Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
From The Comedy Store
Real Housewives of D.C. starred White House crasher Michaela Salahi. She made it into a White House state dinner last fall by slipping past guards at the fence. Barack Obama shook her hand in the receiving line and gave her U.S. citizenship.
The Bounty On Sheriff Joe
For several years one of my biggest heroes has been ‘Sheriff Joe,” the colorful Joe Arpaio of Arizona’s Maricopa County. If ever there was a face for Arizona’s fearless fight against illegal immigrants it is the Massachusetts-born lawman whose no-nonsense approach towards crime in Phoenix has enthralled millions just like me.
How Obama Is Locking Up Our Land
Have you heard of the "Great Outdoors Initiative"? Chances are, you haven't. But across the country, White House officials have been meeting quietly with environmental groups to map out government plans for acquiring untold millions of acres of both public and private land. It's another stealthy power grab through executive order that promises to radically transform the American way of life.
Keeping Tabs on Libs
When it comes to liberals, there are simply not enough hours in a day for one person to record all of their mischief. Speaking for myself, even if I had a staff the size of Mrs. Obama, I’d probably still fall behind.
Friday, August 13, 2010
America Free Falling
To conjure a feeling of happier times, I recently went to a concert given by rock legend Tom Petty. It was hard not to notice that his band is called the "Heartbreakers." Read on, and I'll detail the point in a way many of you will identify with.
The New Dance on a Pinhead
It's been a long time since Nietzsche announced that God is dead. But debates over the existence of God have taken on an urgency in the 21st century, mainly argued by atheists eager to take on those long-dead monks who counted the angels dancing on the head of a pin. Theology is not a popular subject at the dinner parties of urban political sophisticates; a host who says grace before a meal could curdle the gazpacho. But atheism is a fashionable topic in Washington.
Bean-Counters and Baloney
The bean-counters have struck again-- this time in the sports pages. Two New York Times sport writers have discovered that baseball coaches from minority groups are found more often coaching at first base than at third base. Moreover, third-base coaches become managers more often than first-base coaches. This may seem to be just another passing piece of silliness. But it is part of a more general bean-counting mentality that turns statistical differences into grievances. The time is long overdue to throw this race card out of the deck and start seeing it for the gross fallacy that it is.
Hugh Hefner's Deep Self-Love
Hugh Hefner, America's most celebrated and legendary pornographer, has less and less reason to celebrate. His Playboy magazine empire is crumbling -- he may even be bought out by competitors -- and his prototypical leering pose with girls young enough to be his great-granddaughters is now just plain creepy. His 2009 Christmas card featured 83-year-old Hefner standing between two 20-year-old twins who are his newest live-in girlfriends. Each was wearing a pink tank top with "Hef" painted on it in white. Hefner's women are forever the plastic toys under his tree.
Midsummer Madness
Temperatures in Washington were so high this week that White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, perhaps suffering from dehydration, had a brief moment of lucid candor. During an interview with the newspaper The Hill, Gibbs took a page from Sean Hannity's playbook and castigated the "professional left" for criticizing President Barack Obama's handling of the war in Afghanistan and his unfulfilled pledge to close the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention facility. "I hear," Gibbs said, "these people saying he's like George (W.) Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested. I mean, it's crazy."
Equipping Children With Spiritual and Political Armor
As my friends' kids leave the nest for their first year away at college, I think of the monolithic ideas with which they will surely be bombarded in an environment that is supposed to expose them to a variety of ideas. Are they prepared to resist the seductive but destructive message?
Did He Spy for Nothing?
Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the 43-year-old Iranian mother of two whose death by stoning was commuted to death by hanging (so generous) after an international outcry, appeared on Iranian television this week. Speaking unsteadily in her native Azeri, Ashtiani admitted to being an accomplice to her husband's murder and of committing adultery with her husband's cousin.
Race-Card Payment Coming Due
"The race card is maxed out." That was the punch line for a recent hilarious exchange on "The Daily Show" in which Larry Wilmore, the faux news program's "senior black correspondent," reported that the race card is not only over its credit limit but is in fact "void during a black presidency." This discovery came in the wake of Maxine Waters' allegation that her political problems stem from a racially biased congressional ethics investigation.
Sacrilege at Ground Zero
WASHINGTON -- A place is made sacred by a widespread belief that it was visited by the miraculous or the transcendent (Lourdes, the Temple Mount), by the presence there once of great nobility and sacrifice (Gettysburg), or by the blood of martyrs and the indescribable suffering of the innocent (Auschwitz).
The Advance of Bloodline Citizenship
WASHINGTON -- The final state to ratify the 14th Amendment was Ohio -- in September 2003. The Ohio Legislature had passed the amendment in 1867, but then rescinded its approval a year later, claiming it was "contrary to the best interests of the white race." When Ohio finally rectified this embarrassing bit of history, just one legislator -- Republican state Rep. Tom Brinkman from Cincinnati -- voted against it. His opposition was viewed as an isolated curiosity.
Stop Racial Pandering
Harry Reid has stuck his foot in his mouth once again, this time suggesting he doesn't know "how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican." Really? You can't be both Hispanic and Republican? I guess Marco Rubio, Susana Martinez, John Sanchez, and Brian Sandoval -- to name just the top tier of Republican Hispanics who have won their party's nomination for statewide office this year -- had either better quit the GOP or change their names. This kind of racial stereotyping is offensive. Liberals have engaged in it for years, but conservatives aren't immune either.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Downsizing Defense
As Republicans take their case to the voters in November about the Obama administration's massive overspending and record debt, they should seriously consider what could be a rare bipartisan objective: cutting defense spending. Defense Secretary Robert Gates -- a George W. Bush appointee and an Obama holdover -- has announced plans to reduce what he calls the "cumbersome" American military hierarchy. Gates also wants to cut spending by more than one-quarter on support contractors and close the Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Va., which, according to the Washington Post, "employs about 2,800 military and civilian personnel as well as 3,300 contractors, most of them in southeastern Virginia."
Blood Diamonds Meet U.N. Swells
Prosecutors at the U.N. Special Court for Sierra Leone at The Hague interrupted the trial of former Liberian leader Charles Taylor last week with some comic relief. They put supermodel Naomi Campbell on the stand to tie Taylor to the trade of "blood diamonds."
Let's Play 'Spot the Democrat'!
In the greatest party-affiliation cover-up since the media tried to portray Gary Condit as a Republican, the media are refusing to mention the party affiliation of the thieving government officials in Bell, Calif. There have been hundreds of news stories about Bell city officials' jaw-dropping salaries. In this poor city on the outskirts of Los Angeles, where the per capita annual income is $24,800 a year, the city manager, Robert Rizzo, had a salary of $787,637.
Obama's State Capitalism: A Failure of Modesty
"The pace of economic recovery is likely to be more modest in the near term than had been anticipated." Those were the carefully chosen words of the Federal Reserve Board after its meeting Tuesday. Translation into English: We wuz wrong.
How to Stop the Tyrannical Judiciary
Quick quiz: What do we call a system of government in which an unelected cadre of self-professed wise men make decisions for a nation of millions, all the while insulting those millions as ignoramuses?