Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Wedding of the ... What?
Count me among the abstainers. I won't be watching over-the-top media coverage of Friday's wedding between Prince William and the "commoner" Kate Middleton. After the "wedding of the century" of William's mother and father in 1981 and the ensuing drama that led to their divorce in 1996 and, eventually, her death on Aug. 31, 1997, the wedding of their son is unlikely to match the earlier nuptials in pomp or circumstance.
Liberalism's Death Croak
WASHINGTON -- While inspecting the body politic, one encounters one clear sign that liberalism is dead. It is the condition of our political discourse. Polite commentators note that the dialogue is "rancorous." Some say toxic. Actually, it is worse than that. It is nonexistent. From the right, from the sophisticated right, there is an attempt to engage the liberals. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan just did it by presenting a budget that cried out for intelligent response. President Barack Obama's response was to invite Ryan to sit in the front row for his "fiscal policy" speech at George Washington University. There Obama heaped scorn on an astonished Ryan and his work. He did not even mention Ryan's name. This is what Obama calls an "adult" debate?
Seeking a Money Tree
WASHINGTON -- Memo to Democratic senators eager to vote themselves campaign subsidies in the name of combating corruption: You really should not cloak your self-serving crusade in a claim that could be called intellectual corruption. A Senate subcommittee chaired by Dick Durbin, the Illinois Democrat, recently held a hearing -- only Democrats attended -- on his legislation to provide government funding for Senate campaigns. Durbin's website advertised the bill as "a comprehensive response to Citizens United," a reference to the 2010 Supreme Court decision in the case with that title. But Durbin first introduced essentially this bill (with companion House bills to fund congressional campaigns) almost three years before the court decision to which it supposedly responds.
Letters Dept.
Dear Grandma, It was wholly a pleasure to get your reaction to my obituary tribute to the late Bernard Nathanson, M.D., a prominent pro-choice leader who became an even more prominent pro-life advocate. Because he could no longer ignore advances in prenatal technology, like ultrasound imagery, that made it impossible for him to deny he was destroying a human life -- instead of just "an undifferentiated mass of cells." It was good of you to share the story of your own journey along the same road to Damascus -- a road I, too, took over the years. Although my change of heart, and mind, on the abortion issue was more of an evolution than your moment of truth. Here's how you describe it:
Poll Provides Gives Early Glimpse into GOP Presidential Contest
A recent NewsMax/InsiderAdvantage scientific national survey of likely voters in Republican presidential caucuses and primaries to be held next year provides a clear view of one fact: Any major candidate could win the GOP nomination, if -- and it's a big if -- they follow the right strategy. Let's look at the potential candidates for 2012 and use the poll to tell us what they need to do to make it to the GOP convention in Tampa.
Happy Birth Certificate, Mr. President
By asking why President Obama had not released his long-form birth certificate on numerous so-called news shows, Trump had even usually sensible people theorizing over lunch as to why the White House had not released the document. Was there something damning about the president's religion? His race? His parentage? My theory was simpler. In 2008, Obama released a certificate of live birth. Why did he wait until Wednesday to release the long-form, which birth deniers demanded? Easy. Who doesn't like watching his political enemies look like complete dolts? Obamaland no doubt felt a warm rush of satisfaction every time some nut job right-winger put forth a contorted theory about the president's 18-year-old mother running off to a Third World delivery room to give birth and then, Manchurian-like, falsifying the paperwork. The debate debased conservative opposition.
Questions & Answers
Why don't the avid environmentalists, the goofy folks who still believe that Mother Earth is heating up at an alarming rate and that carbon dioxide is a pollutant, ever show up at the White House and picket Obama, the guy whose massive ego is only exceeded by his carbon footprint? We already know that all it takes is for Barack to sniff a couple of campaign dollars lurking in the far reaches of Hawaii and he has Air Force One warming up on the tarmac. But, according to an item I read in Townhall magazine, the Obamas also insist on flying their personal trainer, Cornell McLellan, in from Chicago every week. The Washington Examiner's J.P. Freire claims that little presidential perk results in 50,000 pounds of carbon emissions in a typical year. While I don't know who is footing the bill or why the Obamas can't make do with a personal trainer within walking distance of the White House, I would have thought that Barack was getting more than enough exercise just from lifting the national deficit to record heights while simultaneously kicking spending cuts down the road.
Are Sky-High Gas Prices Good?
Are high gas prices a good thing? That is not as dumb a question as it sounds. Examine a few revealing past remarks from President Obama and the Cabinet officials who are now in charge of the nation's energy use and oil leases on federal lands. Then decide whether the current soaring gas prices are supposed to be good or bad. In 2008, then-Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar -- now the secretary of the Department of the Interior in charge of the leasing of federal oil lands -- refused to vote for any new offshore drilling. In a Senate exchange with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Salazar objected to allowing any drilling on America's outer continental shelf -- even if gas prices reached $10 a gallon. We can now see why the president appointed Salazar, inasmuch as Obama recently promised the Brazilians that he would be eager to buy their newfound offshore oil -- while prohibiting similar such exploration here at home.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Smugglers as Heroes
Smugglers are heroes of sorts. The essence of what a smuggler offers is: "Government tyrants want to either prevent or interfere with peaceable voluntary exchange among individuals. I can reduce the impact of that interference." Let's look at smuggling, keeping in mind that not everything illegal is immoral and not everything legal is moral. Leading up to our War of Independence, the British, under the Navigation Acts, had levied taxes on a wide range of imports. One of those taxes was on molasses imported from non-British islands. John Hancock, whose flamboyant signature graces our Declaration of Independence, had a thriving business smuggling an estimated 1.5 million gallons of molasses a year. His smuggling practices financed much of the resistance to British authority. In fact, a joke of the time was "Sam Adams writes the letters (to newspapers) and John Hancock pays the postage."
More Than Bunnies and Eggs
"What did you do for Easter?" It's a question I often ask people at this time of year. Mostly I get answers like, "Oh, we had a big dinner with the family," or "We had a very generous visit from the Easter Bunny." I love the rituals of Easter, to be sure. But when I hear those answers -- and nothing more -- it breaks my heart.
Now It's Debt, Now It Isn't
On Feb. 12, 2010, President Barack Obama signed a law increasing the legal limit on the national debt from $12.394 trillion to $14.294 trillion. That gave the U.S. Treasury the legal authority to go out and borrow an additional $1.9 trillion -- about another $16,165 per American household. By the close of business on Monday, the Treasury had almost finished borrowing all that. The portion of the national debt subject to $14.294 trillion limit stood at $14.246886 -- leaving the Treasury another $47.114 billion in borrowing authority before hitting the legal limit.
Obama Unloved, Here and Abroad
In the Bush years, poll results that showed the American people losing confidence in their president were featured routinely on the front page of major newspapers like The Washington Post. But when the Post discovers that President Obama's ratings are collapsing, you need a search party to find where inside the paper they're buried. On April 26, the Post offered three stories on polls, each with bad news for Obama. The only one mentioned on the front page (in the very bottom right-hand corner) was a Post/ABC poll showing "rising gas prices are leading Americans to drive less, and hurting the president's popularity." From there, the reader would have to travel to page A-12.
Race and Economics
Walter Williams fans are in for a treat -- and people who are not Walter Williams fans are in for a shock -- when they read his latest book, "Race and Economics." It is a demolition derby on paper, as Professor Williams destroys one after another of the popular fallacies about the role of race in the American economy. I can still vividly recall the response to one of Walter's earliest writings, back in the 1970s, when he and I were working on the same research project in Washington. Walter wrote a brief article that destroyed the central theme of one of the fashionable books of the time, "The Poor Pay More."
Cooling on Global Warming
"What the heck went wrong?" That, apparently, is the question roiling the environmental community as it realizes that the fight against climate change has fizzled. As Brad Plumer writes in the New Republic, everything was looking great in 2008 for a sweeping effort to make good on candidate Barack Obama's pledge to start turning back the rising oceans. The Democrats held Congress. Both John McCain and Obama had promised to push for capping carbon emissions. Corporations had gotten on board. Al Gore and "An Inconvenient Truth" had seemingly softened up the public to the point where it might go along with whatever a popular president promised.
He's Serious, All Right, But Not About the Deficit
The elephant in the room is getting harder and harder to ignore. It's not just bigger than ever, but threatens to go on a rampage that could lay waste everything around it. This particular elephant has a name: the national debt. The neighbors who have been propping it up -- by buying the government's bonds -- can't help but notice how huge it's become, and wonder how safe they'll be once the beast gets completely out of control.
Government Creates Poverty
The U.S. government has "helped" no group more than it has "helped" the American Indians. It stuns me when President Obama appears before Indian groups and says things like, "Few have been ignored by Washington for as long as Native Americans." Ignored? Are you kidding me? They should be so lucky. The government has made most Indian tribes wards of the state. Government manages their land, provides their health care, and pays for housing and child care. Twenty different departments and agencies have special "native American" programs. The result? Indians have the highest poverty rate, nearly 25 percent, and the lowest life expectancy of any group in America. Sixty-six percent are born to single mothers.
Maxine Waters: Swamp Queen
Confirmed: "Drain the swamp" is Washington-speak for "Let it fester." While House ethics watchdogs dither, it's shady business as usual for ethics scandal-plagued Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters. Last summer, the House Ethics Committee charged the entrenched California congresswoman with three violations related to her wheeling and dealing on behalf of minority-owned OneUnited Bank in Los Angeles. The panel accused Waters of bringing discredit to the House for using her influence to seek and secure taxpayer-subsidized special favors for the failing financial institution.
The True and Ugly Story of Earth Day
On April 22, President Obama announced the celebration of the 41st Earth Day. Unappeased, the Earth immediately spawned a tornado that ripped away half of the St. Louis airport, an earthquake in Indonesia, and a rainstorm that kept Michelle Obama from making her scheduled Earth Day event. It's the Earth's party, and it can fuss if it wants to. While Christians across the world marked Easter and Jews marked Passover, liberals marked their annual ode to neo-paganism with hippy-dippy exercises in green self-righteousness. Of course, they neglected to mention that Gaia herself was a Greek hussy who mythologically created the oceans and the depths by an incestuous relationship with her son, Uranus. They also neglected to mention that one original co-founder of Earth Day was a murderer, that its first backers were tie-dyed socialists who hated capitalism, and that Earth Day itself was timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Lenin.
Only the Republican Study Committee Budget Gets the Job Done
Last weekend, David Ignatius in his Washington Post column made a vital contribution to the debt and deficit debate: "Take the deficit pain now. It's a truth of economics and life that if you have bad news coming, take the hit early and get it behind you. You can't start building until the debris is out of the way." Ignatius offers various examples from history (e.g., Fed Chairman Paul Volker's 1979 interest rate hikes that caused the recessions of the early '80s, but broke the inflation psychology and (I would add, with Ronald Reagan's policies) built the foundation for 25 years of prosperity.
Gadhafi's Five-Front War
For almost seven weeks, Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi's loyalists and mercenary soldiers have besieged the city of Misrata. Rebel fighters and Misrata's citizenry have suffered brutal assault after assault, but with the aid of NATO and coalition air power, they have denied Gadhafi's regime a key military and political goal: complete control of western Libya's coastal cities and towns. Reports began to circulate on April 25 that Gadhafi's forces, after a bloody fight in a key neighborhood, had retreated to the outskirts of Misrata. The city, however, remains surrounded.