
The Reagan in Romney
The late William F. Buckley Jr. naturally put it best when he said: "The wisest choice would be the one who would win. No sense running Mona Lisa in a beauty contest. I'd be for the most right, viable candidate who could win." Bill Buckley's law applies to Mitt Romney today. And it's worth noting Rush Limbaugh's recent update to the dictum. After Romney's terrific Illinois victory speech Tuesday, Rush said flatly, "A conservative alternative to Romney is Romney."
From The Comedy Store
President Obama visited the Copper Mountain Solar Panel Facility. This plant is in Nevada. It's more evidence that solar power is genuinely useful when you notice that every solar panel company is located in the home state of a powerful Democrat.
Mr. Obama's Kulturkampf?
TIME Magazine's nation editor, Amy Sullivan, thinks all this talk of President Obama's "war" on religious liberty is overwrought. She told a recent Georgetown gathering that it was absurd to claim the latest Mandate from HHS ranks with such horrible events in American history as the Philadelphia Bible Riots of 1844. To be sure, those riots were terrible. Catholics and Protestants in the City of Brotherly Love attacked each others' churches in a series of violent clashes that left several dead. In nearby New York , however, the situation remained tense but calm. That's because Catholic Archbishop "Dagger John" Hughes made it clear that if a single Catholic Church was torched, he'd make sure New York looked like "a second Moscow." The reference was to Napoleon's burning the Russian city in 1812. (The "dagger" referred to was for his piercing sermons, and perhaps his Irish wit, not for any weapons he carried. Thank God.)
The Obamacare Hydra
The Hydra was a mythical swamp beast whose multiple heads grew back after being severed. Obamacare is a real Washington monster whose countless hidden bureaucracies keep sprouting forth even after they're rooted out. As soon as combatants lop off one of the law's unconstitutional agencies, another takes its place. On Thursday, as the behemoth federal health care law marked its second anniversary, House Republicans repealed the infamous Independent Payment Advisory Board. The mother of all death panels, IPAB would have unprecedented authority over health care spending through a rogue board of 15 Medicare spending czars. The House repeal has a snowball's chance in hell of surviving the Senate. But IPAB's legality is being challenged in federal court by the conservative Arizona-based Goldwater Institute. And the more the public knows about these freedom-usurping, taxpayer-soaking institutions buried in the health care law the less they like it.
True Terrorist Threat
Much of the attention in the Middle East over the past few months has been focused on the suffering of the people of Syria. But the Assad regime in Syria, which is slaughtering its own people by the thousands, does so with help from its only ally, Iran. And it is not only in Syria that Iran wreaks havoc; Iran is the chief state sponsor of terrorism throughout the world.
It Does Matter How You Vote
A recent weeknight found me among a group of about a dozen unhappy parents meeting with the principal of our kids' high school. The issue: An incompetent teacher who we had been promised would not be returning to the school had shown up unexpectedly, and an administrator had told the students that he might indeed be returning in September. Parents expressed dismay and frustration. The principal was guarded. There was much he could not say for legal reasons, he explained. In the course of a long and often tense discussion, a number of the parents made the point that if an employee in the private sector had engaged in the behavior that this teacher had, he would be gone in a flash. But when it comes to teachers -- those critical figures in our children's lives -- it requires a minimum of three years to remove someone ... if you're lucky.
Gasoline
Gasoline prices have climbed above $4 per gallon for regular at too many places across the nation. We know this because President Barack Obama has embarked on a four-day blitz to demonstrate his concern for high gasoline prices. According to the U.S Energy Information Administration the average price for a gallon of regular gasoline in the country is $3.87 which is up about 30 cents from a year ago. The highest prices are on the West Coast at $4.23. The lowest, next door in the Rocky Mountain region at $3.62.
Putting the Bull in 'Bully'
In 1968, the Motion Picture Association of America effectively nationalized the movie industry's rating system to guide parents and the wider public about the content of films before purchasing tickets. A year hasn't gone by since that the "beautiful people" don't throw their artistic temper tantrums when they receive a harsher rating than they want. The latest example is a documentary named "Bully," which investigates the lives of five bullied students during the 2009-2010 school year in five states -- Georgia, Mississippi, Iowa, Texas and Oklahoma. Two of the five committed suicide. The filmmaker is basing his whole publicity campaign on shock and outrage for receiving an R rating for six uses of the F-bomb, as well as other vulgar threats.
A Fawlty Slip of the Tongue
There's a great old "Fawlty Towers" scene (if you're unfamiliar with the 1970s British sitcom, hie thyself to YouTube!) in which Basil Fawlty (John Cleese), an innkeeper, welcomes some German patrons. He gives explicit orders to everyone: "Don't mention the war!" He then proceeds to mention the uncomfortable subject of World War II over and over again. In one scene, after blurting out references to the war a dozen times while seating the Germans at the restaurant, he says to his wife, "Listen, don't mention the war! I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it all right." He then returns to the Germans' table to review their lunch order: "So! It's all forgotten now, and let's hear no more about it. So, that's two egg mayonnaise, a prawn Goebbels, a Hermann Goering, and four Colditz salads."
Liberal Opposition to Ryan Plan Is Delusional Demagoguery
It's one thing for good-faith conservative Republicans to challenge the Ryan plan from the right if they believe its cuts are too small and too slow, but these liberal attacks are something else again. How catastrophic would the nation's fiscal condition have to be before liberals recognized its urgency? Is there any scenario under which they'd consider setting aside their partisan populism to come to the nation's rescue? Are they capable of even temporarily setting aside their redistributionist myopia long enough meaningfully to address the main drivers of the national debt?
Stories of Life: October Baby and Doonby
Movies that deal with the sanctity of life are suddenly in the news. One of these, the long anticipated independent film Doonby, is scheduled to open in theaters later this year. And another one, October Baby, opens in theaters today, Friday, March 23. Both of these films delve deeply and fearlessly into an issue that the entertainment industry has rarely been brave enough to tackle.