Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Friday, July 29, 2016
Bernie Is a Mainstream Democrat
People often make fun of Bernie Sanders and his supporters, but with all this levity, we may be underestimating the seriousness of this political movement and what it signifies concerning our ongoing struggle for liberty. At first, no one took Sanders’ candidacy seriously. After all, he’s an unapologetic, card-carrying socialist who would have been laughed off the political stage just a few years ago. Despite his buffoonish demeanor and style, Sanders began picking up substantial support from the beginning. There is no question that Sanders’ competitiveness in the primaries shows how unappealing Hillary Clinton is, even among many on the left, and it could be argued that Sanders wouldn’t have fared so well against other viable Democratic candidates. I’m not so sure. Besides, are there other viable Democratic candidates? Where are they? Where were they?
Clinton Can Run but She Can’t Hyde
Who could possibly be more liberal than President Obama? Try the woman applying for his job. After eight years of over-the-top extremism, the DNC is making it quite clear: you ain’t seen nothing yet. If you thought the last two Democratic Platforms alienated moderates, the 2016 edition was essentially an eviction notice for anyone in the party not pledging allegiance to Planned Parenthood and its candidate, Hillary Clinton.
When Trump’s Speeches Aren’t ‘News’
For more than a year, the cable news networks have feasted on Donald Trump, covering him live, day after day, for hours and hours. Republican contenders couldn’t hope to get a fraction of his TV time. Now that Trump has secured the Republican nomination, is it possible that the networks will “suddenly” lose interest in every Trump speech? On successive days, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump gave speeches at the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention. This is usually a greater test for Democratic candidates, since they have a liberal base full of “peacemakers” and Pentagon-haters.
Thursday, July 28, 2016
Parties Change. Not Always for the Better.
“I’m worried,” George W. Bush reportedly told a recent gathering of former aides and advisers, “that I will be the last Republican president.” Like many other mainstream conservatives and Republicans, he fears that the ascendancy of Donald Trump will prove so toxic to the party’s future that it may spell the end of the GOP as a viable political institution.
Donald Trump, the ADHD Candidate
Those of you who regularly read my column know that Donald Trump was not my first choice for the GOP nominee. He was not my second choice either. Rather than belaboring the point, I’m just going to say that while I am not “Never Trump,” I am most assuredly “Never Hillary.” That’s why I’m going to be voting for Donald Trump in November. But he doesn’t make it easy. Many political experts are wishing Trump were a constitutional conservative. Others are wishing Trump were more open to free trade. While another group wishes he would give some clarity as to his final position on taxes and the economy. Personally, I think granting those wishes would make Trump a more acceptable candidate to members of the GOP base and a portion of the independent electorate. But rather than focus on policy, I just wish the Almighty would see fit to grant Trump a longer attention span.
Black DNC Protest Tells Crowd: ‘White People to the Back’
Organizers of the Black DNC Resistance March in Philadelphia were seen Wednesday on video segregating their protest by ordering white people to the back of the line. “I need all white people to move to the back — make space because this is a Black Resistance March,” one of the leaders yelled from the bed of a pickup truck. “I need all white people to move to the back and make room for the black and brown brothers and sisters.” Local media reports the march was organized by a coalition of neighborhood groups including Black Lives Matter Philadelphia.
Why Republicans Should Not Fold on Garland’s Nomination
Some pundits, such as Leon Wolf at RedState, are urging Senate Republicans to quickly confirm President Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, to fill the Supreme Court vacancy left by the sudden passing of Justice Antonin Scalia in February. Wolf argues that there’s “absolutely no reason to drag this out any longer” because “Republicans must know that there is absolutely no chance that we will win the White House in 2016 now.” With all due respect to Mr. Wolf, we have a different view of why Judge Garland’s nomination should not be acted upon. The goal of the Senate Leadership’s decision to provide their “Advice” to the president by sitting on the nomination was not to deny Mr. Obama another appointment to the Supreme Court. Rather, the goal was to give the American people the ability to weigh in on who should fill this crucial seat when they cast their votes this November and decide who will be the next president.
Obama Shows Terror in Judgment
While our Secretary of State is running around Europe insisting that refrigerators are as dangerous as ISIS, the real terrorists are having a field day. [Tuesday’s] attack on a church in France by radical Muslims shows a new, more aggressive tactic of the jihadists: targeted violence against Western Christians. Police are already beefing up security around houses of worship like the small Rouen church, where an 85-year-old priest was brutally beheaded during mass. As the Washington Times points out, his killing “marked the first time that the Iraq/Syria-based group targeted a church in the West, sending a shudder through religious communities that have highlighted the militants’ persecution of Christians in the Middle East.”
ISIS Threatens the West
From the attack in Nice to the beheading of a priest in Normandy, ISIS is on the march. Democrats may not want to talk about it, but I will. This is a conversation we ***MUST*** have. Before we move on and forget what happened to Father Jacques Hamel, here are some of the latest details. There is a mosque just a block away from the church were Father Hamel was murdered. Ironically, the mosque sits on land that was donated by the Catholic Church. According to French reports, the community around the mosque is “known to be an anchor of the jihadist network,” and the mosque has produced several terrorists. In addition, the church where Father Hamel was murdered was found to be on an ISIS hit list.
Racist, Anti-Semitic DNC Opens Convention by Denouncing Trump’s ‘Bigotry’
What a way to begin the Democratic National Committee’s convention in Philadelphia. And where to start with the WikiLeaks leak of nearly 20,000 DNC emails? The emails by and between members of the DNC could us show that, no, Bernie Sanders was not paranoid when he insisted that DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and her organization, engineered and manipulated the campaign to ensure the victory of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The eruption by the Sanders supporters over her obvious bias forced Wasserman Shultz to tender her resignation a day before their convention opened, to be replaced by interim Chair Donna Brazile. Now we know, if we didn’t already, why the DNC scheduled debates on nights when they knew viewership would be light.
There Is a Term for This Behavior
I have coined another neologism to go along with those I have coined over the years. For instance, “Kultursmog” for a political culture utterly polluted by the left’s politics, “Black Cat News Story” for a news story that the mainstream media hope will sink a conservative candidate, “Boy Clinton” for you know who and “Bruno” for his wife, Hillary Clinton, who a former director of the FBI likened to a member of organized crime. My coinage, at least for this election year, refers to those fussy conservatives who refuse to vote for Donald Trump. I call them “Inadvertent Conservatives for Hillary.” The Inadvertent Conservatives for Hillary refuse to vote for Trump after prolonged and very public scrupling over him, scrupling that verges upon exhibitionism. Thus, they enter this election with half an argument.
Can You Have Your Subsidized Peanut Butter Cake and Eat It, Too?
The federal government is packed full of crony programs, such as the Export-Import Bank and the ethanol mandate. When it comes to the unhealthy marriage between government and the private sector, however, the U.S. Department of Agriculture may take the cake. With the exception of food stamps, which should have nothing to do with the farm bill, every program in the agency is meant to subsidize or boost the profits of farmers. We have such programs as the Dairy Margin Protection Program and the Dairy Market Stabilization Program. The former effectively guarantees profits for dairy farmers, and the latter is a complicated program meant to drive up milk prices to benefit small-scale dairy farmers. Then there are sugar tariffs, which are meant to artificially boost the profits of a few companies by keeping the price of sugar high in the United States at the expense of consumers and taxpayers.
When a War Went Worldwide 75 Years Ago
Seventy-five years ago, the world blew up in just six months. World War II ostensibly started two years earlier, when Germany invaded Poland. In truth, after the rapid German defeat of Poland in September 1939, the conflict was mostly confined to Western Europe for nearly the next two years. By summer of 1940, only Britain had survived Hitler’s European victories. The dormant European war only went global on June 22, 1941, when Germany suddenly surprise-attacked the Soviet Union, its former partner. America and Asia were still not directly involved in the 1941 expansion of the war until the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and British Malaya on December 7-8.
Email Leak Outs DNC
Thanks to WikiLeaks, which has released nearly 20,000 emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee — with promises of more to come — we have proof the party that styles itself as inclusive, diverse and tolerant isn’t. Among the delectable tidbits on which Republicans are feasting are these: one male DNC staffer wrote another male staffer saying “I love you” and added “no homo.” Another DNC email referred to Latino voters as “taco bowl outreach.” Now ousted DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz is exposed as a liar for falsely claiming she was not working behind the scenes to defeat Sen. Bernie Sanders and secure the Democratic nomination for Hillary Clinton.
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
Clinton Cash
This week, as Democrats fawn over Hillary Clinton, I’m struck by how both Clintons continue to thrive despite their remarkable record of sleazy dealings. The just released documentary “Clinton Cash,” based on a book by Peter Schweizer, explains how they make big money by selling access to themselves. In a conversation, Schweizer told me how the Clintons use “speaking fees” to get around bribery laws. “If somebody gave a politician or family member money for a favor, that’s breaking the law. But if you say it’s a speaking fee, and you pay double or triple the normal rate, that seems to be legal.”
As Trumpism Replaces Conservatism: Is the Party Over?
It was Tuesday, Day 2, of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, OH. I was sitting comfortably in the middle section of the arena directly in front of the podium. Chris Cox, a representative from the National Rifle Association, had just stepped up to speak to the crowd of delegates, activists and media. As Cox began his speech and stated, “You have to be able to protect yourself and your family…” I found myself being distracted by the fellow sitting next to me.
Hillary’s Never-Ending Reintroductions
If only we could get to know the real Hillary Clinton. Unveiling the Hillary we supposedly don’t know has been the perpetual, elusive goal of Clinton’s handlers for decades, with the Democratic convention in Philadelphia the latest stab at it. On “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook hopefully maintained that a lot of Americans simply “don’t understand” Hillary’s devotion to others, and the convention aims to give them this “fuller picture.” Or as a CNN headline put it, “Hillary Clinton prepares to reintroduce herself to America.” Again. Hillary has made more reintroductions than should be allowed for a person who has never gone away.
Media Has a ‘Cry Wolf’ Problem With Trump
Dear Mainstream Media and Democrats: It’s your turn. Now that Donald Trump has been formally nominated, the formal responsibility to stop him passes from the right to the left, from Republicans to Democrats and the journalists who amplify their values. You’re going to find it a very tough slog. And it’s your own damn fault. During the primaries, the task of exposing the true nature of the Trump takeover fell disproportionately to a few conservative magazines, columnists, renegade radio hosts and behind-the-scenes activists. We all failed. There will be plenty of time for recriminations and “we happy few” speeches later. (If you detect a note of bitterness on my part, I’m not being clear enough: I contain symphonies of bitterness.)
Democratic Platform: Killing the Unborn Is Fine With Us
The Democratic Party is about to approve the most radically pro-abortion platform in its history. It’s a Hillary platform, a Hillary party, and a Hillary convention. Tragically, making it easier to kill unborn children has been a Hillary Clinton priority throughout her long career. In 1992, she and Bill Clinton told Americans that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.” That seductive message helped them to win the presidency. Liberals claim that killing unborn children is “a fundamental constitutional right.” But no reporter ever asked Bill and Hillary why this “constitutional right” should be rare. Can they name any *other* constitutional right they want to be rare?