Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Friday, December 11, 2015
We Can End Stupid Celebrity Cause Videos
Americans are infatuated with celebrities, but unfortunately for the left, that love doesn't translate into a popular landslide for the liberal point of view. Celebrity millionaires love to pose as compassionate citizens for the cameras, and it doesn't matter if anything changes. Remember the video made by actors Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher pledging to serve the public and Obama? "I pledge to be of service to Barack Obama," said rock singer Anthony Kiedis as he kissed his biceps, right and left. It concluded with Moore saying "I pledge to be a servant to our president," and Kutcher adding, "And to all mankind." In a crowd, the celebrities chanted, "Because together we can, together we are, together we will be the change that we seek."
Immigration and Our Founding Fathers' Values
President Obama claims that restricting immigration in order to protect national security is "offensive and contrary to American values." No-limits liberals have attacked common-sense proposals for heightened visa scrutiny, profiling or immigration slowdowns as "un-American." America's Founding Fathers, I submit, would vehemently disagree.
Trump Doesn't Represent the Conservative Base
There's a tendency in politics to mistake personal animosity for ideological animosity. Consider Bill Clinton. His staggering dishonesty, tackiness and scorn for the rule of law aroused a lot of anger from the right. But he wasn't really that left-wing. Oh, he was certainly more liberal in his heart than he let on, but he also worked from the assumption that this was a center-right country, and that limited what he could get away with.
Farook's Friend
San Bernardino jihadist Syed Farook used two rifles in his murderous rampage that were purchased by a friend, Enrique Marquez. According to published reports, Marquez is expected to face charges in the ongoing investigation into last week's terrorist attack. As it turns out, Farook and Marquez are related by marriage, and Marquez told investigators that he and Farook had discussed plans for a terrorist attack in 2012.
Iowa in a Manger...
The North Pole may get all the attention this month, but for politicians — it's the "South polls" that matter. In a fiercely competitive race for the GOP presidential nomination, candidates are counting down the days to more than Christmas. In less than two months, a shrinking field will test their mettle in the first big test: the Iowa Caucus. From there, it's on to the South, where the Republican Party decided to hold half of its 12 March 1st primaries, after the first in South Carolina.
The Season of Trump
I have a history with Donald Trump. Having rescinded an invitation from him to a gathering in August after his comments on Megyn Kelly, I watched as Trump supporters descended on social media, my radio program, my phone number, and my mailbox to express their outrage. It was weeks before my children could check the mailbox again. I still get random and assorted hate mail over the incident.
'Misunderestimating' the American People
As the week began, I planned to write this column about some implications of Barack Obama's Sunday night Oval Office address. I noted that he devoted about one-fifth of this 13-minute speech to pleas that Americans not discriminate against Muslims. "It is the responsibility of all Americans — of every faith — to reject discrimination," he said. "It's our responsibility to reject proposals that Muslim Americans should somehow be treated differently." At one level, this is an anodyne statement. As a general proposition, discrimination by religion is against the best in American tradition and the letter of American law. George W. Bush, you might recall, made similar statements in the days after Sept. 11, 2001.
A Humble Pre-Christmas Effort to Share My Enthusiasm for the Bible
As the Christmas season approaches, I want to explain why I am so enthusiastic about the subject matter I've written about in my new book, "The Emmaus Code: Finding Jesus in the Old Testament." As I came to Jesus Christ kicking and screaming, I have always been passionate about sharing the epiphanies that led me to become a believer. I love to relate my excitement about the Bible and encourage others to give it a chance — really give it a chance — and to avail themselves of the full riches of God's Word.
Donald Trump May Be a Dangerous Buffoon, but He's No Hitler
"Is this what Germany looked like in 1933?" Joe Scarborough asked on "Morning Joe" this week. No. Not at all. Though many in my family were exterminated during the Holocaust — including one of my grandfathers, who died trying to make his way home from Mauthausen after years of forced labor — I'm not completely offended by an occasional gratuitous Nazi analogy. But as much as I hate to intrude on our week of national indignation, Donald Trump's idiotic, undoable and probably unconstitutional immigration proposal (if we can call it that) is not comparable to the genocide of 6 million Jews. Trump is not comparable to Adolf Hitler.
Why Take the Trump Stunt Seriously?
So how exactly does this work, Donald Trump's plan to keep America safe from Islamic terrorism by barring entry to all Muslims? He explained it Tuesday on TV. The immigration official will ask the foreigner if he's a Muslim. "And if they said, 'yes,' they would not be allowed in the country?" Trump: "That's correct." Brilliant. And very economical. That is, if you think that bloodthirsty terrorists...
Thursday, December 10, 2015
Pictures Are Worth Thousands of Words
We have been told by the Obama administration that climate change is leading to a drought that is destabilizing the Middle East. This is another straw man argument that completely ignores the natural cycle of the Atlantic Ocean. When the Atlantic Multidecadol Oscillation, a completely natural and relatively predictable large scale ocean oscillation, is in its cold phase, as it was from 1961-1995, there is more rain in Turkey and Syria (left picture below). When it's in its warm phase, as we have seen since '95, it gets dry. This is one of the more astounding comparisons you will ever see — an almost perfect correlation.
Supreme Court Hears Case on Racial Preferences in College Admissions. Again.
It was "déjà vu all over again" as Yogi Berra would have said, at the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday, with protesters outside the court and race agitators like Al Sharpton leading the crowd, as the justices heard the case of Abigail Fisher for a second time. Two years ago, the Supreme Court ruled in Fisher's favor and sent her suit against the racial preferences at the University of Texas at Austin back down to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
No Change of Course, of Course
Yes, Mr. President, it was "an act of terrorism." The Obama administration has been so ineffective in reacting to the threat from the Islamic State (also called ISIS and ISIL) that hearing the president use that phrase to describe the San Bernardino attack felt like a real breakthrough. Unfortunately for a nation anxious to avoid becoming home to the next Paris-style strike, there was little else to cheer in his Oval Office address.
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Sharia?
The word "contentious" doesn't begin to describe the American immigration debate over the last two decades. But in recent days, the lines are being redrawn — and with it, the national conversation. The focus is no longer being dominated by illegal immigration south of Texas but "legal" immigration coming from across the Atlantic, where a bold new enemy is exposing weaknesses in the West's tolerance.
Trump Disqualified?
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest and most of the left-wing media jumped on Donald Trump [Tuesday], suggesting that the Republican frontrunner was unfit to be president.
Wishing Terrorism Away
When asked why President Barack Obama insisted on pursuing a nuclear deal with Iran, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said: "I think that the pursuit of the agreement is based on the President's hope that over a 10-year period with the sanctions being lifted that the Iranians will become a constructive stakeholder in the international community. That — that as their economy begins to grow again, that — that they will abandon their ideology, their theology, their revolutionary principles, their meddling in various parts of the region. And, frankly, I believe that's very unrealistic."
Disorder in Sharia Courts
Set aside for a moment the violent incidents associated with people claiming to act under the authority of their Islamic faith and consider instead what passes for normalcy. Some in Britain would like to elevate to the level of wide-scale acceptance Sharia law, an Islamic legal system predicated on the religious tenets of Islam. "A number of Sharia councils operate in the UK to offer resolution to disputes," writes The Express, but currently "they have no jurisdiction in criminal matters." Not yet, anyway. There is a campaign underway to make a UK suburb Britain's Sharia-law zone.
The President's Disability
Last week, President Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States and the only one who reportedly leaves no shadow, ventured forth to Paris to join 196 other national leaders on official business. Last month in the City of Light, 129 people were murdered and 352 wounded by crazed Islamofascists. Yet President Obama did not go to Paris to organize the world against Islamofascists, whose headquarters are just a B-52's flight to Syria and Iraq. He did not go to Paris to urge stricter gun control laws on the French, which is his usual response to gun violence. No, he journeyed to Paris with the aforementioned world leaders to devise ways that they might manage climate control.
No Such Thing as a Trump Republican
"You can't be a Trump Republican and a Ronald Reagan Republican." That's the tweet I sent to Jeb Bush the other day, when virtually the entire planet was united in bashing Donald Trump's call for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration to the USA. I also tweeted another obvious truth, "If the Republican Party doesn't dump Donald Trump, the American people will. Trump's outrageous "Muslims Keep Out" plan — apparently his policy answer to last week's terrorist attack in San Bernadino — is an embarrassment to our country and what it stands for.