Right Opinion

Is There Good News in the Holy Land?

JERUSALEM -- "All of these correspondents," IDF spokeswoman Avital Leibovich notes, referring to the hundreds of reporters, photographers, and producers from world press organizations stationed in Jerusalem, "are not here to report on Tel Aviv's beaches or the wineries of Judea and Samaria. They are here to report the conflict."

Conservative Solutions for All

Good Riddance to Old School

Joe Denucci, a onetime prizefighter turned Massachusetts politician, steps down this month after 34 years on Beacon Hill: 10 years as a state representative, followed by 24 years as state auditor. He is being celebrated in some circles as the last of a political breed -- an unpolished, down-to-earth, working-class guy who made good, had a big heart, and took care of his pals. "To the end, championing others," ran the headline over a Globe story last week marking the end of DeNucci's long run in politics. The retiring auditor "is of the old school and makes no apology for that," the Globe noted. "He is the product of a culture that prized helping those around you, which has permeated Massachusetts politics for as long as anyone can remember, but is under attack now." The story makes clear that DeNucci sees nothing wrong with patronage. "We all did it," he says. "It was about helping people; some I knew, some I didn't."

Personal Well-being Overshadows Income Inequality

Consider one conundrum in American politics. Income inequality has been increasing, according to standard statistics. Yet most Americans do not seem very perturbed by it. Barack Obama may have been elected president after telling Joe the Plumber that he wanted to spread the wealth around. But large majorities in polls approved when Obama and congressional Democrats abandoned oft-repeated campaign promises to raise taxes on high earners in the lame duck session. Why don't voters care more?

The Lamest Duck of All

The question, boys and girls, is: Just how dumb do you have to be in order to be a Republican politician? I actually believed those ignoramuses had learned their lesson after the elections of 2006 and 2008. I was convinced that they'd seen the error of their ways, that cozying up to the likes of Ted Kennedy and Russ Feingold could only lead to both liberals and conservatives holding them in utter contempt.

Intimidation and Tyranny

While WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is celebrating his $1 million-plus book deal on a 600-acre estate and enjoying his status as a lefty fringe hero, former cartoonist Molly Norris is in hiding. The moral of this column is that in today's world, cartoons, if they target Islam, can be more hazardous to your health than crossing the mighty U.S. government and its allies.

A Fire That Needs Stoking

WASHINGTON -- New Republican legislators should come down Capitol Hill to the National Museum of American History, which displays a device that in 1849 was granted U.S. patent 6469. It enabled a boat's "draught of water to be readily lessened" so it could "pass over bars, or through shallow water." The patentee was from Sangamon County, Ill. Across Constitution Avenue, over the Commerce Department's north entrance, are some words of the patentee, Abraham Lincoln: THE PATENT SYSTEM ADDED THE FUEL OF INTEREST TO THE FIRE OF GENIUS Stoking that fire is, more than ever, a proper federal function, so the legislators should be given some reading matter. One is William Rosen's book "The Most Powerful Idea in the World," a study of the culture of invention. Another is the National Academy of Sciences report "Rising Above the Gathering Storm, Revisited," an addendum to a 2005 report on declining support for science and engineering research.

Liberals Don't Deserve America

Considering the way that Obama shows his contempt for patriotism time and again -- as when he misquotes the Declaration of Independence, neglects to place his hand over his heart at flag ceremonies and denies American exceptionalism at every opportunity -- you'd think he'd learn to leave symbolic gestures to the professionals. Instead, whether the issue is closing Gitmo, providing civilian trials for Islamic terrorists or racial profiling at airports, his sole consideration seems to be whether something will annoy Muslims. Understand, I'm not claiming he is a Muslim. I have no proof of that. I'm claiming he's an arrogant idiot.

From The Comedy Store

WikiLeaks' Julian Assange agreed to write his memoirs for one million dollars. He hacked into U.S. government computers and revealed every U.S. government secret to the world. This is the biggest invasion of privacy since the invention of Facebook.

Shortcut to Redemption

One of the best things I read all year came in a magazine I don't read, about a subject I don't follow, by an author I don't agree with on nearly anything. But Matt Taibbi's "The Jock's Guide to Getting Arrested" in the August 2010 Men's Journal was simply a great piece of writing. I bring it up because Michael Vick is in the news, and Taibbi's rule No. 1 for athletes who get arrested is "Don't Suck."

True Grit Redux

"True Grit" is a tale whose time had come and gone. It's the good fortune of a new generation that its time has come again. The novel by Charles Portis, which sold only about 25,000 copies between 2007 and 2009, has been bought by 10,000 new readers since the new version of the movie opened this month. In an age when twittering conversation is limited to 140 characters, where children become chubby couch potatoes changing channels with a remote control or playing war games moving fantasy soldiers around on a screen, Mattie Ross is an authentic heroine -- lean, mean, articulate and downright inspirational at the toughened age of 14.

Great Expectations

WASHINGTON -- "Happy new year," I said to the long-haul trucker as we arrived simultaneously at the door of a service station just off Interstate 70 near Frederick, Md. The temperature was in the teens; the wind was gusting at more than 30 miles per hour; and his 18-wheel rig was covered with residue of the blizzard he had driven through on his way west. "What's to be happy about?" was his frosty response to my cheery salutation. He continued in a tone more frigid than the weather: "Have you seen the price of diesel fuel? It's going to cost you 50 bucks to fill up your SUV. It's going to run me almost a grand. I'm an independent trucker. My wife lost her job last year when the company where she worked for 15 years shut down. I'm hauling Chinese-made auto parts from Baltimore to Indianapolis and then a load of scrap steel to California for shipment to China. My wife and our three kids are counting on me. And the clowns in Washington are trying to put me out of business."

Good Governance

Every member of Congress takes an oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic," but the newly elected 112th Congress will be the first in the nation's history to hear the text actually read aloud when the House convenes Jan. 5. The success of the tea party movement in the last election is the impetus behind the first public reading (the text has been inserted in the Congressional Record twice), and it sets the stage for the battles to be waged over the next two years. Many of the conservative newcomers think of themselves first and foremost as constitutionalists, but they will face challenges when it comes time to put their principles into action.

Big Labor's Snowmageddon Snit Fit

Diligent English farmers of old once shared a motto about the blessings of work: "Industry produces wealth, God speed the plow." Indolent New York City union officials who oversee snow removal apparently live by a different creed: Sloth enhances political power, Da Boss slow the plow.

Message to New Congress: Don't Be a Weiner

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The army of newly elected Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives will be arriving here this coming week. They've already capsized the proverbial political apple cart. Now they're ready to change the nation, or so they say. But they're about to encounter the stark realities of life in the nation's capital. I'm optimistic about their policy goals and their determination to change the way the House operates. But their bright-eyed good intentions need to be checked with this warning: Serving in Congress is like attending the endless, wretched traveling show that most of us know as Cirque du Soleil.

Government by Regulation. Shhh

WASHINGTON -- Most people don't remember Obamacare's notorious Section 1233, mandating government payments for end-of-life counseling. It aroused so much anxiety as a possible first slippery step on the road to state-mandated late-life rationing that the Senate never included it in the final health care law. Well, it's back -- by administrative fiat. A month ago, Medicare issued a regulation providing for end-of-life counseling during annual "wellness" visits. It was all nicely buried amid the simultaneous release of hundreds of new Medicare rules.

Cultural Winners and Losers, 2010

2010 may have been an encouraging year for political conservatives, but it wasn't so rosy for America's culture. The most depressing result was the Second Circuit Court of Appeals granting our television networks the right to employ the nastiest curse words in front of children at any hour of the broadcast day. In her opinion, Judge Rosemary Pooler insisted that the TV networks weren't pushing the envelope like "a petulant teenager angling for a later curfew"; they were good people with a "a good faith desire to comply with the FCC's indecency regime." The judge should win some sort of Alice-in-Wonderland prize for declaring the absolute opposite of all the evidence right in front of her face. Here are my other choices for other cultural winners and losers this year:

The Administration's Administrative Tyranny Marches on

This administration is abusive enough when it acts outside its constitutional authority, but it is even more tyrannical when it affirmatively thwarts the express will of the Congress on matters within the legislative domain. When Congress denied Obama authority to transfer money to the International Monetary Fund, he did so anyway, issuing an executive order promising to give that body $140 billion for redistribution to Third World countries.

Liberals Give 'Til It Hurts (You)

Liberals never tire of discussing their own generosity, particularly when demanding that the government take your money by force to fund shiftless government employees overseeing counterproductive government programs. They seem to have replaced "God" with "Government" in scriptural phrases such as "love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." (Matthew 22:37) This week, we'll take a peek at the charitable giving of these champions of the poor.

Is Hacking Your Spouse's E-Mail Truly a Crime?

Michigan prosecutor Jessica R. Cooper's bio boasts that she is a "pioneer in the world of women in the law." As it turns out, she is a pioneer in the world of busybodies in the law as well. Cooper is the Oakland County prosecutor who charged Leon Walker, 33, with a felony for hacking into his now ex-wife's e-mail, as he suspected that she was having an affair. This sorry episode began when Walker logged into his wife, Clara's, Gmail account. What he saw led him to believe his wife was having an affair with her second husband, who, according to news reports, had been arrested on charges of beating Clara in front of her son from her first marriage.