Right Opinion

It Wasn’t a Town Hall Meeting, It Was a Town Hall Ambush

Here are my top ten takeaways from Sunday night’s presidential WWE match at Washington University in St. Louis (viewer discretion advised): **1. Trump was loaded for bear.** We have a saying down in Dixie: Donald Trump shucked it to the cob. His campaign was teetering on the brink. Republicans have abandoned him in droves. And yet, he came out and delivered a solid performance. **2. Voters were more interested in Hillary’s emails, not Trump’s locker room talk.** Frank Luntz says his focus group gave Trump the win. As for the emails, he tweeted, “Trump’s tape is bad for him, but Hillary’s emails are even worse for her.” Luntz went on to say Trump is back in the race. **3. This wasn’t a town hall debate. It was a town hall ambush.** CNN’s Anderson Cooper and ABC’s Martha Raddatz, disgraced themselves and their networks by ganging up on Donald Trump. When the audience cheered for Trump, they were told to be quiet. But when they cheered for Hillary, the moderators were silent. “One on three” is how Trump described it.

A Constitutional Right to Literacy

Detroit school students, represented by the Los Angeles-based public interest firm Public Counsel, filed suit last month against the state of Michigan, claiming a legal right to literacy based on the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

Probability-Based Decision Tool Helps Clarify Climate Change Policy Questions

Uncertainty doesn’t necessarily imply a lack of clarity. We can be uncertain about the outcome of a particular event or question, but we can be very clear about the nature of the questions and the likely outcome of a sequence of those events. The study of global climate change is fraught with uncertainty, as is much of science in general. This isn’t unusual. By its very nature, science must be conservative. Findings and conclusions should have a high degree of statistical significance (that is, you wouldn’t expect them to happen by chance), yet at the same time those conclusions can never be announced as “certain” or “settled science.”

Is Science Limitless?

*Quis custodiet ipsos custodies?* (Who will guard the guards themselves?) Juvenal, the Roman poet, asked this question regarding the ambiguities of accountability and responsibility. In a recent op-ed, Gordon Evans tackles this age-old dilemma with clarity and verve.

Is Donald Trump the Lesser of Two Evils?

Over the course of my years of engaging in politics, I have often heard the phrase “the lesser of two evils” used about the choices offered up to voters. But never has that phrase been used more than in the 2016 election. One wonders if all the “lesser evil” choices of prior elections have ultimately culminated in the two worst choices of our lifetimes? Time will certainly tell.

Trump or Hillary? A Choice With Life and Death Consequences

In the wake of the Pence-Kaine debate, the fallout from Senator Kaine’s subpar performance continues. In true flip-flop fashion, Kaine previously supported the Hyde Amendment ban on taxpayer funding of abortion, but now supports Hillary Clinton’s call to force all American taxpayers to pay for elective abortion. The Senator is also being criticized by leftist groups for not hammering Gov. Pence hard enough over his faith and views on marriage, while they praise Hillary Clinton’s recent op-ed in a LGBT Philadelphia newspaper. This only further highlights the fact that the difference between Clinton and Trump on policy and the role of the state in civil society could not be greater. Hillary’s op-ed supports nominees to the Supreme Court that would continue to rewrite the Constitution according to liberal ideology, rather than rule based on what the Constitution actually says. She endorses the Court’s redefinition of marriage, as well as Obama’s executive orders creating special status and protections for sexual orientation and gender identity.

Setting the Stage

I don’t think there is another presidential contender in modern history who had to walk out onto the debate stage under circumstances as difficult as Donald Trump faced [Sunday] night. Forty-eight hours before, the Trump campaign had been hit with a ten year-old tape featuring Trump making lewd comments about women. Multiple Republican politicians, demonstrating once again that too many have no stomach for a fight, had abandoned Trump before the debate had begun — again over a 10-year-old tape. Can anyone name one Democrat who abandoned Hillary Clinton over the obvious cover-up, obstruction of justice and mishandling of classified information that has unfolded over the last several years?

Trump’s Comments: The Latest Left-Wing Hysteria

To understand how and why, it is necessary to understand the indispensable role hysteria plays on the left.

At Stake: The Constitution

This election is about a lot of things, but it is fundamentally about the U.S. Constitution and whether federal judges will adhere to their oath.

Words Versus Deeds

Donald Trump’s gutter talk about women shows yet again that he is bad news. The problem is that Hillary Clinton is far worse.

Trump’s Vile Candidacy Is Chemotherapy for the GOP

Trump’s sexual loutishness is a sufficient reason for defeating him, but it is far down a long list of sufficient reasons.

A Degrading Spectacle in St. Louis

It wasn’t a “debate.” And it certainly wasn’t presidential.

The World’s Gone Mad Today

That is a line from Cole Porter’s song “Anything Goes,” but it fits our times like a glove. Consider, for instance, that at the Walmart in McDonough, GA, the bakers refused to decorate a cake for a cop’s retirement party, and they got to keep their jobs! The man’s daughter wanted to celebrate her father’s 25 years on the police force, but the bakers refused, claiming that the blue line on the American flag she’d designed was racist. It was only because a family friend had posted the news on Facebook, and the response was so overwhelming, that the store manager offered the daughter a $50 gift card and offered to personally decorate the cake. But “personally” isn’t the same as professionally, and the cake wound up a mess.

Will Trump Make a Race of It in the Debates?

Twenty-One States Move to Stop New Obama End Run Around Congress

Congress Unleashes the Furies, but Never at Itself

When Wells Fargo’s longtime CEO, John Stumpf, appeared before the Senate Banking Committee recently, Senator Elizabeth Warren tore into him with the relish of a Rottweiler mauling a favorite chew toy.

Vladimir Putin Is Bringing Back the 1930s

Vladimir Putin’s serial humiliations of America’s bewildered secretary of state regarding Syria indicate Putin’s determination to destabilize the world. Here is an even more ominous indication of events moving his way: On just one day last week, Italian ships plucked 6,055 migrants from the Mediterranean. What has this to do with Putin? It portends fulfillment of his aspiration for Europe’s political, social and moral disorientation. The Financial Times reports that of the 138,000 migrants who have come by sea to Italy this year, few are from Syria. The “vast majority” are from Africa, with the largest number from Nigeria. The U.N.’s World Population Prospects says that only 10 percent of global population is in Europe, which is projected to have fewer people in 2050 than today.

Debate Night

China’s Hostile Cyber and Trade War: It’s Threat To National Security

Both parties have an opportunity to talk substantively about a serious trade issue – ongoing efforts by China to hack and steal intellectual property from U.S. companies.

The Islamic State of America

If there is one thing you can count on, aside from death and taxes, it’s that in the wake of every Islamic attack on Americans, left-wing politicians and the media — as if one can still make a distinction between them — will be reminding us that that there are millions of peace-loving Muslims here and around the world. What I’d like to know is what makes them think so. Just because people aren’t prepared to strap a bomb on their chest doesn’t mean a lot. Most Japanese during WWII weren’t prepared to be kamikaze pilots, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t rooting for them to sink American battleships.