Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Intolerant Left Strikes Again
On April 25, gay-rights advocates -- led by the Human Rights Campaign -- scored a victory after the HRC applied pressure on a law firm hired to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as a union between a man and woman and denies federal benefits to same-sex partners. The firm fired its client. There are two reasons you should be outraged, no matter what your position is on DOMA. One: Lawyers aren't supposed to dump cases -- it's called abandonment -- especially because of political pressure.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Leveling With Republicans
Even though the next presidential election is still more than 500 days away, it's never too soon to be prepared. After all, Obama hasn't stopped campaigning since Election Day, 2008. To begin with, and let me be very clear about his, no third party candidate, no matter how sincere or how well-funded -- whether the party calls itself Libertarian, Constitution, Tea Party, Bull Moose or Whig -- is ever going to win a national election. All a third party candidate will do is ensure that a liberal will be able to win with just 40-45% of the vote.
From The Comedy Store
President Obama appeared before reporters Wednesday and produced a long form Hawaii birth certificate from fifty years ago. There's no doubt about the authenticity of the birth certificate. It lists his name, his birthdate and his number of Twitter followers.
MTV's Crotch Profits
America can display a strange sexist standard on child sexual abuse. When an adult woman assaults a teenaged boy, Hollywood laughs this off as a teen dream come true. The topic was great fodder for '90s teen shows like "Dawson's Creek," with not a drop of judgment inserted, proving that when Hollywood pleads it's only "reflecting reality," it's really only reflecting its own reality. Mary Kay LeTourneau started assaulting her student Vili Fuulaau when he was 12 and she was 33. When they married 10 years later -- after she served seven years in prison -- the nuptials were celebrated on air by "Entertainment Tonight." The couple remains shameless. They've repeatedly hosted a "Hot for Teacher Night" at a Seattle nightclub.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Enough Drama Already -- the Country's Getting Sick of It
It's no secret that the messianic hopes Barack Obama once inspired have steadily given way to disillusion, and an ever-deepening sense of unease about the direction the country is heading. The president's critics are tempted to say they told us so -- and they give in to that temptation all too often. Instead of rallying around a serious alternative, which may explain why no such candidate has yet to emerge from the pack. As for the president's supporters, they sound more defensive than proud. It's a familiar sound -- that of a presidency losing steam, and maybe hope.
A Government Union Shakedown
"Raise our taxes!" Can you imagine chanting such a slogan at a public rally? Neither could most Americans. There is one notable exception, however: government-union activists. They're pretty explicit these days about their desire to see taxes go up. If that surprises you, you may be unaware of how dramatically the face of organized labor has changed over the last few decades. There's a very good reason they've got your wallet in their sights -- more and more, that's where their wages comes from.
A Thorny, Porn-y Issue for N.Y. Public Library
Of course you've heard some version of this tale before. Winston Churchill says to a woman at a party, "Madam, would you sleep with me for 5 million pounds?" The woman stammers: "My goodness, Mr. Churchill. Well, yes, I suppose ... Churchill interrupts: "Would you sleep with me for five pounds?" The woman responds immediately: "What? Of course not! What kind of woman do you think I am?!"
The Wisconsin Witch Hunt Goes National
On May 1, left-wing vigilantes will target companies across the country that have committed a mortal sin: sending donations to GOP Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin. Rest assured, such intolerable acts of political free speech will not go unpunished by tolerant Big Labor activists. They're calling for both a national boycott of Walker's corporate donors and a coordinated sticker vandalism campaign on GOP-tainted products.
POTUS' Priorities
PITTSBURGH -- According to the experts, this ought to be "Obama Country." In the 2008 presidential election, the Obama "Hope and Change" machine scored big in western Pennsylvania, carrying the region with nearly 58 percent of the vote. But this week, there's little evidence of that support here in the Steel City, where more than 70,000 freedom-loving Americans have gathered for the National Rifle Association's 140th annual meeting. On Wednesday, while NRA officials were making final preparations for the "Three Rivers Celebration of American Values," President Barack Obama made an unanticipated visit to the White House pressroom for a "special announcement." Several police officers -- veterans of the campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan or both -- were in the security operations center here when a duty officer announced that the television networks were interrupting regular programming for live coverage of urgent presidential remarks.
The Obama Doctrine: Leading From Behind
WASHINGTON -- To be precise, leading from behind is a style, not a doctrine. Doctrines involve ideas, but since there are no discernible ones that make sense of Obama foreign policy -- Lizza's painstaking two-year chronicle shows it to be as ad hoc, erratic and confused as it appears -- this will have to do. And it surely is an accurate description, from President Obama's shocking passivity during Iran's 2009 Green Revolution to his dithering on Libya, acting at the very last moment, then handing off to a bickering coalition, yielding the current bloody stalemate. It's been a foreign policy of hesitation, delay and indecision, marked by plaintive appeals to the (fictional) "international community" to do what only America can.
A Wedding: Not Just for Royals
By the time you read this, Prince William and his bride, Catherine Middleton (who, depending upon the distribution of titles, may henceforth be known officially by the odd formulation "Her Royal Highness Princess William of Wales"), will have exchanged vows. The organ will have boomed the recessional. The royal carriage with its elegantly adorned and perfectly groomed horses will have paraded the happy couple through cheering crowds in a London bedecked with Union Jacks and flowers. And the guests in their finery will have feasted on a sumptuous wedding breakfast. You needn't be a royal watcher to join whole-heartedly in the rejoicing at a wedding. And we should celebrate -- not because the principals are royalty, but because marriage itself badly needs reinforcing. For the past several decades, we've been conducting an experiment to determine whether marriage really matters all that much to society. The results are in. But the news hasn't yet been taken on board.
Eichmann's Evil No Longer Banal
BERLIN -- Angela Merkel is losing her edge. Her party reacts to setbacks in local elections and is sidetracked by France's assertion of leadership toward the Arab Spring. But culturally and intellectually, Berlin is still the European capital pushing the envelope. Berlin drives the engine for thinking and rethinking Germany's past. A new exhibition marking the 50th anniversary of the trial of Adolf Eichmann, which ran in Jerusalem for nine months beginning in April 1961, continues this critical rethinking. "Facing Justice -- Adolf Eichmann on Trial," at the Topography of Terror, which documents the Nazi apparatus in the Third Reich, brings it back for updated reflection, with photographs and videos of witnesses, prosecutors, defense lawyers and judges.
Democrats' Hispanic Problem
Among the challenges facing the Democrats in the 2012 election is the prospect that President Barack Obama will not be able to re-energize his base -- which included record numbers of Hispanic voters in 2008. Hispanics gave Obama 67 percent of their votes, but just as importantly, Hispanic turnout was higher than usual. More than 10 million Hispanics cast 9 percent of the total vote, the largest ever. But many Hispanics have soured on Obama -- and not just because he failed to deliver on his promise of comprehensive immigration reform. Like most other Americans, Hispanics care most about the economy. High unemployment, which is at 11 percent among Hispanics, rising gas prices and a depressed housing market hurt President Obama's chances to repeat his 2008 performance among Hispanic voters.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Democrats' Hypocrisy on Race -- When Will People Wake Up?
Here we go again. A Republican official, this time a member of the Orange County, Calif., GOP central committee, stands accused of -- racism! Her crime? She forwarded, to a circle of friends, an email depicting an image of a family of chimpanzees, with the superimposed face of President Barack Obama over the baby chimp's face. The caption read, "Now you know why no birth certificate." The national media soon picked up the story with the implicit "GOP-is-bigoted" story line.
Barbour's Withdrawal Gives No Clues to GOP 2012 Nominee
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour's abrupt withdrawal from the race for the Republican presidential nomination -- after hiring a topnotch New Hampshire campaign manager and planning to fly around the country next week -- has naturally inspired a lot of punditry on the Republican presidential race. Some of it is nonsense. I read someone earlier this week confidently stating that Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee were the only Republicans who can beat Barack Obama because they're doing better than other possible nominees in polls.
Drug Control vs. Pain Control: A Crackdown on Opioid Prescriptions Will Hurt Patients
Last week, unveiling a plan to curtail "diversion" of opioid painkillers, Obama administration officials said they aim to "strike a balance between our desire to minimize abuse of prescription drugs and the need to ensure access for their legitimate use." This balance will never be achieved because the two goals are fundamentally irreconcilable. Since pain cannot be verified objectively, there is only so much a conscientious doctor can do to make sure a patient is not a malingerer, an addict or a drug dealer. At a certain point, he has to choose between trusting his patients and helping the government enforce its arbitrary dictates regarding psychoactive chemicals. If he sides with his patients, he risks his license, his livelihood and his liberty. If he sides with the government, it is inevitable that some patients will suffer needlessly.
That 3 a.m. Phone Call
Hillary Clinton's campaign ad was memorable. It featured a telephone ringing at 3 a.m. It strongly suggested that Barack Obama was not prepared to take that phone call at that critical hour. Somewhere, a crisis would mount, and the inexperienced Illinois senator was not ready to tackle it, she wanted primary voters to understand. The ad occasioned much comment in the media. Many commentators thought it was Hillary's best argument against her opponent for the Democratic presidential nomination. But commentators aren't the ones who nominate candidates for the White House. And Democratic primary voters preferred that young Hope and Change over old Tough and Ready.
Obama's Budget: More Waste, Fraud and Self-abuse
In a priceless formulation in his budget speech two weeks ago, Obama said that Americans look at the poor and say, "There but for the grace of God go I." And so, in the president's words, "we contribute to programs like Medicare and Social Security." Except we don't "contribute." We are compelled under threat of imprisonment to take out a joint checking account with the government. Ask Wesley Snipes what happens when you fail to "contribute" sufficient alms to Uncle Sam. It's easy to find him: He's sitting in the McKean Federal Correctional Institution in Pennsylvania.
Gold Slams Bernanke
Fed head Ben Bernanke, at his first-ever news conference on Wednesday, slammed the door shut on any new QE3 pump-priming. The $600 billion QE2 program to purchase bonds will end on target at the end of June, and that will be that. Bernanke also suggested that the Fed's "extended period" for the near-zero federal funds target rate could end in a couple of meetings. Perhaps these announcements suggest a bit-less-easy monetary policy. Perhaps. But Bernanke had no defense of the sinking dollar, or the inflation it brings, or the drop in middle-class living standards it causes. So it's little surprise that gold prices surged $24 to $1,526 during the Fed chairman's press conference. Silver jumped sharply, as well. The markets clearly don't see any King Dollar shift by the Fed.
Obama: Running on an Empty Tank
Halfway through his term in office, President Barack Obama faces a crisis that could most probably doom his chances of being re-elected -- he's running out of gas. According to press reports, the respected Lundberg survey showed that the average price for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline in Chicago, for example, now stands at $4.27 -- a 12 cent increase in just the past two weeks. And that, the reports note, is just the average. Several gas stations in Chicago have been selling gasoline for between $4.60 and $4.70 a gallon, according to chicagogasprices.com.