Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
NAS Releases Explosive New Report on Divestment Movement
Today the National Association of Scholars (NAS) released a new report on the fossil fuel divestment movement. *[Inside Divestment: The Illiberal Movement to Turn a Generation Against Fossil Fuels](http://www.nas.org/projects/divestment_report)* is a comprehensive report that discusses not only the outcomes of the movement, but its origins, motives and methods.
The Mizzou Meltdown
It was doubtful that the University of Missouri would stand up to a left-wing pressure campaign targeting its president, but when the football team joined the campaign, it was all over. Missouri is an SEC school, where even a mediocre football program — Mizzou is 1-5 against the rest of the conference — has formidable financial and cultural power.
It's a Starbucks Coffee Cup, America, Not the Holy Grail
There's trouble brewing at Starbucks, and if you believe what you read on social media its 2015 Red Holiday Cups are the greatest threat to Christianity since the Islamic State started beheading the faithful. A very vocal group of Christian coffee lovers is a bit perturbed at the lack of yuletide flavor in their 2015 Red Holiday Cups. Previous designs have included all sorts of Yuletide accessories from scarves to ornaments to snowflakes.
Why I Am in Israel — and Why You Should Be
I want to explain why I am in Israel. I am in here with 450 American (and a German and a Canadian) listeners to my radio show. About 400 are non-Jews. We are here on a "Stand with Israel" tour organized by the syndicator of my radio show, the Salem Radio Network, and I am accompanied by my wife, my producer Allen Estrin and his wife, and my radio colleague Mike Gallagher.
Holy Land Wholly Enlightening
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama met [Monday] in the Oval office for a meeting that onlookers called "cordial." The public side of the meeting seemed uneventful, as Netanyahu reaffirmed his support for a two-state solution with conditions, and Obama said he was committed to expanded military aid to Israel.
Ben Carson Must Be Destroyed — Not
Big media has zeroed in on Carson because he is the new frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination. They're also targeting him because he is a man of faith and, let's be honest, because he is a black conservative. Recent polling shows Carson would get 20 percent of the African American vote against Hillary Clinton, a result that would devastate her election chances and destroy the whole left wing narrative about race.
Obama Earns a D on Handling Economy
Hillary Clinton got the laugh of the week when she said that President Obama doesn't get the credit he deserves for his economic performance. Oh, wait. She wasn't joking. Not many Americans agree with Clinton's charitable assessment. We just had a report of 1.5 percent growth in the most-recent quarter. Every poll for five years shows that voters are most concerned about jobs, falling incomes and the debt. (Climate change always ranks last or near last.)
Surge of Democratic Turnout Has Yet to Appear
You don't have to wander long in the liberal commentariat to find projections that the Republican Party is in a death spiral, doomed by demographics, discredited by the dissension among House Republicans, disenchanted with its experienced presidential candidates and despised by the great mass of voters. There is something to be said for each of these propositions — and yet Republican candidates keep winning elections, as in recent contests in Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and Virginia.
The Ben Carson Flaps
Dr. Ben Carson's whole life has been very unusual, so perhaps we should not be surprised to see the latest twist — the media going ballistic over discrepancies in a few things he said. Years ago, when I was writing some autobiographical sketches, I dug up old letters, to check out things that I remembered — and was surprised more than once to discover that my memory was not always exactly the same as the way things had happened and were recorded at the time.
Jesus Christ, the Key to Unlocking All of Scripture
Since I began reading the Bible, I have been fascinated by the story of Jesus' encounter with two of his apostles on the road to Emmaus, a village close to Jerusalem, in one of his resurrection appearances. The two men were despondent because Jesus, who had been crucified and buried just a few days before, had died without delivering Israel from its enemies. How could this have happened? He was supposed to be the promised Messiah.
Keystone Kaput for Now
President Obama's unilateral rejection of the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline that would have brought petroleum and jobs to the U.S. is another in a long list of issues dominated by politics rather than common sense, economics and science. After seven years of dithering on Keystone, the president said he was following the recommendation of Secretary of State John Kerry that the pipeline was not in the country's national security interest, which he said includes being a global leader in the "climate change" campaign.
Monday, November 9, 2015
Some Questions for Bill Nye Six Years After Our 'O’Reilly Factor' Debate
This article caught my eye, since, during the last El Niño, I was on "The O'Reilly Factor" debating Bill Nye (Feb. 2010): "Bill Nye demolishes climate deniers: "The single most important thing we can do now is talk about climate change." ... At the end of our debate, I challenged Bill to a grand experiment, something a man of science like him should love. I put forth an idea on where the temperature would go by 2030. I opined it would return to the level, as measured by the National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), it was in the late 1970s when we began recording real-time temperatures.
Not Losing Is a Loser's Game
The Obama administration's weak and failing Middle East policy — the struggle against ISIS and the ultimate fate of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria — revolves around a non-strategy of avoiding a major foreign-policy debacle in the 15 months remaining before a new president takes office. But it's too late. Russia and Iran calling the shots in the Middle East is an American foreign-policy debacle.
Judicial Watch Asks Appeals Court to Halt Race-Based, Separatist Election in Hawaii
If you're an American citizen in Hawaii, but lack the right racial "blood," you are now excluded from voting in an election that could decide the fate of your state. That's why our lawyers worked overtime to file an Urgent Motion for Injunction with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to stop a race-based, state-sponsored, Hawaiians-only election that violates the "fundamental constitutional rights" of American citizens.
Hillary Clinton, Arms Dealer
The dirty deals that put illegal arms shipments into the hands of Libyan jihadists.
Take the Journalists Off the Debate Stage
The most acclaimed candidate debates in American history — the Lincoln-Douglas encounters of 1858 — had nothing in common with modern presidential debates: No questions from moderators, no 60-second time limits, no ricocheting from topic to topic, no real-time reaction from focus groups. No pre- and post-debate sermonizing by political pundits. No Anderson Cooper or Megyn Kelly. No presidential candidates, even. (Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas were running for the US Senate).
The Mystical, Magical, Uterus
When Hillary Clinton was asked at a campaign event how her administration would differ from Barack Obama's, she replied in that voice that brings to mind a cat walking across a blackboard: "I'm a woman." Her silly response naturally garnered a huge ovation from the liberal yahoos in attendance. How is it that women, who have claimed to be empowering themselves for the past four decades, turn into simpering little girls every time Mrs. Clinton makes pandering statements about their gender?
Sunday, November 8, 2015
Is Your Home Your Castle? You Wish.
Suppose your best friend is down on her luck. Magnanimously, you give her a spare room in your house, on a temporary basis, and when she starts earning some income, you let her pay rent — say, $100 a week. You would think that just about everybody would applaud you. After all, your act of charity has prevented one more person from becoming homeless. But not everybody is happy with that result. The hotel industry doesn't like it for selfish reasons. Progressive politicians don't like it because … well, it's not always clear why progressives think the way they do.
Hollywood's Blacklisted Communist: The Truth About Trumbo
A long-touted motion picture on prominent Hollywood screenwriter and communist Dalton Trumbo debuts in theaters this weekend. I will see the film, but first I'd like to share some background on Trumbo. I do so not as a film critic but as a historian of the Cold War and communism, including the Hollywood front for which Trumbo was extremely active. For starters, it's crucial to keep in mind that communism was responsible for the deaths of over 100 million people in the last century, double the combined tolls of World War I and II. It's also vital to know that most American communists (small "c") did not actually join the Party.
New York Attorney General Tries to Criminalize Scientific Dissent on Climate Change
Everyone reading this should do the attorney general of New York, Eric T. Schneiderman, a big favor: buy a copy of the U.S. Constitution, highlight the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights with a bright yellow or orange Sharpie, and mail him a copy. Schneiderman obviously needs a remedial lesson in the fact that the government is banned from censoring or restricting speech, and certainly has no business "investigating" Americans, including corporations, for their views on — of all things — a contentious scientific theory.