Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Thursday, November 19, 2015
Chris Christie's Serious Political Talent
Paris was for all Americans, but especially for Republicans, a summons to seriousness that should have two immediate impacts on the Republican presidential contest. It should awaken the party's nominating electorate from its reveries about treating the presidency as an entry-level job. And it should cause Republicans to take another look at Chris Christie, beginning with his speech in Florida the day after the Paris attacks.
Did O'Reilly Finally Go Too Far?
Earlier this month, premier Fox newsman Bill O'Reilly became unhinged on live television. A red-faced O'Reilly loudly and repeatedly called his invited guest, Washington Post columnist and fellow conservative Fox News journalist George Will, a "hack" and accused him of lying. It was a surreal moment, with stunned viewers no doubt muttering to themselves, "Is the jig finally up?" Will had written a negative review of the fifth of O'Reilly's co-authored "Killing" books, "Killing Reagan." So O'Reilly dared Will to appear on his "No Spin Zone" hot seat.
Guns, Butter and Budgetary Baloney
There's no choosing between guns and butter in Washington. With virtually no limit on what the federal government can spend other people's money on, policymakers have been loading up on both for decades, and they aren't about to let limits that they themselves created get in the way. The pesky budget caps that were accidentally installed in 2011 put a modest brake on spending, but the recent passage of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 increased allowable funding under those caps — for the second time. And sure enough, the deal promises more guns and more butter.
Clinton Takes All Cakes
So it has come to this. The party that once nominated Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Harry S. Truman to win the presidency — the party that once nominated men of the stature of Adlai Stevenson and Hubert Humphrey to contest the presidency — is now left with the Three Stooges vying for the highest office in the land. There they stood on a stage in Des Moines, Iowa last Saturday night. The Republican Party had put up eight plausible presidential candidates on a stage on Nov. 10. They even had a second tier debate a few hours earlier featuring candidates who did not make the cut but who could each trounce any of the Democrats' Three Stooges in the 2016 election. Ladies and gentleman, you heard it first here. The 2016 results are in.
The Race to Riot on College Campuses
College campuses are again in turmoil. According to The New York Times, "Racist, sexist and anti-Semitic incidents on and near college campuses from Dartmouth to Wisconsin to Stanford this fall have provoked worries by education and civil rights leaders that such acts are on the increase." That wasn't a story in yesterday's newspaper. That was a story in the Times edition of October 31, 1988. Most campuses where these incidents occurred were noted for their liberalism. They included such bastions of feminism as Smith and Wellesley colleges, Amherst and Mount Holyoke, as well as Yale and Dartmouth and even what many regard as ground zero of liberal academia, The University of Wisconsin at Madison.
The Paris Attacks and the Rise of ISIS
In the wake of the Paris attacks, let's examine the rise of ISIS. During the last Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton gave this unchallenged "explanation" of why we left Iraq — without a stay-behind force. She said, "I think that what happened when we abided by the agreement that George W. Bush made with the Iraqis to leave by 2011, is that an Iraqi army was left that had been trained and that was prepared to defend Iraq."
The Left-Wing Mind
The Paris attacks exposed not only the vulnerabilities of free societies and weaknesses in our immigration, refugee and security policies, but also the insanity of the left-wing mind. For example, Secretary of State John Kerry suggested [Tuesday] that there was some "rationale" behind the January attacks on the Charlie Hebdo headquarters.
Tolerance: Now UC It, Now You Don't
America's universities used to care about critical thinking. Now they're just critical — toward conservative thinking. Last week, we talked about Carol Swain, the African-American professor under fire for suggesting that radical Islam was a threat to security. (A theory the French would now certainly support.) Turns out, she isn't the only one making waves on college campuses.
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
We're Not Islamophobic, Mr. Obama, We Just Don't Want to Get Blown Up
Republican and Democratic governors are thwarting President Obama's plan to move thousands of Syrian refugees into your neighborhood. It is a prudent measure to take — especially in the aftermath of the Islamic terrorist attack in Paris. And it is especially prudent now that ISIS has warned that America will be next. "We need to take ISIS at their word," Franklin Graham wrote on Facebook. "Their goal is world domination. They want to control us — they want to destroy us."
Obama Stubbornly Sticks to Script on Islamic State
According to legend, if not actual historians, Harold Macmillan was once asked what he most feared could derail his agenda. The British prime minister allegedly said, "Events, my dear boy, events." Macmillan may never have actually said it, but the quote endures because it gets at a fundamental truth of politics (and life). Facts on the ground can deliver a fatal blow to one's most cherished plans.
No, It Is Not Un-American to Prefer Christian Refugees to Muslim Refugees
On Friday, Muslim terrorists murdered 129 people in Paris. At least one of the ISIS perpetrators apparently entered Europe as a "refugee" from Syria — he was found with a refugee ID. ISIS has already claimed that they have infiltrated the Syrian refugee population to the tune of thousands of terrorists. On Monday, President Obama announced that it would be purely un-American for Westerners to ban unvetted Muslim immigrants from the Middle East while allowing Christian targets of genocide to enter the West. He called such an idea "shameful," while passionately calling for Americans to "open our hearts" to more refugees. He praised bordering countries Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon for taking in hundreds of thousands of refugees; Obama said that showed their "belief in a common humanity."
Anti-Liberty Politicians
After a terrorist attack, it's natural to ask: What can politicians do to keep us safe? One thing they could do is actually focus on keeping us safe rather than devoting so much time, energy and hot air to the many things government does *instead* of protecting lives and property. My state's politicians are particularly bad. New York's legislators regularly go to jail for taking bribes to pass, or not pass, special regulations.
Law Enforcement Loves Legal Larceny
During a talk radio debate last week, Tulsa's district attorney, Steve Kunzweiler, warned that civil forfeiture reform would invite "some of the most violent people in the history of this planet" to set up shop in Oklahoma, making decapitated bodies "hung from bridges" a familiar sight in the Sooner State. Last month, Steve Jones, an assistant district attorney, told Tennessee legislators "criminals will thank you" for making it harder to confiscate people's property.
Obama's Lecture on Shame
An angry president went after his enemies [Monday], passionately denouncing those who suggested that if we are going to take more Syrian refugees, they should be Christians. "[T]hat's shameful. That's not American. That's not who we are. We don't have religious tests to our compassion," he said. In fact, Obama's refugee policy does appear to have a religious test — one that seems to discriminate AGAINST Christians. At the beginning of the Syrian civil war, 10% of the population was Christian, but only 2.4% of the Syrian refugees are Christian. How can this be?
Will Rubio Fight for Conservative Principles?
I have written numerous laudatory columns about Marco Rubio, the young Republican senator from Florida, now a serious presidential contender. It is not hard to get enthusiastic about Rubio. He radiates star quality and seems to hold promise as the kind of new conservative leader we seek. And yet, nagging doubts persist about whether he is indeed that totally committed conservative warrior, ready to fight the very tough fight to get America back on track.
Refugees Are Syria's Business for U.S.
More than four million Syrian refugees have poured into Europe since the start of the country's war five years ago. But it only took one of them to change Paris forever. Three days after the tragedy in France rocked the world, officials have confirmed that at least one of the terrorists snuck into the country posing as a Syrian refugee. That revelation, combined with fresh fears that ISIS is on the move in the West, is igniting a firestorm in the U.S., where President Obama announced his plans to open America's arms to at least 10,000 Syrian refugees in 2016 (and as many as 100,000 if Democrats get their way).
Obama Gets Testy in Turkey With the Press
After seven years of media adoration, President Obama was stunned and prickly. At a press conference in Antalya, Turkey, American reporters kept asking him why he was declaring his anti-ISIS strategy was working, when clearly it isn't. NBC's Chuck Todd found Obama "extremely defensive and almost not yet realizing that many of the reporters in that room, they're channeling the public in this case."
Where Is America's 'Force Protection' From Refujihadis?
Back in May, with ISIS ascendant, the Obama Pentagon ordered U.S. military bases here at home to raise their force protection condition status (FPCON) to "Bravo" amid a "general increase in the threat environment." FPCON is the military's security posture to protect troops, their families, civilian employees, information, equipment and facilities against terrorist threats. FPCON Bravo — the third-highest threat level on a five-tier scale used by the Department of Defense — signals a climate in which "increased and more predictable threat[s] of terrorist activity" and "probable violence" exist, requiring higher security measures ranging from vehicle inspections, stricter ID checks and increased guard presence.
Drug Smugglers Flow Across Our Border, Syrian Christians Don't
Who should Americans see as worthier candidates for entering our country? Syrian Christians fleeing persecution — and possible beheading by the Islamic State — or smugglers moving drugs across our Mexican border? Under existing U.S. law, a Christian fleeing from regions in Syria threatened or controlled by the Islamic State could claim asylum here. A smuggler moving drugs across our border has no justification at all.
Education Disaster
The 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress report, also known as The Nation's Report Card, shows that U.S. educational achievement, to put it nicely, leaves much to be desired. When it comes to reading and math skills, just 34 percent and 33 percent, respectively, of U.S. eighth-grade students tested proficient or above — that is, performed at grade level or above. Recent test scores show poor achievement levels in other academic areas. Only 18 percent of eighth-graders are proficient in U.S. history. It's 27 percent in geography and 23 percent in civics.