Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Wednesday, December 21, 2016
Trump’s Envoy to Israel Is Ready to Slay Some Sacred Cows
David Friedman avidly supports expanding Israeli settlements in the West Bank, unequivocally rejects a “two-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and strongly believes the U.S. embassy in Israel should be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Those positions put Friedman — Donald Trump’s bankruptcy lawyer and close friend — sharply at odds with the U.S. foreign-policy establishment and entrenched conventional wisdom. So when the president-elect announced on Thursday that Friedman was his choice to be the next ambassador to Israel, alarm bells started clanging.
Obama Tries to Define Away Reality, but Reality Wins
Last Friday, President Obama gave his last press conference as commander in chief. Undeterred by his would-be successor’s devastating loss to Donald Trump in the presidential election, unswayed by Republicans’ complete domination of Congress, state legislatures and governor mansions, he maintained his cool and collected self-aggrandizement. Why not? According to Obama, Obama has been a major success.
Close Them Down!
Donald Trump is appointing good people — Andy Puzder, for example, Trump’s nominee for labor secretary. When Puzder took over Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s restaurants, they were deep in debt. Four years later, they were profitable. I bet his 70,000 workers are happy about that.
Will Trump Be the ‘Transformative’ President Obama Wanted to Be?
It’s one of the greatest examples of “careful what you wish for” in political history: President Obama is going to be replaced by the kind of Republican he’s always said he wanted. For the entirety of his presidency, Obama has insisted that he is a pragmatist, not an ideologue. Indeed, he seems to think that ideology is a dirty word. “What is required,” Obama declared the day before his first inauguration, “is a new declaration of independence, not just in our nation, but in our own lives — from ideology and small thinking, prejudice and bigotry — an appeal not to our easy instincts but to our better angels.”
A Public Service
Sometimes someone inadvertently performs a public service by bringing an unbelievably stupid and dangerous idea to the surface, where it can be exposed for what it is. The New York Times can be credited — if that is the word — with performing this public service in a recent editorial against proposals to allow law-abiding citizens to carry concealed guns. They refer to what they call the National Rifle Association’s “fantasy that citizens can stand up to gunmen by shooting it out.”
Housing Complex Orders Residents to Remove Nativity
Residents at an affordable housing complex for low-income renters were ordered to remove Nativity scenes and other religious symbols from public areas, the Joplin Globe reports. “It was like somebody brought in a vacuum cleaner and sucked the joy out,” resident Linda Hopper told the newspaper.
Inclusiveness and Diversity
Sometimes it seems as if every other word from the mouths of academicians is “inclusiveness” or “diversity.” How sincere and truthful are these people about their “inclusiveness and diversity” religion?
Tuesday, December 20, 2016
Confirm Jeff Sessions as Attorney General
Contrary to the expectations of many people, President-elect Donald Trump has been filling his cabinet with serious, no-nonsense conservatives. The Left will confront appointees who would make Ronald Reagan proud. None may be more important than Jeff Sessions as Attorney General.
Only Hillary Is to Blame for Her Loss
The Democrats have a simple explanation for Hillary Clinton’s loss — the Russians did it.
Hope and Humility
Former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-WY) once said that, “Those who travel the high road of humility will not be troubled by heavy traffic.” That descriptive and funny line came to mind after I heard what first lady Michelle Obama told Oprah Winfrey last week in a TV interview. Because of Donald Trump’s election, she told the former talk show host, “We are feeling what not having hope feels like.”
The Left’s Shadow Government
The political left is vehemently refusing to accept the results of the November 8th elections. Like spoiled children who do not get their way, the left is throwing a collective temper tantrum. Their behavior is so bad that even liberal Juan Williams conceded yesterday, “There’s no question Democrats run the risk of looking like hypocrites.”
Where Have All the Christmas Decorations Gone? A Meditation on Joyless Secularism
Where I live (near Los Angeles) you can drive for blocks without seeing a single home with Christmas lights, let alone a manger scene or some other religious decoration. And you can drive miles and see fewer than a dozen.
The Right Way to Do Infrastructure Spending
Back in early 2015, oil and gas company ConocoPhillips requested a permit from the Obama administration to launch an oil-drilling project in Alaska. The energy project, called the Greater Mooses Tooth development, is located within the National Petroleum Reserve and would create thousands of jobs in an economically depressed area of the state. The project has the full approval of the local community and poses little threat to the environment in a sparsely populated region.
How the Political Rules Changed in 2016
Over the 40-some years that I have been working or closely observing the political campaign business, the rules of the game haven’t changed much. Technology has changed the business somewhat, but the people who ran campaigns in the 1970s could have (and in some cases actually have) run them four decades later.
The ‘Diversity’ Fraud
Nothing so epitomizes the politically correct gullibility of our times as the magic word “diversity.” The wonders of diversity are proclaimed from the media, extolled in the academy and confirmed in the august chambers of the Supreme Court of the United States. But have you ever seen one speck of hard evidence to support the lofty claims?
Monday, December 19, 2016
Threatening Electors Violates Federal Law. So Why Isn’t Loretta Lynch Doing Anything About It?
Before Donald Trump’s stunning victory on November 8, liberals called for acceptance of election results. But since the election didn’t go as they’d planned, some have taken to harassing and intimidating electors in an attempt to change the election results. Some of these threats may violate federal law, yet the Justice Department acts strangely uninterested in investigating.
SCROOGED: Parents Furious After School Boots Tiny Tim
The fifth graders at Centerville Elementary School in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, have been performing “A Christmas Carol” for decades. But this year that tradition came to an abrupt end.
Pearl Harbor’s Uplifting Lesson
The bitterest of enemies can become the most trusted of friends
Taiwan Calling
The pundits, as usual were up in arms because Donald Trump had accepted a congratulatory call from the president of Taiwan. They weren’t alone. The bureaucrats who take up far too much space at the State Department were also having conniptions. So was China.
Sunday, December 18, 2016
Yes: Havens for Alien Criminals Should Lose Federal Funding
President-elect Donald Trump has promised to do what no prior administration has done: end sanctuary cities. Thank goodness. The federal government should crack down on cities that violate federal immigration law. In the process of flouting the law, these cities wind up creating havens for criminal predators who murder, rape, molest, rob and otherwise victimize law-abiding residents.