Right Opinion

Two Candidates, One Shot at Turning the Economy and the Nation

FRC Shines in the Pro-Life Arina

When the Hyde Amendment celebrates its birthday next Friday, pro-lifers can rejoice in the number of children who can enjoy theirs because of it. Forty years ago this month, in one of the most significant victories for the unborn, Congressman Henry Hyde managed to lead the effort to ban taxpayer funding of abortion. Under the most pro-abortion president in American history, the policy has certainly been tested. And today, conservatives are as fiercely protective of it as ever. In [Friday] morning’s House Subcommittee on the Constitution, the late Illinois leader’s amendment was again the subject of debate, as Republicans held a hearing on how to best hold the line on the provision in the face of so much Democratic opposition. For the first time in the history of the president’s party, the DNC actually included a call to repeal the Hyde Amendment in its 2016 platform, sounding the alarm across the country about the threats to taxpayer dollars.

Charlotte Day 3

There was less violence in Charlotte, North Carolina, last night. But, sadly, there was more evidence that eight years of left-wing ideology from the Obama Justice Department has affected law enforcement all the way down to individual cities. We saw it in Baltimore, where police were ordered to stand down. You may recall that the mayor said she “gave those who wished to destroy, space to do that.” In city after city, there have been few arrests and little interest in going after the professional agitators. Reports indicate that most people arrested in Charlotte have out of state IDs.

History Teacher Stomps on U.S. Flag in Classroom

A North Carolina history teacher is facing a firestorm of controversy after he allegedly stomped on a U.S. flag inside a public school classroom. The incident happened Monday at Massey Hill Classical high School in Fayetteville, home to Fort Bragg and one of the most patriotic communities in the nation. “What that teacher did was a gut punch to all the military kids at that school,” one outraged parent told me. “More so to the ones with deployed parents and unforgivably so to Gold Star kids who lost a parent who fought under that flag. It is indefensible.” A spokesperson for Cumberland County Superintendent Frank Till Jr. told me they are investigating the allegations and will not comment until the probe is completed. “Clearly there are other ways to teach First Amendment rights without desecrating a flag,” the superintendent said in a statement to television station WRAL.

This Judge’s Decision Was Wrong: It’s Not Racist to Not Have Straight-Ticket Voting

Is a right to straight-ticket (also known as straight-party) voting guaranteed under the Constitution or the Voting Rights Act? Any ninth-grader who has taken a civics course can tell you there’s no such right in the Constitution (even if they couldn’t tell you what straight-ticket voting is), but a federal district court in Michigan has ruled that eliminating straight-ticket voting is a restriction on the fundamental constitutional right to vote and a violation of the Voting Rights Act. The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent denial of a stay (over the objections of Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas) of that erroneous decision means that Michigan residents must have a straight-party option in November, despite the Michigan legislature’s law stating otherwise. Straight-ticket (or straight-party) voting allows a voter to mark one bubble on a ballot indicating a vote for all the candidates of a particular political party rather than individually selecting a candidate for each office.

Let Trump Be Trump

For months we’ve been hearing complaints from the pundits that Donald Trump has not given us a clear idea about how he plans to defeat ISIS. The TV pundits — left and right — are frustrated because Trump won’t say whether he’d use American ground troops. He won’t even automatically take the use of nukes off the table. Their complaints remind me of what Ronald Reagan did during the 1980 election against Jimmy Carter. The pundits did the same thing to my father that they’re doing to Trump. They never stopped asking him during the campaign what he was going to do to solve the Iran hostage crisis. But he did the right thing. He never said anything.

How Trump Could Win the Debate

Hillary Clinton will almost certainly win Monday night’s epic presidential debate on points — and still could lose. It’s hard to see how Clinton, who has marinated in public policy for 30 years and is preparing for the debate like it is the invasion of Normandy, won’t best Donald Trump on substance. Her strength in this area perfectly matches Trump’s weakness. Trump has appeared to learn for the first time in public such basic information as that the Trans-Pacific Partnership doesn’t include China and that Russia has already invaded Ukraine. He sometimes reads his speeches as if they include revelations to him — “so true,” he’ll interject after coming across a striking fact or observation in the text.

Clinton and Obama, First Heal Yourselves on Race

Hillary Clinton is the worst kind of political animal, one who will exploit anything for political gain, distort facts and shift her positions at will for votes, significantly more than your garden-variety pandering politician. Remember when Clinton was for the Iraq War and then later savaged anyone who believed as she had as if they were reprobates? Remember when she opined that marriage is between a man and a woman? Remember her claim that she left the White House “not only dead broke but in debt”? Her pathetically laughable yarn that she came under sniper fire in Bosnia in the ’90s? That all her grandparents were immigrants? That she was named after Sir Edmund Hillary, who didn’t gain fame for climbing Mount Everest until Clinton was 5 years old? That she applied for the Marines in 1975? Yeah, that’s believable. LOL. Oh, and I promise I won’t rehash her email and Benghazi lies here.

Time Cheers Comedians ‘Ditching Balance’

The Sept. 26 issue of Time magazine cover featured the heads of comedians Stephen Colbert, Samantha Bee, John Oliver, Trevor Noah, Seth Meyers and Jimmy Kimmel, and the headline “We Joke. You Decide.” The allusion to the Fox News tagline was deliberate. The subheadline declared that they would report on “The seriously partisan politics of late-night comedy.” Finally, liberals are acknowledging what conservatives have claimed for years. Inside, the headline was “The New Politics of Late Night.” And writer Richard Zoglin began the article saying, “In a wild election with a ripe orange target, comics are ditching balance and taking sides.” Zoglin started with a collection of Bee stingers, calling her description of the Republican convention a “poorly attended rage-athon of hemorrhoidal has-beens.”

Clinton’s Personality, Trump’s Policy Expertise Open to Debate

This Monday we will see Hillary Clinton battle Donald Trump in their first presidential debate. It’s difficult to capture the otherworldliness of it all. Most of the commentary centers around Trump — and for good reason. He’s the X factor. Some see him as a brilliant, media-savvy disruptor, shaking the foundation of the political establishment. Others see him as a Rodney Dangerfield-esque character (with a touch of Peter Sellers’ Chauncey Gardner) who managed to bluff his way onto the national stage, demanding respect. And that barely scratches the surface. Between friends and foes the descriptions get more ridiculous by the hour. He’s Cincinnatus, he’s Hitler, he’s Reagan, he’s “orange Muppet Hitler” (in the words of some celebrities), he’s George Washington, he’s some other kind of Hitler. And so on.

What Are the Checks and Balances?

This election year makes a mockery of past complaints about the “lesser of two evils.” That cliche has been trotted out in every election of my lifetime. In every previous contest, though, the choice was not between evils. It was often between flawed candidates (think George W. Bush) and bad candidates (e.g., Al Gore or John Kerry). This year’s decision is different. Hillary Clinton would be a conventional bad candidate (in a substantive, not stylistic, sense) were it not for the revelations about the email server. Her deception, her greed, her progressive views are all terrible (if dismayingly familiar), but the indifference to national security she demonstrated in the use of a private server (on which she did, despite denials, transmit classified information) places her on a plane that no national candidate has occupied before. She should be disqualified for commander in chief.

The Chaos Continues

There was another night of rioting in Charlotte, North Carolina. This time the city’s business district was targeted. Apparently the mob heard the demand of Nation of Islam leader B. J. Murphy for an economic boycott of the city. Here are some observations after a second day of anarchy in Charlotte. First, where is President Obama? For nearly eight years, he has commented on virtually everything from pop culture and sports. But when Charlotte is being trashed by rioters, the president can’t seem to find a camera or microphone. Ninety-three percent of black Americans voted for him. Presumably he has some influence. He is a constitutional law lecturer. This is an excellent time for him to remind the rioters that everybody — not just accused Muslim extremists, but even police officers — has a right to due process.

What Happens to the Democratic Party if Clinton Loses?

There’s been lots of speculation about the fate of the Republican Party if (as most of the prognosticators expect and hope) Donald Trump loses. There’s been less speculation, though recent polling suggests it may be in order, about the fate of the Democratic Party if Hillary Clinton loses. Certainly there’s reason to think — or fear — that the Republican Party will change. Republicans likely won’t supply the bulk of support for free trade agreements as they increasingly have for 40 years. Prominent Republicans probably won’t press for mass legalization of illegal immigrants, as they did in 2006, 2007 and 2013. If Trump loses, the Republican electorate will have become more downscale and elderly — a continuation of a process that’s been in train since the middle 1990s. The long-term migration of voters southward along Interstate 95 will have made the East Coast just about as solidly Democratic as the West Coast, leaving a Republican rump in the interior South and the Great Plains.

Hearing Impaired by Pro-Abortion Dems

Getting things done in Congress is hard enough. But trying to work when one party won’t? That’s next to impossible. Just ask Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.). The chair of the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives already had her hands full overseeing a congressional investigation into the possible criminal acts of Planned Parenthood in its baby-parts-for-profit scheme. But her job has been made even more difficult — not just by the uncooperative targets of her probe, but by uncooperative Democrats on the panel as well.

Hillary Clinton Would Rather Blame Free Speech Than Islam for Terrorism

It’s one thing to watch liberals euphemize “Islamic terrorism” into a vacuous, politically correct word salad. It’s quite another to hear them blame free expression for Islamists’ actions. And they do it often. When Hillary Clinton accuses Donald Trump of giving “aid and comfort” to ISIS and other extremists because of his crude rhetoric about Muslim immigration, that’s exactly what she’s doing. And she’s not the only one. For one thing, the idea that an average Muslim can be driven to purchase a pressure cooker and blow up Chelsea, New Work, or massacre infidel children because a U.S. candidate says unkind things about Muslims, inadvertently concedes a terrible truth about the state of Islam today. Moreover, this thinking dangerously underestimates the power of ideology and religion in the world. It’s hard to quantify the depth of self-importance it must take to believe that your patronizing words are more powerful than someone’s faith. This trivialization of the problem is reflected when the administration offers an idea as simplistic as “When it comes to ISIL, we are in a fight, a narrative fight with them, a narrative battle.”

Judge: School Doesn’t Have to Rehire Praying Coach

There’s been a legal setback for Joe Kennedy, the high school football coach who lost his job after he refused to stop praying at midfield after football games. U.S. District Judge Ronald Leighton declined to issue a preliminary injunction that would have forced the Bremerton School District in Washington state to rehire Coach Joe while his case is litigated. The former coach is suing the district, claiming it violated his religious rights. First Liberty Institute, one of the nation’s most prominent religious liberty law firms, is handling the case. Attorney Michael Berry tells me they are disappointed in what he described as a temporary setback.

The Sane Alternative

He grew up in a lower middle-income household. His parents worked three jobs. In the winter they wore jackets inside because they could not afford to run the heat. In the summer they worried about losing their home because they could not make mortgage payments. Though the family struggled, they relied on each other. He eventually went to Wharton. That is not the biography of Donald Trump, a Wharton grad who claims he can relate to the poor, though he had a privileged background far removed from life’s struggles. It is the biography of Evan McMullin, a 40-year-old who spent a decade in the Central Intelligence Agency fighting terrorists. McMullin, like many Americans, surveyed the 2016 landscape and hoped a conservative would win the Republican nomination. McMullin did not wake up in January thinking he would run for president. But six weeks ago he found himself compelled to run for president as an alternative to the profoundly unserious candidacies of Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Gary Johnson and Jill Stein.

A Prescription for Disaster

For those who may be unfamiliar with the players in the pharmaceutical business, Mylan is a successful, mid-sized manufacturer of branded and generic drugs. One of their largest products is the EpiPen, which is an auto-injection device used to treat potentially fatal allergic reactions via a quick dose of the drug epinephrine. The company and its CEO are under fire for a recent price increase of the product. In fact, the furor surrounding the price increase of Mylan’s EpiPen has reached critical mass. Since Congress likes nothing more than to jump on the bandwagon of public outrage, the House of Representatives has entered the conversation of “outrageous” prescription drug pricing. The national legislature doesn’t just intend to talk about how Americans are being gouged by big pharmaceutical corporations, however, it intends to do what it does best: legislate the problem away.

Memo to GOP ‘Never Trumpers’: Reagan Isn’t Rising From the Dead

A “never Trump” friend I’ve known since law school writes: “My former partner is old enough to have voted for Barry Goldwater. And like me, he is pro-choice, pro-gay rights and libertarian, so there are some Neanderthal Republicans out there who are just too distasteful to vote for. So, like me, he often votes Libertarian. He does not see much about Donald Trump that resembles a traditional Republican.” For the millionth time, Trump is *not* a fiscal conservative. He is a populist. And his near-embrace by many evangelicals notwithstanding, New Yorker Trump with “New York values” is likely pro-choice and pro-gay marriage. The man doesn’t even go to church. And speaking of “traditional Republicans”: GOP voters backed Mitt “Romneycare” Romney and John “McCain-Feingold” McCain, but they draw the line at insufficiently conservative Trump?

Panned Parenthood: Richards Fights Trump’s Family Plan

Planned Parenthood specializes in preventing maternity — not promoting it. So it was more than a little surprising when the group’s president, Cecile Richards, weighed in on Donald Trump’s pro-family child care plan. In an ironic twist, the abortion mogul specifically attacked the GOP nominee’s push to give parents six weeks of paid maternity leave — an issue that most people never assumed was particularly partisan to begin with. Of course, for Planned Parenthood, an organization that objects to any government spending that doesn’t include abortion, the statements just go to show where the group’s real priorities lie.