Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Tuesday, March 8, 2016
Razzle Dazzling Ourselves
Looking for someone — anyone — to blame for the rise of Donald Trump, a rise fueled by angry white males who feel left out and rejected by the elites and special interest groups that disparage their race, mock their faith, criticize their patriotism as xenophobia, excoriate their traditions and protect everyone's rights but their own? Look no further than the culture beast that is primarily responsible for the fundamental transformation of America, as President Obama once put it.
GOP Elites Have Only Themselves to Blame for Trump
A top Republican consultant whined last week, "Donald Trump is hijacking the Republican Party." Really? This is a common and almost comical complaint these days from the establishment wing of the GOP, the same people who have hijacked the party pretty much since the end of the Reagan era.
Will a Republican Majority Rally to Defeat Trump?
The Republican race for president last week converged, suddenly and briefly, in Detroit. In the Fox Theatre, one of the nation's great 1920s movie palaces, the four remaining presidential candidates fought it out in the Fox News debate. Earlier that day, Mitt Romney, who grew up in Detroit and suburban Bloomfield Hills when the Motor City was thriving, urged Republicans not to let Donald Trump win the party's nomination. John McCain joined in with words of support, and the views of the George Bushes can be taken for granted. All this is a reversal of the usual pattern when the front-runner in the first dozen contests attracts widespread support. But such candidates have also been widely acceptable to a majority of primary voters and caucusgoers. Exit polls establish that Trump isn't.
Desperate Tactics
It is desperation time for the Republican party establishment. Its extremely well financed favorite — Jeb Bush — never got anywhere with the voters in the primaries, and has already been forced out of the contest. This should at least cause some second thoughts — or perhaps first thoughts — by people who keep repeating that money buys elections. It is one of many theories that seem impervious to evidence. The desperation of the Republican establishment comes from the fact that the two biggest vote-getters in the Republican primaries — Donald Trump and Ted Cruz — are people they do not want to be the Republican candidate for President of the United States.
Then Along Came Nancy
They were just four words, but they denoted something that led to a wonderful swerve in world history. They were words Ronald Reagan repeatedly used when referring to something that happened long before he spoke his most famous four words: "Tear down this wall." The other four words described the most important event in his eventful life, an event without which Reagan probably would never have been in a position to bring down the Berlin Wall: "Then along came Nancy." If she had not come along, he would not have come to the place he now occupies in history and in the hearts of his countrymen.
Is Ted Cruz as Tough as Donald Trump?
A Donald Trump supporter told me she likes Ted Cruz but doesn't believe he is tough enough to handle the powerful forces he'd face in the general election and asked me to convince her otherwise. Here is a summary of what I told her. I think you overestimate the power of those forces — a crippled Hillary Clinton team and weakened Democrats. And I gather you mistake Trump's toughness in business for the muscular resolve he'd need in public office — while underestimating Cruz's steel backbone.
Weekend Results
Democrats went to the polls over the weekend in Kansas, Louisiana, Maine and Nebraska. Bernie Sanders won three states, while Hillary Clinton won only Louisiana. But Clinton's crushing win in the Bayou State (71% to 23%) offset her losses elsewhere. Clinton and Sanders essentially split the delegates up for grabs — 64 for Sanders and 62 for Clinton. In the race for the Democrat presidential nomination, Clinton leads the overall delegate count 1,130 to 499.
Math Casualties in Delegate Count
If you thought predicting the weather was hard, try predicting the primaries! If anyone had a tougher Saturday than Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), it was probably political pollsters. Obviously, last week's GOP debate was a game-changer, and few knew how big of one until this weekend. After showing double-digit leads for Donald Trump in almost all of the four states up for grabs on Saturday, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) blew past projections and bested the front-runner in two (and possibly, three) states. When people say, "don't believe everything you read," it must apply double to pre-primary surveys!
The World Is Getting Worse, but This Time America Won't Save It
I cannot imagine any thinking person who does not believe the world is getting worse. The number of slaughtered and the number of refugees from slaughter is immense and growing. Islamic State now controls territories from Afghanistan to West Africa. Libya is in the process of being added to that list. And other sadistic Islamist movements hold additional territory. According to Pew Research, approximately 10 percent of world Muslims have a favorable opinion of the Islamic State and terror against civilians. That's more than 100 million people.
Monday, March 7, 2016
The Future of Global Warming Is Unknown
Most people agree that earth's climate probably experienced modest warming during the twentieth century. Politicians and not a few scientists say that the direct cause of rapidly rising temperatures is increasing concentrations of CO2 — the gas of life — which rose because of the European and American economic boom post World War II. They warn that warming will become catastrophic as CO2 concentrations escalate with the Chinese and Indian nations increasingly turning away from communist, and towards more free economic, policies.
Mr. President, Mr. Secretary: It Is Genocide. Say So!
President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have until March 17th to issue a determination that ISIS's attacks on Christians in the Mideast are genocide. Time is running out. The foot-dragging and hesitancy of this administration in calling it genocide is inexplicable. Why do they have to be prodded to do what is right? All of us have seen the horrific images of 21 Coptic Christians lined up on a North African beach and beheaded. These Egyptian martyrs died with the name of Jesus on their lips. These murders, rapes, arsons and kidnappings are taking place daily in regions where ISIS has extended its bloodstained reach.
Samantha Power's Squandered Moral Authority
On July 18, 2013, the UN's Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria issued a report on the savage war crimes being committed by the regime of Bashar al-Assad. "Government forces and affiliated militia have committed murder, torture, rape, forcible displacement, enforced disappearance, and other inhumane acts," the report said. "Many of these crimes were perpetrated as part of widespread or systematic attacks against civilian populations and constitute crimes against humanity." Assad's forces were methodically starving civilian populations and deliberately bombarding hospitals, the commission reported. Torture had become "endemic," with prisoners having "boiling water poured on them and electric shocks administered."
Popes in Glass Houses
Over the past several years, Popes have had an annoying habit of imposing themselves on American politics. I think it would be a good idea for them to butt out. Some years ago, a killer on Death Row in, I believe, Missouri, wrote a letter to a Pope who was coming to the U.S. The convicted murderer asked the Pope for clemency, and the Pope, in response, used his influence to cow the governor to change the sentence to life imprisonment.
Sunday, March 6, 2016
The GOP Battle for Michigan
It is here in the industrial Midwest, not in the South, where Ted Cruz's audacious theory of the 2016 race was supposed to be put to one of its most important tests. Michigan's primary on Tuesday — and especially what happens that day in the Detroit suburbs that in 1980 were ground zero for a new political species, "Reagan Democrats" — will answer this question: Can Cruz locate and motivate legions of recently nonvoting conservatives, millions of them nationwide, especially whites without college experience, who can be pulled back into voting in numbers sufficient to determine the election in November?
Race Baiting & Polarization
Just when you may have thought that nothing could be more childish that the kindergarten taunts the Republican candidates are hurling at each other, the liberal chattering class has shown that it is up to the task. Writing in The New York Times Brent Staples tells us that Donald Trump "has functioned for years as a rallying point for … extremists and racists who are apoplectic about the fact that the country elected a black man president."
Saturday, March 5, 2016
The EPA's Toxic Tailings
Remember the Gold King mine spill in Colorado last August? Probably not. It was big news at the time, with pictures of people kayaking in the state's Animas River, which had turned a kind of sickly yellow from a flood of toxic waste water accidentally dumped into it by the Environmental Protection Agency. That's right — the EPA. The river had been contaminated not by a more easily demonized private company, but by the EPA itself. The agency took responsibility, a clean-up effort began, and the news cycle moved on to other things.
Conservative Ideas Win Elections
What a year! More than a decade of frustration and disappointment by conservatives has led to a complete rebellion against the status quo in Washington. All of the Washington establishment, political consultants and media pundits have been wrong about what Americans want. And they still don't get it. Conservatives are sick and tired of business-as-usual in Washington, and we aren't going to take it anymore. How many of you here today feel the same way?
The Break of Don?
For the nearly 17 million viewers tuning into [Thursday] night's GOP debate, being entertained wasn't a problem. Unfortunately, a good portion of the debate looked like a fight in the boys' locker room — not a conversation about America's future — as Donald Trump and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) went back and forth with jabs about their respective stature. It was a night to forget for Trump, who took a serious bruising for his endless contradictions on immigration, the war in Afghanistan, common core, Syrian refugees, and Obamacare.
Trump for President
The United States has hit a pivotal moment. Throughout the country, while Washington elites have gotten rich off the system, the poor and middle class have seen their jobs and positions in life go stagnant. Harry Reid's family has done quite well off the Senator's time in the Senate, and Senator Reid himself now lives at the Ritz. John Boehner left the Speaker's Chair and will now make a very comfortable living in the private sector, trading on his ties and influence. Washington thrives while America suffers. The Democrats promised to improve the lives of blue-collar workers, but instead began an aggressively regulatory campaign that saw coal miners out on the street, factories close and lives upended. Republicans promised to fight back, but never mounted much of a fight or held the president accountable. When Ted Cruz was willing to go the ultimate step to stop the president with a government shutdown, his Republican colleagues threw him under the bus as quickly as possible.
Trying to Explain Jewish Voters
One of the questions I receive on a recurring basis from Christians is why Jews vote the way they do. The question generally starts out by mentioning that Jews have the reputation of being intelligent, so how is it, puzzled Christians go on, that they vote like ignoramuses. I have made many attempts over the years to explain the seemingly inexplicable. Just the other day, on receipt of an email from a reader, I had to do it all over again.