Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Friday, April 22, 2016
Note to Donald Trump: It’s Child Abuse Prevention Month
What unfortunate timing for Donald Trump: April is Child Abuse Prevention Month, yet he revealed yesterday on the “Today Show” that he thinks it is perfectly fine for a man — a stranger — to be in a public restroom with a little girl. As someone who has spent much of my adult life working to help parents protect their children, it’s more than disturbing to think that a serious contender for the GOP presidential nomination is making it easier for predators to abuse our children. My goodness, if there is anyone who should be standing up for our sons and daughters it is a presidential candidate! It’s downright frightening to think that “The Donald” is more concerned with being PC than he is about protecting our kids. But......not surprising.
Purpose of GOP Convention: Find a Party Unifier
What are political conventions for? If you’ve ever been to one, you might think the purpose is for attendees to schmooze, drink and drink some more. That holds true for both the delegates and the journalists who usually outnumber them by at least 3-to-1. But that’s not actually why political conventions exist. They’re sort of like volunteer fire departments that almost never get a call. It’s not that the firefighters don’t want to put out fires, but until they’re needed, they’re pretty happy to play cards, watch movies and eat chili. They understand that when the call actually comes, the game ends, the TV goes off and the boots go on.
ESPN Has a Right to Fire Curt Schilling. What Rights Do People of Faith Have?
ESPN has fired Curt Schilling. The company said that his speech went against company values because ESPN is “an inclusive company.” What’s at stake here? Curt Schilling has a right to say biological men don’t belong in women’s bathrooms in whatever controversial way he wants. And ESPN has a right to give Caitlyn Jenner the “Arthur Ashe Courage Award” for being a men’s sports icon who now publicly identifies as a woman. And whether we agree or disagree with Schilling’s message or ESPN’s isn’t the point.
Curt Schilling, ESPN and Your God-Given Plumbing
There’s no question that Curt Schilling has uttered a good number of politically incorrect statements during his career at ESPN. The former All-Star pitcher has compared radical Muslims to Nazis and most recently suggested that Hillary Clinton “should be buried under a jail somewhere.” But it was something he shared on social media — about transgender bathrooms — that turned out to be the last straw for ESPN. To be blunt, he was unceremoniously fired because he has a problem with men using the ladies room.
What Trump People Don’t Get
Trump people kill me. They’ve been whining for weeks about how the Republican Party primary system works. They say it’s rigged because their hero is pulling in the most votes and the most delegates but still might not win the nomination. They say it’s all very simple: Trump’s getting the most votes and therefore it’s only fair that the person with the most votes from the people should win the nomination.
Hands Off the Ladies’ Rooms
If it concerns sex in any way, you can be sure that our culture will fixate on it and manage to defy common sense with hyperventilating indignation. Same-sex marriage roiled the waters for decades, but now that the Supreme Court has big-footed that question, culture warriors are prowling for new realms of transgression to embrace. So, coming soon to a bathroom near you: transgenderism.
Our Own Mickey Mantle
We all have our ways of marking the seasons. I know it’s spring when in early April I start my morning by skipping The Washington Post front page and going right to the sports section. It’s not until I’ve fully savored the baseball box scores that I resignedly turn to politics.
ESPN Schilling for Liberal Bullies
Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling is used to throwing people out — not *being* thrown out. But after the former World Series Champ expressed his colorful opinion about the bathroom debate in North Carolina, ESPN fired him. Although Schilling made the comments on his personal page (which included a disclaimer that the opinion was 100% his), it didn’t matter. The idea that any father wouldn’t want his daughter to share a restroom with a grown man was too much for the sports network, who sent the MLB record-holder to “the showers” in another obvious attempt at “tolerance.”
HBO: History Bungling Office
HBO should stand for History Bungling Office. Over and over again, they have abused their disclaimer that certain films are “fact-based dramatizations.” They re-litigated Al Gore’s 2000 “victory” in “Recount.” They viciously cartooned Sarah Palin’s vice-presidential candidacy in “Game Change” without putting up any such disclaimer. Now, they’re smearing Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as a pervert and painting Anita Hill as a saint of sexual harassment in “Confirmation.”
Obama’s Travesty
Barack Obama said he wanted to fundamentally transform America, and he has in many ways. From health care to energy policy, even the meaning of marriage, much has changed since 2008. But he has also fundamentally transformed America’s foreign policy — largely to the benefit of our enemies. Under the Obama/Kerry foreign policy, the world has become unmoored. That is the conclusion of Lee Smith’s latest column at The Weekly Standard.
New York’s Home-State Winners Have November Problems
Home-state candidates notched up impressive victories in New York’s presidential primaries Tuesday. Donald Trump topped 50 percent for the first time — and handsomely, with 60 percent of Republican votes. And Hillary Clinton won 58 percent of Democratic votes in her adopted home state.
How Democrats Win Debates by Corrupting English
Humans have been using euphemisms ever since Adam first “knew” Eve. In politics especially, obfuscating and twisting the meaning of words has been going on forever. But today’s debates aren’t only littered with rhetorical distortions; in some ways, many of Democrats’ most potent arguments are built on corrupt language. One word that’s really getting a workout this cycle is “loophole.” Basically, all of life is a giant loophole until Democrats come up with a way to regulate or tax it. In its economic usage, “loophole” — probably more of a dysphemism — creates the false impression that people are getting away with breaking the law. It’s a way to skip the entire debate portion of the conversation and get right to the accusation.
Thursday, April 21, 2016
Will the GOP Snatch Climate Defeat From the Jaws of Victory?
Just got word through the grapevine that Republican Party leadership is talking of adding to the Party platform the affirmation that “climate change” is real. There are two ways in which that could be taken, each with serious risks.
Putin Sends a Message to Obama
“Si vis pacem, para bellum” (“If you want peace, prepare for war”)
The Horrors of Hiroshima in Context
The dropping of two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 remains the only wartime use of nuclear weapons in history. No one knows exactly how many Japanese citizens were killed by the two American bombs. A macabre guess is around 140,000. The atomic attacks finally shocked Emperor Hirohito and the Japanese militarists into surrendering. John Kerry recently visited Hiroshima. He became the first secretary of state to do so — purportedly as a precursor to a planned visit next month by President Obama, who is rumored to be considering an apology to Japan for America’s dropping of the bombs 71 years ago.
The Land of the Free, but Not Until April 24
Americans just finished filing and paying for their federal income taxes. It was painful and expensive. Collectively, we still have several more days to go before we are done paying for our entire tax bill. In 2016, Tax Freedom Day is April 24. As the Tax Foundation explains in its annual report on the issue, “Tax Freedom Day is the day when the nation as a whole has earned enough money to pay off its total tax bill for the year.” The tax bill in question includes all federal income taxes, payroll taxes and state and local taxes. In 2016, that’s $4.99 trillion, including $3.3 trillion in federal taxes. That’s 31 percent of national income.
The Celtic Tiger Lives
They called it the Celtic Tiger, a period of prosperity between 1995 and 2008, during which everything in Ireland appeared to come up shamrocks. According to Wikipedia, between 1995 and 2000, the long-dormant Irish economy took off, expanding by a startling 9.4 percent. There was a building boom; roads were widened to accommodate more traffic; newly confident people started buying things they had long denied themselves, including bigger and nicer houses, which, it turns out, many could not afford.
Life Upended
In the two years that I have written this column, I have always tried to make it about the news of the day. I find myself in the awkward position of being the news of the day. Last week, for the first time since I began this national column, I missed my deadline. No column was forthcoming. I had started the column, and I presumed I would finish it last Thursday morning after a doctor’s visit.
JAYBerns: Rebels Without a Clue
JAYBerns: jobless, angry, young Bernie Sanders supporters. Those aged 18 to 24 have seen their incomes decline under President Barack Obama. Worse, they were one of his most reliable voting blocs. Yet Hillary Clinton, the Democrats’ likely 2016 presidential candidate, says, “I don’t think President Obama gets the credit he deserves for digging us out of the ditch Republicans put us in”? Obama, when asked to name the accomplishment for which he is most proud, brags, “I’m proud of saving the American economy.”
Crazy Bernie’s Curious Pursuit of the Presidency
It comes down to this: Crazy Sen. Bernie Sanders is running for the Democratic nomination against Hillary Clinton because no other Democrat would stick his/her/its neck out. Clinton has been dubbed “Hillary the Inevitable” by some, and the gullible Democrats believe it. Of course, Crazy Bernie is not really a Democrat; he is a self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist. There was a day when a Democratic Socialist was too outré for the Democratic Party. Back then, a Democratic Socialist would have had to run on a third-party ticket, or perhaps even a fourth-party ticket. Now, of course, the Democratic Party has moved so far to the left that Bernie can claim he speaks for the party’s base.