Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Thursday, December 29, 2016
New Year’s Resolution Wish List
The new year is a time to make resolutions to improve your life over the next 12 months. This time around, there’s a new boss in the White House and the Republicans have control of Congress. So though I usually don’t feel I can realistically add big sweeping changes to my list — a tactic often likelier to yield failure and frustration than success — I am going to dream a little and call for boldness on top of no-brainer reforms.
This Christmas Season Was Different
Around Thanksgiving time, I noticed portents of this Christmas season being different. I noticed it when people unbidden would wish me happy Thanksgiving. There seemed to be a note of exultance in their greeting. Not everyone would say “happy Thanksgiving,” but enough did that it got me to wondering. Was this Thanksgiving different, and if so, would this Christmas be any different?
Obama Crowns Himself to a Third Term
Still shell-shocked from his party’s Nov. 8 beating, President Barack Obama said, “I’m confident that if I had run again and articulated it, I think I could’ve mobilized a majority of the American people to rally behind it” to win a third term.
More Punches Coming?
Secretary of State John Kerry delivered a major address [yesterday] outlining his ideas for Middle East peace. There are growing concerns after last week’s outrageous U.N. vote that Kerry’s speech is laying the groundwork for more gut punches against our ally Israel in Obama’s closing days.
Standing ‘Idly By’
Secretary of State John Kerry used the word “conscience” over and over again as he attempted to explain and justify the Obama administration’s decision not to veto a one-sided U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israel. He added that the U.S. could not “stand idly by” while Israel torpedoed any hope for a two-state solution.
Was Duck Dynasty Responsible for Trump’s Victory?
It turns out the 2016 presidential election may have had less to do with New York City’s Upper West Side and more to do with the bayous of Louisiana.
Wednesday, December 28, 2016
Farewell
Even the best things come to an end. After enjoying a quarter of a century of writing this column for Creators Syndicate, I have decided to stop. Age 86 is well past the usual retirement age, so the question is not why I am quitting, but why I kept at it so long.
Trump’s Choice
America’s socialists — I mean, progressives — are enraged that President-elect Trump chose Betsy DeVos to be his secretary of education.
Obama Abandons Israel
While Christians across America were preparing for the Christmas holiday, the Obama administration threw its sympathies and support to those who oppress Christians in the cradle of Christianity — Bethlehem and elsewhere.
Thank You, Professor Sowell
I first read Thomas Sowell in college — no thanks to my college. At the majority of America’s institutions of “higher learning,” reading Thomas Sowell was a subversive act in the early 1990s when I was a student. It remains so today. Why? Because the prolific libertarian economist’s vast body of work is a clarion rejection of all the liberal intelligentsia hold dear.
Obama’s Skewed Moral Universe
President Barack Obama likes to see himself as a moral leader. “The arc of the moral universe is long,” Obama likes to say, quoting Martin Luther King Jr, “but it bends toward justice.” According to Obama, Obama is a genteel representative of decency and good grace, a man pointing America toward a broader vision, a fellow questing for social justice and contextual consideration.
Nine Things the GOP Congress Must Do
Donald Trump can be a great president. But for that to happen, two things must occur: He must follow through on key campaign commitments, and the Republican Congress must act on them.
Obama’s Betrayal
In an administration that has moved from one low to the next when it comes to foreign policy and our role in the world, Obama set a new low last weekend as Jews and Christians were preparing to celebrate Chanukah and Christmas. If you are confused about how damaging last week’s UN Security Council vote is, all you need to know is that decent people on the left and right are condemning it, while Hamas and Islamic Jihad are dancing in the streets.
Obama Stabbed Israel in the Back
While Christmas carolers were proclaiming Joy to the World, President Obama was backstabbing Israel.
Wealth, Poverty and Politics
Thomas Sowell has just published a revised and enlarged edition of his classic “Wealth, Poverty and Politics.” At the very beginning, he quotes Alexander Hamilton, who said, “The wealth of nations depends upon an infinite variety of causes.” The book’s 16 chapters apply Hamilton’s notion to domestic, as well as international, differences in wealth. In both academic and popular literature, it is implicitly assumed that economic equality is natural, automatic and common. Thus, people see wealth inequality as a mystery that must be explained. The fact of the matter is precisely the opposite.
Does a ‘Never Trumper’ Need to Be Forgiven?
“I forgive you.” I’ve lost count of how many people have told me that since Election Day. Of course, the number pales in comparison with the legions who’ve told me I was “wrong about everything” this year and that the election of Donald Trump will spell the end of my relevance, my career and, in a few trollish instances, my life. But it’s the unsolicited forgiveness that stings more.
The Newspapers Bully Sen. Sessions
When Congress returns in January, the Democrats will be gunning for several of President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees. The left has already launched negative narratives on several, especially Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Trump’s pick for attorney general. Not only are the left-wing news media giving oxygen to these vitriolic attacks but in some cases they are the very authors.
Tuesday, December 27, 2016
More Terror, More Denial
Recent terrorist attacks in Ankara, Turkey, and Berlin, Germany, add to a growing list of incidents that are becoming increasingly difficult to remember. Does one begin the list with the plane hijackings in the ’60s and ’70s, or the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, or the USS Cole attack in 2000, or the second World Trade Center attack in 2001, or Ft. Hood, San Bernardino, Orlando, Paris or Nice? And that’s not all of them, nor will it be the end of them, if we don’t have a better response.
Random Thoughts, Looking Back
Any honest man, looking back on a very long life, must admit — even if only to himself — being a relic of a bygone era. Having lived long enough to have seen both “the greatest generation” that fought World War II and the gratingest generation that we see all around us today, makes being a relic of the past more of a boast than an admission.
Trump Nixes Pet Projects of Liberal and Conservative Elites
It’s been a tough year for political elites, here and around the world, what with the passage of Brexit in June in Britain, the repudiation of Colombia’s Nobel Peace Prize recipient in the October FARC referendum and the defeat of America’s Nobel Peace Prize recipient’s preferred candidate in the November presidential election.