Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
Easter Horror
With the world still reeling from the Brussels attacks, radical Islamists demonstrated their ability to strike anywhere, anytime and without any mercy whatsoever. A Taliban faction that pledged its support to the Islamic State carried out a horrific attack in Lahore, Pakistan. A suicide bomber targeting Christians celebrating Easter Sunday blew himself up in a crowded park. Seventy-two people, including 36 children, were killed. More than 300 people were wounded.
He's Mean, but Is He at Least Bright?
I have said from the outset that I would vote for Donald Trump if he were chosen as the Republican nominee. I am contemptuous of much of what he does; I don't trust what he says, and I have no reason to believe that he actually holds conservative values. But, if Trump becomes the GOP nominee, he will be the only alternative to the left ruining America for another four years.
From Empty Tomb to Children's Graves
If the world thought President Obama was detached from the Brussels bombing, he was downright indifferent to the one in Pakistan. A horrific attack on the holiest of days brought parents to their knees, as 29 Christian children and more than 40 others were massacred by the Taliban on Easter. Three hundred were injured — many critically — by the explosives detonated by a suicide bomber next to a park where people had worshipped the risen Christ. "The target," said members of the Pakistani Taliban, "was Christians."
Monday, March 28, 2016
It's Open Season on People of Faith in Georgia
Georgia's Republican governor stunned the state's religious community Monday by vetoing legislation that would have protected preachers who refuse to perform LGBT marriages. "It's open season on people of faith in our state," said State Sen. Josh McKoon, the author of the 2014 Religious Freedom Restoration Act. "It's a slap in the face to conservatives, to evangelicals and to the broader faith community," he told me. Gov. Nathan Deal vetoed the bill under tremendous pressure from major corporations who threatened to take their business out of the state should he side with Georgia's religious community.
Cover-Up on American POWs in Cuba?
Seventeen U.S. airmen captured during the Vietnam War may have been flown to Cuba, held captive in a prison noted for holding political prisoners, and used for medical experiments on torture.
Why There Are Muslim Ghettos in Belgium, but Not in the U.S.
Long before Tuesday's terror attacks in Brussels, it was clear that Belgium had become a breeding ground for Islamist extremists. Hundreds of Belgian Muslims — as many as 500, according to one estimate — have gone to Syria and Iraq to fight for ISIS, making Belgium by far Europe's leading supplier of foreign jihadists. Last November's horrific slaughter in Paris was masterminded by a Belgian radical, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, and at least four of the men who carried out those attacks were from the Brussels district of Molenbeek. One of them was Salah Abdeslam, who was captured in Molenbeek, after an intense manhunt, on March 19.
Calling Mark Levin
Occasionally, because of the pre-set button on my car radio, I hear Mark Levin calling for a Confederation of States. As he says, always at the top of his voice, thus making the radio nearly unnecessary, the Constitution, a divinely-inspired document, provides for a way that allows the people to amend it without going through Congress. Unfortunately, it doesn't do so through the repetition of a magical incantation. It still calls for 38 states to meet and agree that, for instance, the national debt cannot be raised except by a three-fourths vote in the House and Senate or that, by that same wide margin, federal expenditures may not exceed 20% of the gross national product.
Sunday, March 27, 2016
The Trump Campaign and Race Baiting at The New York Times
Sometimes you wonder if the editorial writers for The Gray Lady ever read the rest of their newspaper. A front page story in last week's New York Times described Donald Trump's Tampa office as a "melting pot" of racial and ethnic diversity. The campaign workers include a young woman who recently arrived from Peru; an immigrant from the Philippines; a 70-year-old Lakota Indian; a teenage son of Russian immigrants; a Mexican-American.
Why the Future Will Disappoint
Presidential campaigns incite both hypochondria and euphoria, portraying the present as grimmer than it is and the future as grander than it can be. As an antidote to both, read a rarity, an academic's thick book (762 pages) widely recognized as relevant to America's current discontents. Robert Gordon's "The Rise and Fall of American Growth" argues that an unprecedented and unrepeatable "special century" of life-changing inventions has produced unrealistic expectations, so the future will disappoint: "The economic revolution of 1870 to 1970 was unique … . No other era in human history, either before or since, combined so many elements in which the standard of living increased as quickly and in which the human condition was transformed so completely."
Saturday, March 26, 2016
#Neverkasich
This truly is a year when the rules don't apply. If they did, John Kasich would be back in Columbus trying to figure out whether he sells his soul to Donald Trump or endorses Ted Cruz. Instead, the Ohio governor is still out on the trail running a delusional vanity project masquerading as a presidential campaign. There is no appetite for his pragmatic, "can't we all get along" campaign among Republican primary voters, who have made that abundantly clear.
Things Worse Than Ignorance
As a child walking across a sports field during competition I suddenly heard my teacher scream for me to duck. The intensity in his voice was fierce, insistent. Without thought I dropped to my knees the instant a 16 pound metal ball flew over my head. I obeyed him without question because it sounded so urgent. Had I not dropped my head would have been smashed in and the hammer throw ended in disaster. My teacher wrapped me in his arms and declared me the luckiest boy in the world. If you had a curable disease, would you not rather know before it was too late? Would you ignore someone who cried in fear because they thought a hammer was about to crush your skull? I have heard it said that ignorance is bliss. It is probably only ignorant people who say this.
It Defies Natural Law
In the spring of 1984, I remember reading an interview in the Baton Rouge newspaper with incoming governor, Edwin Edwards. This was several years before I entered the political arena — I was still working in law enforcement, and attending LSU, so I didn't closely follow the routine political controversy. What grabbed my attention was Edwards' response to a question asking if he believed Jesus died on the cross, was buried and resurrected.
Mass Deportations Would Leave America Poorer
More illegal immigrants have been expelled from the United States during Barack Obama's presidency than ever before. Since 2009, the Obama administration has removed 2.5 million people from American soil — an enormous crackdown that has consumed an enormous amount of money. The federal government now spends more on border and immigration enforcement than it spends on all other criminal law-enforcement agencies — including the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Secret Service, the US Marshals Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — combined.
Fascists on Parade
To me, the most astonishing fact about this primary season isn't that Trump has managed to get a stranglehold on the nomination. It isn't even that he has done so by convincing so many people who are sick and tired of Obama's imperial ways that it would be great to replace him with someone else who promises to ignore the limitations of the Constitution by legislating with his pen and his phone, as it were.
Friday, March 25, 2016
Students Terrified by 'Trump 2016' Chalk Drawings
Emory University in Atlanta is under siege at this hour from a chalk-wielding Donald Trump supporter who caused a massive outbreak of micro-aggressions among frightened students. Terrified collegians are hunkered down in their safe spaces – traumatized by whoever wrote "Trump 2016" and "Accept the Inevitable: Trump 2016" on campus sidewalks. "That was a bit alarming," one panicked student told The Emory Wheel. "What exactly is inevitable? Why does it have to be accepted?"
Don't Dump on the Primary Process
The Republican Party establishment wants to dump Trump. Jeb, Marco and Carly wanted to dump Trump. Ted and John still hope to dump Trump. So does Mitt. Everyone in the GOP is on the same anti-Trump page. They all want to dump him — and they'll use every trick play in the primary book to do it. So why is everyone in the party so angry about the way the primary process is going? This is the process. It's really pretty simple.
Unholy Week for Hollywood
To Catholics, the week before Easter is Holy Week, a time to prepare for the most special feast day of the year: celebrating the resurrection of Christ. To Hollywood, it is a time to flog the Catholic Church with vicious portrayals of corruption and hypocrisy. Hollywood insists that its products reflect a market demand. But there is no market demand for this. It is Hollywood, and only Hollywood, that wishes to vocalize its bigotry toward Catholics. This year, there are entire shows that mock God and Catholics on a weekly basis. On Tuesday, ABC's announcer actually told viewers, "It's Easter Week. Celebrate with Tuesday's new hit comedy, next," referencing "The Real O'Neal's."
Establishment Endorsements Don't Make Ted Cruz an Insider
It is time to address the canard that endorsements for Sen. Ted Cruz from establishment Republicans damage his credibility as an outsider. It is opportunistic and lazy thinking. As the Republican presidential race has narrowed, it is inevitable that the only two viable contenders remaining, Cruz and Donald Trump, will be receiving more endorsements. This is especially true this year because the seriousness of the threats facing the nation and the presence of strikingly unconventional candidates make this the most important election in decades.
Leadership Matters
In the era we're living in, it is important that more and more Americans understand the value of leadership when it comes to national security. As a former Under Secretary of Education, I know the importance of testing. So here is a pop quiz that might help to inform our response to the attacks in Belgium. Are you ready?
A Vote for Kasich Is a Vote for Trump
Perhaps the most important results of the March 22 Republican primary in Arizona and caucus in Utah were numbers that didn't appear on your television screen, no matter how late you stayed up for the poll closing times. Those were the numbers of votes cast for Marco Rubio in Arizona — 70,587 of them at this writing.