Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Wednesday, March 1, 2017
Go See Sinatra
If the chance is there, if there is a realistic opportunity to actually do it, don’t let that moment pass you by: Get three tickets, and go see Sinatra.
Undermining Academic Achievement
U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement, “The president’s decision to ask Betsy DeVos to run the Department of Education should offend every single American man, woman, and child who has benefitted from the public education system in this country.” Expressing similar sentiments, Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Cedric Richmond said, “I expect that Mrs. DeVos will have an incredibly harmful impact on public education and on black communities nationwide.” Those and many other criticisms of Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos could be dismissed as simply political posturing if we did not have an educational system that is mostly mediocre and is in advanced decay for most black students.
Can a Scientific Law Explain the Oscar-Night Debacle?
The first thing to say is that Sunday night’s bizarreness fits into a more general trend of universal weirdness. It’s as if at some point we took the wrong exit into a parallel universe, and the bungled Oscars are just the latest example that we’re strangers in a strange land (as John Podhoretz joked on Twitter, “The Man in the High Envelope”).
The Bloated Military
Donald Trump once wanted to cut military spending. Before running for president, he said Congress’ automatic “sequestration” cuts didn’t go far enough, that they were “a very small percentage of the cuts that should be made.” Then he ran for office and said he would “make our military so big, so powerful, so strong that nobody — absolutely nobody — is going to mess with us.”
Tuesday, February 28, 2017
My Church as a Social Club
Don’t get me wrong. Churches are much more than just social clubs. Yet the evidence suggests that our churches need to be social clubs.
There Is No Political Solution to a Spiritual Problem
As a people, Americans are accustomed to solving most any problem that confronts us. Whether it was leading a world coalition to defeat the Nazis or responding to Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, as a nation we have consistently risen to the occasion when we were faced with an existential threat. And, by the grace of God, over our 240+ year history, our nation has weathered even the worst of those threats.
Yes, Deconstruct the Administrative State
Steve Bannon blew a dog whistle for constitutional conservatives when he spoke of “deconstructing the administrative state” at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Although not everyone got the reference. Trump haters interpreted the line as an incendiary call to decimate the federal government, when “the administrative state” was a more specific reference to a federal bureaucracy that operates free of the normal checks of democratic accountability.
Toward Better Relations With the Press
Before becoming a newspaper columnist I was a broadcast news reporter for local TV stations and occasionally appeared on the NBC radio and television networks. I have some experience at being on the receiving end of hostilities directed at the media.
Fake News
I hope you are sharing these reports with friends and family members. If they only get their news from the “mainstream media,” they really are getting fake news.
States Are Going Broke Because They Broke the Bank
Governors and state legislators say they are running out of money again, and many are demanding tax hikes to close budget gaps.
A Nation of Immigrants — Only if They Assimilate
I am writing this column in Japan, a country whose crime rate is the lowest among countries with large populations. I asked my Japanese translator, a middle-aged woman, what she thought.
Plumbing the Depths of the Bathroom Debate
The media may disagree on the job Donald Trump’s doing, but the American people sure don’t. By massive margins, they have nothing but praise for the president’s handling of Obama’s transgender mandate.
Monday, February 27, 2017
How to Make America’s Elites More Responsible
Reading about Hollywood’s posturing poseurs deliver their goods at the Oscars (who can stand to watch this event?), as they ooze with self-righteousness and narcissism, triggers a pesky thought that no doubt erupts in the minds of countless normal people. That is, none of those luminaries strutting across the stage are affected by events or ideas targeted by their feverishly stroked, ego-driven drivel.
DeMint at CPAC: ‘Now the Real Fight Begins’
America is worth fighting for. Freedom is worth fighting for. Our ideas of individual liberty, free markets, traditional values and a strong defense are worth fighting for. These conservative ideas make America great and make life better for everyone. And we will always have to fight for these ideas because freedom is a threat to all of those on the Left who want power and control.
Identity Politics: Up From the GRAVE
America is a divided nation, we are told. But what divides us?
Lessons My Father Could Teach President Trump
My father was constantly under attack by liberal pundits and Democrats, Mr. President, but I dare you to try to find a single time when he responded to any of them in the media.
The Barbarians Among Us
When I see the hooligans and brutes trashing city streets and college campuses, I find myself wishing President Trump good luck with his reasonable plan to at least temporarily put a stop to people coming here from hot spots in the Middle East. But I know it’s already too late. The barbarians aren’t merely at the gate, they’re already inside and living next door to us. In some pathetic cases, in our basements.
Sunday, February 26, 2017
‘Big Government’ Is Ever Growing, on the Sly
Since 1960, federal spending, adjusted for inflation, has quintupled and federal undertakings have multiplied like dandelions, but the federal civilian workforce has expanded only negligibly, to approximately what it was when Dwight Eisenhower was elected in 1952. Does this mean that “big government” is not really big?
Saturday, February 25, 2017
Bath Tensions Bubble Over
The media must have gone to Nancy Pelosi’s school of politics: We have to criticize the decision before we know what’s in it! Together with Hollywood, the hysteria over President Trump’s announcement on school showers and bathrooms is so deafening that it’s drowning out the practical effect of the move. Of course, that’s by design.
Washington Still Reels From the Quake of 2016
From the White House’s empty offices to overly giddy CPAC, everyone seems a little lost.