Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Friday, July 22, 2011
The Empire Strikes Back
GEORGETOWN COUNTY, S.C. -- "Will your Boykin hunt?" asked the young man, admiring the little red spaniel at my side. "Casey" wagged her tail and sat, patiently waiting for me to check out of the local farmers market with a basket of fresh peaches, corn and tomatoes. "She's not yet a year old, but she already works well into the wind, can kick up a bird and if I shoot right and retrieves to hand," I replied with no small amount of hubris. The conversation abruptly shifted to international politics -- but not in the direction I expected. "What are you going to do with her once 'The Empire' bans your shotguns?" he asked.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Green, Shovel-Ready Stimulus -- 100 Years Ago
HUNTINGTON LAKE, Calif. -- Our politicians love soaring platitudes followed by little, if any, follow-up. The more Americans are promised shovel-ready stimulus projects, new sources of power and other fantasies, the more we accept that bureaucracy, regulations, lawsuits and impact statements will prevent much from ever being done. The president himself, after demanding nearly a trillion dollars in borrowed money for the budget, confessed that his "shovel-ready" projects proved not so shovel-ready after all. Much of the vast sums of borrowed money instead went to subsidize nearly insolvent pensions, entitlements and bloated state budgets. Unemployment is still at 9.2 percent, with nearly 50 million people on government-subsidized food stamps -- even as American infrastructure is crumbling, the private sector is moribund, and national timidity prevents any new large, visionary construction. Prior generations gave us space projects; ours is about ending them. Boeing once ruled the skies; now the government sues to stop Boeing from opening a new plant.
Media Mogul Charged With First-Degree Murdoch
In December 1996, a Florida couple, John and Alice Martin, who sounded suspiciously like union goons, claimed to have inadvertently tapped into a phone conversation between then House Speaker Newt Gingrich and House Republican leadership. According to these Democratic and union activists, they were just driving around with a police scanner in their car, picked up a random phone conversation and said to themselves, "Wait a minute! I could swear that's Dick Armey's voice!"
Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee -- and the Race Card
For those who voted for President Barack Obama expecting him to bridge America's "racial divide," a question: "How's that working for you?" Black U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, says "the minority community" blames racism for the Republican refusal to increase the debt limit without conditions. She did not, to be fair, flat-out call Republicans sheet-wearing, Ku Klux Klan-supporting, Jim Crow-loving, poll-tax-imposing, back-of-the-bus crackers. Instead, she took to the House floor with the subtlety of a woodchipper: "(O)nly this president ... only this one, has received the kind of attacks and disagreements and inability to work, only this one. Read between the lines. ... I do not understand what I think is the maligning and maliciousness (toward) this president. Why is he different? ... In the minority community, that is a question that is being raised. Why is this president being treated so disrespectfully?"
Will College Bubble Burst From Public Subsidies?
When governments want to encourage what they believe is beneficial behavior, they subsidize it. Sounds like good public policy. But there can be problems. Behavior that is beneficial for most people may not be so for everybody. And government subsidies can go too far. Subsidies create incentives for what economists call rent-seeking behavior. Providers of supposedly beneficial goods or services try to sop up as much of the subsidy money as they can by raising prices. After all, their customers are paying with money supplied by the government.
Decline of the English Scandal
Consider this an obituary for a newspaper. The suddenly late News of the World succumbed at 168 this month to a fatal case of shame aggravated by financial calculation. Its chronic hubris became acute under its latest owner, who has not been free of that malady himself. The end came as a shock. Who knew The News of the World was even capable of shame? And now it's died of it. Its insatiable appetite for scandal finally did it in. For once its zeal got in the way of its owner's ambitions instead of furthering them. And it had to be put it out of its misery. Its last great scandal, as it turned out, was its own.
Getting Headaches and Giving Them
I've been plagued with migraines for years. So when The Daily Caller reported that GOP presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann has had severe migraines, it took my colleagues but minutes to propose that I write on the controversy. I resisted, but this story is a big talker. I've got a personal angle. I'm a columnist. What else could I do? Some people get migraines. Some people give them. We, the chosen few, do both.
A Pro-Growth Plan from the Gang of Six
There are a lot of known unknowns about the new "Gang of Six" budget proposal. But conservatives should hold back from trashing it. Why? There's a large, pro-growth tax-reform piece in the plan that would lower tax rates across the board. This is a stunning reversal of the Obama Democrats' soak-the-rich, class-warfare campaign. The best part of the Gang of Six plan is a reduction in the top personal tax rate from 35 percent to a range of 23 percent to 29 percent. For businesses, the rate would drop in the same manner. And the corporate tax would be territorial rather than global, thereby avoiding the double tax on foreign earnings of U.S. companies. Finally, the plan would abolish the $1.7 trillion alternative minimum tax. That's huge. It's another pro-growth tax reform.
Glee Over Murdoch Troubles
PORTSTEWART, Northern Ireland -- "Glee" is not just an American TV show, it is also the emotion many people feel and express toward the trouble Rupert Murdoch's News Corp is having, since they consider Murdoch's properties a blight on their formerly pristine media landscape. There are two strains running through the phone-hacking scandal that monopolizes much of the media attention in the UK. One is the attitude of the mainstream media types who are frustrated by the success of Murdoch properties, most notably Fox News Channel in America (to which I contribute). They see Murdoch's troubles with the now shuttered News of the World tabloid as an opportunity to destroy the Murdoch empire, which they have been unable to do by competing with it.
The Fight We're in
We find ourselves in the midst of an important battle, the outcome of which will be determined by decisions to be made in the immediate days ahead. We must win this fight. The debate over raising the debt limit seems complicated, but it is really very simple. Look beyond the myriad details of the awkward compromises, and you see an epic struggle between two opposing camps. On one side are those who have come to realize it would be madness to let the political class borrow more without imposing a serious check on government spending. They have produced budgets and now an actual legislative plan to get things under control.
Gang of Six a Bad Idea, Their New Proposal Even Worse
It's true that the constitutional framers intended the Senate to be "the saucer that cools the tea" of the House of Representatives. But we live in strange times. We've witnessed a president put forth a nearly $1 trillion "stimulus package" that didn't work. We've seen a coalition of Republicans and Democrats make another pass at righting the world's economic ship by passing a TARP plan that ultimately benefited only banks and automakers. Given those giant missteps, it's sheer lunacy for federal lawmakers -- certainly for Republican ones -- to try again to save the economy by doing anything less than face up to the fact that Congress must spend less money, rather than looking for new sources of revenue.
Obama Lies About Mom, Networks Yawn
On July 3, 1999, The New York Times exposed Al Gore for lying about his family in a national convention speech as vice president of the United States. In 1996, Gore moved the Democrats to tears by claiming that when his sister Nancy died of cancer in 1984, he vowed then and there to oppose the tobacco industry. How courageous -- and completely untrue. The Times found Gore campaigned in 1988 boasting of his tobacco-farming prowess. He lied through his teeth. Network coverage from ABC, CBS or NBC on this whopper, even as Gore prepared a presidential run? Zero.
Bachmann and the Pope
WASHINGTON -- It seems Rep. Michele Bachmann is under increased scrutiny for her religious views, even as she climbs ever higher in the presidential polls. With tea party support, she is now No. 2 in the Republican polls even though she has been in the race for only a short time. The numero uno, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, is himself the victim of gentler bigotry for his religious views. He is a Mormon. No, I did not say moron. I said Mormon. What is Bachmann's transgression? She was, until recently, a member of a church that opposes homosexuality and gay marriage. It also takes issue with the Roman Catholic papacy. It is the Salem Lutheran Church of Stillwater, Minn. And by the way, it is no longer Bachmann's church. She now attends the evangelical church Eagle Brook, in another part of Stillwater, where she now lives. A close friend, JoAnne Hood, tells The New York Times that the Bachmanns "are absolutely not against the gays. They are just not for marriage" -- presumably not for gay marriage. As for their position on the Catholic papacy, Hood is mum.
Keep Hope Alive and Give Low Income Students a Chance!
I learned in science class that no two snowflakes are exactly the same, their uniqueness owed to the fact that tiny droplets in clouds cool and freeze at different rates. Determining whether a student understands this or any other level of science is where tests come into play and for students considering college, the standardized admissions test has an important role. For college admissions officers, it can be difficult to gauge what a student has actually learned in their previous education and even harder to determine whether they have the right core of knowledge and reasoning skills to succeed in a university environment. Standardized tests, while only one of many criteria for college admission, level the playing field among students from diverse backgrounds and guard against grade inflation. But what if the test doesn't serve that purpose or worse, skews the perception of a student's ability?
Voting 'No' on Voting
Before we even get close to November 6, 2012, I'd like to suggest that everybody pledge not to pressure their friends and neighbors to get out and vote. There is absolutely nothing un-American about staying home and minding your own business on Election Day. I, for one, am sick and tired of hearing about all the brave Americans who fought and died so that we'd be free to vote. What those good people actually fought for was the freedom to vote, not the obligation. It is the freedom not to vote that is denied to slaves. It's only when dictators are in charge that people are compelled to go through the motions. The likes of Fidel Castro, Joseph Stalin and the Stalin wannabe, Saddam Hussein, never had to worry about chads and miscounts. When those guys got out the vote, they got out the vote!
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Obama's Ministers of Culture and Agitprop
Immediately after President Obama took office, his Hollywood benefactors clamored for the creation of a "Secretary of Culture." Tinseltown was disappointed with the administration's crony arts czar choice (Chicago lawyer Kareem Dale), but left-wing artists and entertainers have now been mollified. Instead of one government-supported arts czar, the White House has designated an entire herd of them.
Fannie and Freddie: Bad Tenants
Want to improve the housing market? Evict Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Sounds harsh, but without such a serious, drastic step, the market won't get better anytime soon. The value of household real estate is down an eye-popping $6.6 trillion (that's 12 zeros, folks) since it peaked in 2007. And the "government sponsored enterprises" (GSEs) known as Fannie and Freddie played a big part in inflating the housing bubble.
Education Is Worse Than We Thought
Last December, I reported on Harvard University professor Stephan Thernstrom's essay "Minorities in College -- Good News, But...," on Minding the Campus, a website sponsored by the New York-based Manhattan Institute. He was commenting on the results of the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress, saying that the scores "mean that black students aged 17 do not read with any greater facility than whites who are four years younger and still in junior high. ... Exactly the same glaring gaps appear in NAEP's tests of basic mathematics skills." Thernstrom asked, "If we put a randomly-selected group of 100 eighth-graders and another of 100 twelfth-graders in a typical college, would we expect the first group to perform as well as the second?" In other words, is it reasonable to expect a college freshman of any race who has the equivalent of an eighth-grade education to compete successfully with those having a 12th-grade education?
Syria's Twilight of the Diversions
Two of the oldest tricks in the Middle Eastern dictator's grab-bag of deceit and thuggery have failed Syria's Bashar al-Assad. In early June, Assad's regime played the Israel card. Assad's gangsters connived to attack Israel, using a crowd of Palestinian activists instead of a tank army. An unarmed human wave of Arab protestors approached the border wire. Israeli border troops drove them off. It was a made-for-television piece of propaganda intended to inflame nationalist and sectarian passions. The Assad gang then spewed the usual anti-Israeli bile.
Workers for Contractors at Government Lab Used Dead People's SSNs
Two employees of contractors working at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory used dead peoples' Social Security numbers, according to DOE's Office of Inspector General. Four others used Social Security numbers the government has not yet issued, and two shared the same Social Security number. The fact that workers for contractors at DOE's Berkeley lab were misusing Social Security numbers -- and thus, by definition, working under false identities -- was revealed in a report DOE's IG completed on April 15.