Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Saturday, November 21, 2015
Tears for Gosnell's House of Horrors
I recently saw the documentary "3801 Lancaster: An American Tragedy." I went home and cried. I don't mean tears of joy. No, I *cried*. The last time I cried was when my dad died. The last time before that I can easily remember crying was when I was in the fifth grade and a friend was struck by a car and killed. "3801 Lancaster" is about the work of physician Kermit Gosnell. Dr. Gosnell performed late-term abortions; the abortions that most other providers refused to do but for which they would refer clients to Gosnell.
Worst Kasich Scenario for Religious Liberty
There are plenty of GOP presidential candidates competing hard for the social conservative vote. Governor John Kasich (Ohio) hasn't been one of them. Since entering the race, the Buckeye leader has done his best to keep his distance from core values — until recently, when, like the rest of the country, he realized just how influential this half of the primary voting bloc is.
House Rebukes Obama
Despite President Obama's veto threats, a bi-partisan, veto-proof majority of the House of Representatives voted yesterday to approve legislation demanding more security checks on refugees from Syria and Iraq. In a major rebuke to Obama, 47 House Democrats sided with the GOP majority in supporting this bill. Now consider this excerpt from the beltway publication The Hill: "The Obama administration's eleventh-hour bid to rally Democrats against Syrian refugee legislation backfired on Thursday... A number of Democrats who were on the fence about the bill decided to vote yes after hearing administration officials make the case against it."
Handing Over Our Lunch Money
We in the West continue to pretend that the violence committed by Muslims are all isolated events, whether it was Iran's holding hostages for over 400 days; the attack on the USS Cole; 9/11; the massacre at Charlie Hebdo; the slaughter at the French deli; the burnings and beheadings in the Middle East; Benghazi; the blowing up of the Russian jet; the recent blood-letting in Paris that left 150 dead.
The President's Sanctimony on Syrian Refugees
President Barack Obama has seen the enemy, and it is the refusal to accept more Syrian refugees. From the tone of his post-Paris remarks, you'd think that a sophisticated terrorist assault on a major Western city is a setback; sentiment in the U.S. against taking more Syrian refugees is an atrocity.
Friday, November 20, 2015
Haven Forbid? U.S. Debates Refugee Crisis
If President Obama thinks a religious test is shameful for refugees, then he has a lot to be ashamed of. His own administration has been discriminating at an amazingly fast clip over the past two months — and against the population posing the smallest threat to American safety: Christians. After its jaw-dropping findings earlier this week, CNSNews also crunched the numbers from the last month and a half and found the same disgraceful pattern of prejudice. Of the Syrians granted asylum in the U.S. since October, *only five* were Christians. The other 346 were Sunni Muslims (which, for those of you keeping score at home, is 98.6%). If that isn't a "religious test," I don't know what is. And the tragedy is this: not only do Christian refugees pose the least risk to American society, but they're also the ones in the direst need of help.
Back to Bleating About Christian Terrorism
When Islamic terrorist attacks cause mass casualties, like the horrific events in Paris, it's all well and good to preach the obvious that ISIS killers don't represent all Muslims, any more than the Nazis represented all the German people. But what is wholly unacceptable is any attempt to drag Christianity into a moral-equivalency game with radical Islam. The leftist comedians really should have stopped this gunk when Rosie O'Donnell announced on "The View" nine years ago that "Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America" because the United States was at war in Iraq. (Rosie would never be able to define non-radical Christianity because in her warped world, that's an oxymoron.)
The Ululations of Radical College Crybabies
Deray McKesson, the professional agitator whose racial rabble-rousing began at tax-subsidized Teach for America, proudly unveiled his new enterprise on the Internet Thursday: A website chronicling "THE DEMANDS" of his radical brothers and sisters on college campuses across Northern America. "We recently launched http://thedemands.org which compiles the college demands from across the country," he tweeted. "Check it out." I did. Man, oh, man, are the kids "DEMAND"-y these days!
Obama Drove Sunnis Into ISIS' Arms
Throughout the last third of George W. Bush's presidency, opinion leaders were obsessed with the question of mistakes. Among most members of the press and among Democratic officeholders (even, or perhaps especially, those who voted to approve the Iraq War), the appetite was strong to hold President Bush in a half nelson until he admitted that the war had been a terrible mistake. When Jeb Bush entered the presidential race, he was quickly charged with fraternal guilt in the matter.
God Is Unchanging; Believe It
Unbeknownst to many in our culture, including even some Christians, the God of the Old Testament is the God of the New Testament. God, the Bible assures us, is unchanging. Our secular culture mischaracterizes Jesus as a hyper-tolerant, nondiscriminatory liberal who is indifferent to sin and passes judgment on no one. But Jesus is not a milquetoast pacifist. In his Sermon on the Mount, which many cite as evidence of his unique moral teachings, he set out nearly impossible standards of human conduct. He didn't say, "I don't care how you live." Rather, he said, "You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." Indeed, the Bible depicts Christ as the ultimate judge of mankind. He discussed the subject of hell more than any other.
Make Hashtag, Not War
The "hashtag" is the pound, or number, sign on a keyboard. Many on social medial place the symbol before words, allowing those words to be tracked as keywords on social media. Listeners to my radio show, for example, often tweet with #EERS at the end for "Erick Erickson Radio Show," making it easy for listeners to see each other's tweets.
Obama's Phony War
Tell me: What's a suicide bomber doing with a passport? He's not going anywhere. And, though I'm not a religious scholar, I doubt that a passport is required in paradise for a martyr to access his 72 black-eyed virgins. A Syrian passport was found near the body of one of the terrorists. Why was it there? Undoubtedly, to back up the Islamic State boast that it is infiltrating operatives amid the refugees flooding Europe. The passport may have been fake, but the terrorist's fingerprints were not. They match those of a man who just a month earlier had come through Greece on his way to kill Frenchmen in Paris.
Strike Back at ISIS and All Forms of Islamic Extremism
In leading his country in the confrontation of a unique set of challenges, Winston Churchill famously said: "This is no time for ease and comfort. It is the time to dare and endure." Scenes of pregnant women hanging from the balcony of a Paris concert hall and screaming for help on an otherwise serene Friday evening; young men desperately pulling the severely wounded down to the street to save their lives; blood-drenched public spaces; chaos: all of this is too familiar. It was sadly reminiscent of what we experienced and endured on 9/11.
This Column Is Exactly What the Islamic State Wants
President Barack Obama was in the Philippines this week getting worked up about the only thing that really grinds his gears, the GOP. "I cannot think of a more potent recruitment tool for (the Islamic State group) than some of the rhetoric that's been coming out of here," he said of Republicans, who were demanding a pause in the influx of Syrian refugees.
Obama's Strategic Bumbling Is Theater of the Absurd
"You're all suckers." That has to be what Barack Obama is thinking as the country falls for his head-fake. Let's recap. George W. Bush's surge reduced the Islamic State's precursor, al-Qaida in Iraq, to a paltry 700 members, according to CIA Director John Brennan. Its membership has grown by something close to 4,000 percent. As it metastasized, Obama yawned, calling it the "JV team." When Syrian President Bashar al-Assad violated Obama's "red line," Obama yawned again, and the refugee crisis was born.
Obama Gets Really Angry ... at Americans
Three days after the Islamic State terrorist attacks in Paris, Americans were primed to hear their president express heartfelt anger, which he did in his press conference in Antalya, Turkey, at the end of the G-20 summit. And they did hear him describe ISIS as "this barbaric terrorist organization" and acknowledge that the "terrible events in Paris were a terrible and sickening setback."
Paris Mastermind Dead
French authorities confirmed [Thursday] morning that Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the jihadist behind the Paris attacks, has been killed. He also planned the August train attack that was foiled by three Americans. I am glad Abaaoud has received justice. But neither he nor any other individual is the creator of radical Islam. The threat didn't end after Osama bin Laden was killed and it won't end with the death of Abaaoud. Jihadists are being created every day in radical mosques throughout the Middle East, Europe and, sadly, even in the U.S.
Thursday, November 19, 2015
Obama Is Importing Muslims, Deporting Christians
The nation was forced to endure yet more pious prattling from President Obama this week who spent time berating Americans who are worried about Islamic jihadists hell-bent on blowing us all to kingdom come. "When individuals say that we should have a religious test and that only ... proven Christians should be admitted, that's offensive and contrary to American values," the president said — just one day after he called such behavior un-American. What's offensive and contrary to American values is refusing to properly investigate those wanting to come to our nation — especially those coming from regions that are hotbeds of Islamic extremism.