Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
Reflections on an Otherworldly Campaign
For months there’s been a running gag on social media about “Earth 2,” where the 2016 campaign is a happy, normal thing. For instance, in mid-October, shortly after the release of the “Access Hollywood video,” I joked on Twitter that, “On Earth 2 [the GOP] is 15 points ahead, looking to gain seats in Senate. Dems’ October surprise on Rubio’s water bill falls flat.”
Tuesday, November 8, 2016
Painful Choices: Part II
In most Presidential election years, the most important vote is the vote for President of the United States. This year, the most important vote looks like the vote for control of the Senate. Regardless of who wins the White House, the freedom that Americans have taken for granted — taken too much for granted, for far too long — can be destroyed by whomever the next President puts on the Supreme Court.
2016: The Demise of Small-r Republican Politics
Among the many complaints I have seen about this squalid presidential election — the most dismal choice of major-party nominees since 1856 — there’s one that I find missing: that it shows how our politics have become less republican. That’s republican with a small r, in contrast to royalist. This is not an entirely new trend, but it is one that has reached a dismal culmination. In his magisterial book “The Origins of Political Order,” Francis Fukuyama shows how the progress toward good government — “getting to Denmark” is his phrase — involves a change from the familial to the institutional. Progress comes when a nation has a competent state, the rule of law and public accountability.
A Vote for Trump
Trump or Clinton? No one has a clue who will win on Election Day. The polls are narrowing, as they always do, but they’re still all over the place or within the margin of error. Maybe Wisconsin will flip to red. Maybe millions of Colorado’s potheads will vote for Trump. Maybe this time enough socially conservative, union-worshipping Reagan Democrats in western and central Pennsylvania will vote Republican and offset the landslide that Philly and its suburbs gives the Democrat candidate every four years. Maybe the FBI, Wikileaks or the Wall Street Journal will end all the drama and drop another big one on Hillary Clinton’s head this weekend that will expose her crude criminality to even the lowest of America’s low-information voters. Let us pray.
A Final Plea to Never-Trumpers
It is very hard to publicly affirm a position for nearly a year and to then, at the last minute, change one’s mind. Nevertheless, even as late as Election Day itself, I wish to address those conservatives and Republicans who have declared themselves Never-Trumpers. I was one of you in vigorously opposing Trump’s nomination — on my national radio show and in my syndicated column. And I paid a price, as you have, in losing longtime supporters — in my case any number of listeners who supported Trump from the outset and found my strong opposition to him disappointing and worse.
Plenty of Mistakes Maid in Clinton Case
The FBI is full of surprises. It delivered one of the biggest more than a week ago, when Director James Comey officially reopened the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email outrage. Six hundred fifty thousand messages later, the same agency is dropping the blockbuster case and refusing to file criminal charges over the former Secretary of State’s reckless handling of classified information (which, we now know, includes having her maid print off top secret messages!).
Another FBI Bombshell
[Sunday] afternoon, FBI Director James Comey issued another bombshell announcement. The same FBI that took nearly a year to look through 30,000 emails was able to comb through 650,000 in just ten days. Director Comey sent a letter to Capitol Hill [Sunday] informing members of Congress that he saw no reason to change his conclusions from July. The Clinton campaign and its media allies hailed this announcement as a great victory. CNN — the Clinton News Network — ran this headline: “FBI Clears Clinton — Again.”
Hillary Clinton’s 5 Worst Ideas on the Economy
The latest spin out of Washington is that stock-market declines over the last 10 days are due to Donald Trump’s surge in the polls. Well, it is true that Wall Street tends to hate change — even when it’s positive. And if Donald Trump is anything, it is a change agent that will rattle the cages in Washington, D.C., and perhaps on Wall Street. Investors didn’t respond at all well to Ronald Reagan until his policies were put in place and the economy rocketed forward. Only then, in 1982, did the greatest bull-market expansion in American history launch.
John Podesta: The Clintons’ Principal Political Operative
If John Podesta is not a household name today, he is on his way. And why? The thousands of emails dumped by WikiLeaks in the past week came from his account. They are troublesome to Hillary Clinton’s campaign for two reasons: One, they show an intense in-fighting among her closest aides, sometimes even about her fitness for office. Two, they reveal John Podesta as a powerful political figure who has risen to be the most powerful Democrat operative in the nation. That conclusion is obvious from the fact that he is Clinton’s chief of staff, after working for the Clintons and President Obama for more than two decades in very high-level positions.
Painful Choices
Let’s talk sense about the election. Nothing is to be gained by refusing to face the hard facts. What are those facts? First of all, neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump has the qualifications, the track record or the personal character to be President of the United States. Most of us could probably think of a number of people who would be better in the White House. But here, as elsewhere in life, we can only make our choices among the alternatives actually available.
Ever Trump
As a former “Never Trump-er,” I have been interested in others who have converted, however reluctantly, if not into Trump supporters, then pragmatic accepters of Trump against Hillary Clinton. Call us ever-Trump-ers.
Monday, November 7, 2016
Rules of the Game
The underpinnings of a decent society are neutral laws — laws that favor no particular individual or group — and the impartial enforcement of those laws. The U.S. Supreme Court’s job is to ensure the impartial enforcement of our laws. But our two presidential candidates differ in their visions of court appointees. Hillary Clinton says that she would “look broadly and widely for people who represent the diversity of our country” and that “we need a Supreme Court that will stand up on behalf of women’s rights (and) on behalf of the rights of the LGBT community.” In contrast, Donald Trump says, “I will appoint justices who, like Justice (Antonin) Scalia, will protect our liberty with the highest regard for the Constitution.” Limited government and rule of law are conflict-reducing, whereas diversity-oriented justices who stand up for the rights of particular individuals are conflict-enhancing. Let’s look at a simple example of the benefit of neutral rules and their impartial enforcement.
American Farms and Hillary Clinton’s Tax Proposal
America’s agricultural resources are among the best in the world. American farmers, or perhaps we should call them America’s agribusiness professionals, produce essential financial crops including wheat, corn, beans, grapes, apples, etc. We are all dependent on their productivity. Indeed, American farmers are among the most productive in the world.
Another Campaign Ends, and My Wishes Didn’t Come True
“The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself,” wrote H. L. Mencken. “Almost inevitably, he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable.” That was in 1922. If the Sage of Baltimore thought the political class during the Age of Harding was “dishonest, insane, and intolerable,” God only knows how he would have characterized the Era of Trump and Clinton, or what he would have made of the ghastly presidential campaign of 2016. About the only good thing to be said for it is that it ends on Tuesday, and that one of the two worst presidential candidates in American history will go down to defeat. The other, alas, will go to the White House.
Donald or Hillary: You’re Hired?
As we vote on Tuesday, it is sobering to be reminded of the significance of the office of the president of the United States and the role this person has historically played in world events. The United States of America is the defender of democracy and of the inherent, God-given rights of mankind. America is the benevolent superpower of the world, and the president represents the historic principles upon which our nation was founded. The opportunity for good or ill in domestic and foreign policy decisions rests firmly on his or her shoulders. The nations of the world depend on the president to be a beacon of light and a stalwart defender of true freedom.
Thank Heavens for Baseball
If I didn’t have baseball for six months of the year, I don’t know how I’d survive. Although that happens to be the way I feel every year, it’s especially true every fourth year when people I probably wouldn’t invite into my home vie to take up residency in the White House. As you all know by now, I do not like or admire Donald Trump. But I would walk barefoot across burning coals if it would keep Mrs. Clinton out of the Oval Office. We have had crooks, racists, socialists, incompetents and sexual predators, serve as our commander-in-chief. Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, FDR, LBJ, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, have all besmirched the office once held by George Washington. But Hillary Clinton is very likely the greediest, most corrupt, most odious, individual who has ever sought the office, and, heaven help us, will very likely be elected.
Sunday, November 6, 2016
College Subsidies for Illegal Immigrants Get Their Day in Court
A few weeks ago, we reported on a lawsuit in California brought by a resident and taxpayer against the Board of Regents of the University of California. Earl De Vries claimed that by giving in-state tuition benefits to illegal immigrants at all University of California schools, the regents were in violation of federal law. A state appeals court heard the case yesterday, and based on reports from those who attended the oral argument, De Vries (and the taxpayers of California) had a good day in court.
Open Season on James Comey
James Comey surely had no idea what he was in for. The FBI director knew that his decision to notify Congress of the reopening of the Clinton email investigation would cause a firestorm. But even he must be taken aback by the tsunami of obloquy that reaches all the way up to the president of the United States. The day before yesterday, James Comey was the ultimate argument from authority, cited by every Democrat for the proposition that Hillary Clinton’s private email setup was no big deal. Now, he is accused of violating the law, of being tantamount to a sex offender, and of returning the specter of J. Edgar Hoover to Washington, D.C.
Chicken Nugget Lands Student in Hot Water
Monday was chicken nugget day in the cafeteria at Tennessee’s Farragut High School. “You can’t go wrong with nugget day at high school,” senior Carson Koller told me. “The nuggets were great.” Carson, an Eagle Scout, was so hungry he got six nuggets instead of five. The 17-year-old had no idea that extra nugget would result in a trip to the principal’s office and make headlines across the fruited plain.
Saturday, November 5, 2016
What to Watch for on Election Night
Tuesday evening, after Election Day’s tranquility, new clamors will erupt as analysts with agendas tickle portents and lessons from the torrent of election returns.