Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Friday, March 17, 2017
The Hue and Cry Is Tiring
The website BuzzFeed recently ran an article that a liberal activist paid for documents that showed Exxon-Mobil had paid money to the Trump Organization through a third party to ensure Rex Tillerson became Secretary of State. The documents were forged. The story is nonsense. But many on the left were willing to believe because they want to believe.
A Leisurely Drive Down the Wrong Road
“We all want progress,” C.S. Lewis wrote, “but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.” This has always been one of my favorite distillations of conservatism. In principle, I still believe it, passionately.
‘Unprecedented Overreach’
If the media were fulfilling their role as watchdogs against the abuse of power, they would be calling out these robed radicals. But the media are only interested in thwarting conservatives when they are in power.
Hollywood Rebels Under Trump
Just as the liberal “news” media have doubled down on fierce liberal activism since President Trump’s inauguration, Hollywood is pushing the leftist agenda. Variety celebrates the crusade -- that is what this is -- in an article headlined “TV Gets Woke: How Scripted Series Are Confronting Social Issues Like Never Before.”
More Conservative Than Thou
In our ideologically scrambled age, it’s getting very hard to tell who’s who. Political conservatives have been opposed to “socialized” medicine pretty much forever. Republicans who agreed with this philosophically paid a heavy political price as Democrats rolled out the “Mediscare” tactic every election season.
Judge Watson’s Abominable Travel Ban Ruling
Anyone who understands the modern left could not be shocked by U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson’s issuance of a temporary restraining order against President Donald Trump’s executively invoked travel ban — but that doesn’t make the order any less outrageous.
Planned Parenthood: No Patience for Patients
There’s probably no horror on earth that compares to being sexually abused. For women like the one who wrote to the atheist website Sheologians, it was a nightmare that will take a lifetime of healing. And in a heart-wrenching email, she says that healing didn’t start at Planned Parenthood.
Thursday, March 16, 2017
Preet Bharara ‘Fired’: A Phony Scandal Created by an Obama Appointee
It should come as no surprise that an Obama political appointee (with the cooperation of the media) would try to create a phony scandal out of a routine event. With every new administration, the incoming president asks all U.S. attorneys appointed by the prior administration to resign. After all, they are political appointees, just like cabinet officials and the attorney general, other cabinet members and literally thousands of other jobs within the executive branch.
An Historic Opportunity
President Trump presents his first budget to Congress today (Thursday). It is, as The Washington Post points out, “historic” because if adopted it would be the biggest contraction in the federal government since the end of World War II. Predictably, a Post story focuses on the number of federal workers it estimates could lose their jobs, rather than on whether those jobs and the programs associated with them are necessary.
Deterrence and Human Nature
Deterrence is the strategy of persuading someone in advance not to do something, often by raising the likelihood of punishment. But in the 21st century, we apparently think deterrence is Neanderthal and appeals to the worst aspects of our natures. The alternative view insists that innately nice people respond better to discussion and outreach.
3 Actions for Combatting Government Favoritism
If the pre-budget rumors are true, President Donald Trump is making good on his promise to drain the swamp by putting a few corporate welfare programs, such as the Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corp., on the chopping block. Unfortunately, getting rid of cronyism in the federal government won’t be easy, given the deep-rooted and mutually beneficial relationship between politicians and commercial interests. Still, the new administration and Congress could take some action in the coming year to move in that direction.
Finally, the Boomers’ Comeuppance Begins
I was wondering when it would happen. For over 30 years, I have been anxiously awaiting the backlash. What backlash have I been awaiting, you ask? Why, the backlash to the most self-important, morally superior, narcissistic generation to cast a shadow across this republic in its history: the baby-boom generation. Had the generation just been designated “the babies” and left at that, America would have been on the right track. But as we are now about to discover, though the boomers are declining into senescence, they never really did grow up — or at least their headline-grabbing cohort never did.
When Obama Compared Slaves to Immigrants, He Got Applause; Carson Gets Called ‘Uncle Tom’
Dr. Ben Carson, in a speech before employees of Housing and Urban Development, the department he now runs, likened slaves to “immigrants”: “That’s what America is about, a land of dreams and opportunity. There were other immigrants who came here in the bottom of slave ships, worked even longer, even harder, for less. But they, too, had a dream that one day their sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, great-grandsons, great-granddaughters, might pursue prosperity and happiness in this land.”
Trump’s Taxes
Here’s some “breaking news” thanks to crack investigative reporting by MSNBC: Donald Trump is a rich man who paid a lot of money in taxes.
GOP Responds to Infant Messaging
Which would you rather pay for: a baby shower or a funeral? That’s the very real choice facing taxpayers in the health care debate today. By defunding Planned Parenthood, Americans could celebrate the arrival of thousands more babies or fail and find themselves back where they’ve been: financially shackled to the culture of death. Either way, liberals warn, there’s a cost.
House Republicans Repeat an Obama Error
Like the Democrats in 2009, the majority party’s priorities aren’t responsive to the moment.
The NEA Is a Government Frill That Should Be Shorn
Although the National Endowment for the Arts’ 2016 cost of $148 million was less than one-hundredth of 1 percent of the federal budget, attempting to abolish the NEA is a fight worth having, never mind the certain futility of the fight.
Wednesday, March 15, 2017
Climate Models Fail So Often Because Climate Science Is So Incomplete
“Do you believe,” CNBC’s Joe Kernen asked Scott Pruitt, the Environmental Protection Agency’s new director, in an interview last Thursday, “that it’s been proven that CO2 is the primary control knob for climate?”
Colorado ‘Selfie’ Bill Opens the Door to Vote-Buying and Election Fraud
The secret ballot is a fundamental tenet of American democracy. It was implemented in the United States in the late 1800s to counter widespread instances of bribery and intimidation of voters. Both houses of the Colorado Legislature recently passed a bill that is now sitting on Gov. John Hickenlooper’s desk that would allow voters to take “selfies” of their marked ballots.
Internet Sales Taxes Are Regulation Without Representation
All this talk about “draining the swamp” has the alligators worried. And some of the most aggressive gators in Washington, DC, are actually state governments: they’re perpetually hungry for more tax revenue to fuel their burgeoning bureaucracies back home. One juicy morsel they’d like to snap up is a bigger piece of the e-commerce pie. They’re asking Congress to pass a law to help them pocket sales taxes on goods their residents buy online from out-of-state businesses.