Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Saturday, February 13, 2016
New Fast and Furious Report Shows Government Could Make Same Mistake Again
The Justice Department's Inspector General, Michael Horowitz, has released a second report on Operation Fast and Furious that questions whether other law enforcement agencies within the Justice Department have implemented the Inspector General's recommendations that were intended to ensure they don't make the same mistakes the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) made.
Holy Cow! Pastor Offers Free Prayers at Coffee Houses
Coffee is not exactly Thomas Rusert's cup of tea. Nevertheless, every Thursday morning Pastor Thomas indulges himself in a steaming cup of java at local coffee houses. "I'm a tea drinker all the other days of the week," said Thomas, the associate pastor of St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. "I'm a weirdly patterned person." It does seem a bit unusual — akin to a vegetarian ordering tofu at a barbecue joint. But it turns the pastor's weekly coffee klatch is all about prayer. Yes, prayer.
North Korea's Latest Nuclear Provocation
For many years Korea has been known as "The Land of the Morning Calm." Sunday, Feb. 7, I could have added a postscript: "The morning calm and the afternoon chaos." I was sitting at Seoul's magnificent Incheon International Airport, waiting to board my flight back home, when the news came that the Communist half of Korea — the so-called Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the DPRK, or North Korea — had just launched an intercontinental ballistic missile from a test site deep inside its territory.
The Gripes of Wrath
Donald Trump isn't the only one being told to watch his language. Apparently, the Left is just as offended by the Cruzes' use of the f-word: faith. In a bizarre twist, liberals are bashing Ted's wife, Heidi, for daring to talk about their family's Christianity in a radio interview this week. Of all the things to attack the Cruzes for, their religion seems like a stretch. The son of a pastor, Senator Cruz has made faith a cornerstone of his campaign since Day 1. In fact, it would probably more be shocking if he and Heidi didn't talk about their religious convictions to the press.
Mystery In Columbus
Police in Columbus, Ohio, need some help. Here's the situation: [Thursday] a man walked into a restaurant named Nazareth, owned by an Israeli Christian. The man asked to speak to the owner, who wasn't there, so he left. About 30 minutes later, he came back, only this time he had a machete. He began attacking the customers, systematically working his way through the restaurant.
The White Obama
Because I am one of the angriest of the angry Americans we keep hearing about, I can fully understand the enthusiasm of those who have fallen into line behind Donald Trump. After all, he appears to speak for many Republicans who are sick and tired of those politicians who have an (R) after their name, but not a single conservative principle in their hearts. I would love to join them, but I can't for a number of reasons. For one thing, I don't believe in personality cults. When I hear a candidate insist "I will do this and I will do that once elected," I can close my eyes and hear Barack Obama saying the same thing. Although Obama has done his best to turn America into a banana republic, I expect conservatives to understand that the chair in the Oval Office is not a throne, and the executive branch is not the be-all and end-all of the government, but is merely one of the three branches.
Friday, February 12, 2016
The Obama Economy and the Election
Well, well, the stock market has, of a sudden, caught up with the Obama economy. The spectacle is not pretty. In January, the market dropped like a stone. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 8.1 percent. Friday, the Nasdaq shed 3.25 percent points upon hearing the news that payroll additions grew by only 151,000 jobs. That was well behind the monthly average of 2015, another year of Obama recovery. That is to say, it was another year of meager growth. In the last quarter of 2015, the economy grew at less than 1 percent. If this is a recovery, it is coming very close to looking like a prolonged recession.
Beyonce and the Black Panthers
The pop music sensation simply known as Beyonce is the toast of the cultural left for a new video titled "Formation." Several scenes are racially charged, including the pop diva sinking into the water on top of a New Orleans police cruiser, a nod to Hurricane Katrina propaganda. In another, a young black boy in a hooded sweatshirt dances in front of a line of white police until they go "Hands up" to his dancing talent. Before we take another step, let's stipulate: This champion of racial injustice is worth $450 million, and with her husband, rap mogul Jay-Z, a cool billion.
Shifting South to Republican Country
Neither Iowa nor New Hampshire is really Republican country. The base of the Republican Party lives in the South and West of the United States, which is where the primary now shifts. Ted Cruz, in Iowa, saw an evangelical turnout over 60 percent that helped him win. Donald Trump, in New Hampshire, saw a secular turnout of around 75 percent that helped him win in New Hampshire. Impressively, Cruz came in third in New Hampshire, only spending approximately $18.00 per vote in advertisements while Jeb Bush came in fourth, spending approximately $1200.00 per vote garnered in advertisement. Rubio, who came in third in Iowa, came in fifth in New Hampshire. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie essentially took out Rubio in a political murder-suicide.
Quantitative Easing and Recent Decline in Stock Market Prices
The first two weeks of January 2016 were the worst beginning of a year ever for the stock market. If the month had not ended with a big market rebound, it would have been even worse. Some people blame the Federal Reserve and its interest rate hike in December. While economic fundamentals indeed did not justify the Fed decision to raise interest rates, the rate hike is not the reason for the market's poor performance. Rather, the recent declines should be understood as part of a deflation in asset prices that were too high because of five years of quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve that began in 2008.
Christie & Fiorina Out
The winnowing process continues. The GOP race that began with more than a dozen credible candidates is now down to just a handful of serious contenders. [Wednesday], New Jersey Governor Chris Christie suspended his campaign. Christie's no nonsense style was an appealing quality, but the blunt spoken former prosecutor got trumped by Donald Trump. Christie bet it all on a strong showing in New Hampshire and he came up short. Later in the afternoon, former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina also dropped out of the race. I will miss her in the campaign. She was excellent in the debates but those strong performances just didn't translate into votes.
The Unmaking of Marco Rubio
Did one robotic moment in a single debate really bring down Marco Rubio in New Hampshire, probably finishing him off nationally? Unlikely. It's difficult to believe that voters would turn on a candidate over one gaffe — yet, somehow, it can also make perfect sense in this cycle. Either way, let's stop pretending 2016 voters are concerned about authenticity. What they're really asking of politicians is for better acting while delivering canned lines. Because they're all canned lines.
The Skinny on Genes
What could a petri dish have to do with national security? A whole lot, according to U.S. intelligence officials. As far as our top spy, James Clapper, is concerned, that's where the world may be building the latest weapon of mass destruction (WMD). Like most technology, genetic engineering is a blessing in the right hands — and a threat in the wrong ones. Nuclear energy is a perfect example. On one hand, it gives us the power to heat our homes — and on the other, the capability to destroy millions of others'.
New Hampshire's Rebuke
New Hampshire voters issued a rebuke to conventional party leaders when they voted by large margins for Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in Tuesday's primaries. But Sanders is not going to win the Democratic nomination, and it's by no means certain Trump will be the Republican nominee. The results show that Hillary Clinton has a clear but clunky path to the nomination but is a problematic general election candidate. They show that the Republicans have a potential advantage in November but first must get through a problematic nomination process. Consider turnout, which is the one thing pollsters have trouble forecasting. As in Iowa, more people in New Hampshire voted in the Republican contest than the Democratic. That's the opposite of 2008, the last time both parties had contests. Both these target states seem to tilt Republican this time.
David Brooks and Obama's Ongoing Pant Crease
If you read The New York Times "conservative" columnist David Brooks, you might better grasp the chasm between true and phony conservatives, between Reagan conservatives and establishment Republicans. In his piece "I Miss Barack Obama," Brooks unwittingly humiliates himself in his latest paean to the president, just as when he revealed his perverse attraction to Obama's "perfectly creased pant." Let me just share Brooks' words rather than trying to characterize them, for he does much more damage to his own credibility than I could. He writes, "As this primary season has gone along, a strange sensation has come over me: I miss Barack Obama.
The Trump Lane or the Conservative Lane
Goodbye, Chris. You did your best in New Hampshire. And you sure did put a good New Jersey-style hit job on Kid Rubio, whom you out-psyched and out-boxed at the debate last weekend. But the primary voters of New Hampshire sent you a clear message Tuesday night — quit. Gov. Chris Christie did the right thing for the Republican Party on Wednesday by taking himself out of the presidential primary race.
Trump Runs Free
Donald Trump's crushing across-the-board victory in New Hampshire had the breadth and depth that one would expect of a future nominee. If the result doesn't shake the lazy complacency about Trump that has held in Republican circles for months — and was reinforced by his disappointing Iowa finish — nothing will. The question is no longer whether Trump will fade. It's whether he can be stopped and who is actually going to do it and on what terms.
Sanders and Trump: Magic Sells
The New Hampshire results have solidified the reigning cliche that the 2016 campaign is an anti-establishment revolt of both the left and the right. Largely overlooked, however, is the role played in setting the national mood by the seven-year legacy of the Obama presidency. Yes, you hear constant denunciations of institutions, parties, leaders, donors, lobbyists, influence peddlers. But the starting point of the bipartisan critique is the social, economic and geopolitical wreckage all around us. Bernie Sanders is careful never to blame Obama directly, but his description of the America Obama leaves behind is devastating — a wasteland of stagnant wages, rising inequality, a sinking middle class, young people crushed by debt, the American Dream dying.
Spammers at the Gates
Welcome to Infomercial America, or, if you prefer, the United States of Spam. Whenever political conspiracy theories break out into the open, pundits and intellectuals name-check the brilliant but flawed essay "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" by Richard Hofstadter. Under President George W. Bush, the "9/11 Truthers" were the poster boys and girls of the paranoid style. Others hinted that the flooding of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina might have been deliberate. Under President Obama, it was the "Birthers." A related theory was that Obama is a secret Muslim. A generation before that, it was the John Birch Society and various other groups convinced that fluoridated water was a nefarious communist plot. And let's not even get started on the issue of who really killed Kennedy.
Thursday, February 11, 2016
Donald Trump, Hugh Hefner, Playboy and Evangelicals
I find it very curious that so many folks have enthusiastically thrown their support behind Donald Trump in 2016. But I'm particularly amazed at evangelicals who have fallen head over heels for Trump, both those in the pews as well as noted evangelical leaders such as Jerry Falwell, Jr., Robert Jeffress and more. As I've listened to these men trumpet their praise for Donald, much of their rationale is based on the billionaire's perceived business acumen and his supposed fiscal credentials.