Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Monday, November 2, 2015
Energy Poverty: A Cold Way to Die
Very few people have heard the term "energy poverty," also known as "fuel poverty." The concept is really quite foreign to wealthy westerners. The sad thing is, it's a term that relates just as much to many of our neighbors as it does to those in developing countries. We all know people in Sub-Saharan Africa struggle in extreme poverty with no electricity, and we all support efforts to relieve that poverty (the most efficient and effective way through the use of abundant, affordable fossil fuels).
Judicial Watch Uncovers Corrupt Obama CIA-Hollywood Connection
Did you see the link on the Drudge Report and hear the news?!! We are now in possession of a previously classified December 2012 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) report from the Office of Inspector General (OIG) strongly condemning the agency's handling of "briefings, interviews, visits, and other support" given to the entertainment industry. The report specifically criticizes the CIA's granting of "Secret level" access to the makers of the movie Zero Dark Thirty. The OIG report was declassified in response to a Judicial Watch request for a Mandatory Declassification review.
U.S. Intelligence Is No Match for Iranian Deception
"This deal is not based on trust," President Obama said when he announced in July that a nuclear accord had been negotiated with Iran. "It's based on verification." Obama had said the same thing in April, when the accord's "framework" was first made public, and he repeated it in August, when he defended the deal in an address at American University. Secretary of State John Kerry, anxious to dispel concerns that duplicitous Iranian theocrats bent on acquiring nuclear warheads would be able to hoodwink their Western interlocutors, put the point even more strongly.
The Flag and I
I first wrote this piece in October, 2001. I believe that because of what has been taking place over the past 14 years — the past seven in particular — it's time once again that I posted this reminder of what America means to a great many of us.
Sunday, November 1, 2015
Hillary's Demagoguery
If an employer could hire a woman to do the same job as a man for one-fourth less pay, who do you think the employer is going to hire? The woman or the man? That's a no brainer. Or, a least it's a no brainer if employers care anything about making a profit. But if you listen to Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail, we are being asked to believe that is exactly what is happening. And it's not just one employer. In order for there to be persistent differences in what men and women are paid for the same work, entire industries have to be discriminating.
What Makes This Houston Ballot Measure So Threatening
On Tuesday, citizens of Houston, Texas, will go to the polls to vote on a controversial "sexual orientation and gender identity" (dubbed SOGI) measure. Rather than protecting equality before the law, the SOGI ordinance, euphemistically named the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO), creates special legal protections based on "sexual orientation and gender identity." HERO, like all sexual orientation and gender identity laws, is bad public policy.
Does Iran's Anti-Semitism Run Too Deep for Deterrence?
Yale historian Timothy Snyder is indebted to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who recently made Snyder's new book even more newsworthy than his extraordinary scholarship deserves to be. And Netanyahu is indebted to Snyder, whose theory of Hitler's anti-Semitism is germane to two questions: Is the Iranian regime's anti-Semitism rooted, as Hitler's was, in a theory of history that *demands* genocide? If so, when Iran becomes a nuclear power, can it be deterred from its announced determination to destroy Israel?
Saturday, October 31, 2015
A Near-Debt Experience
America's debt problems are enough to keep people up at night — and [Thursday], they did! While the rest of the country was counting sheep, Congress was counting votes on a controversial budget deal that finally passed in the wee hours of Friday morning. At 3:12 a.m., with the government's credit completely maxed out, the Senate gave its approval to a deal that John Boehner hatched as one of his last acts as speaker.
The Fallout Continues
The fallout from Wednesday's contentious CNBC debate continues. Politico reports that the Republican presidential candidates are taking matters into their own hands. Representatives from at least nine campaigns will be meeting in Washington, D.C., Sunday to discuss how they can force changes to the debate structure. No one from the Republican National Committee (RNC), which set up this process with the media, has been invited. The candidates' frustrations run the gamut from the questioning to the reliance on national polls to determine who makes it into the prime time debates.
The New American Verb: To Concuss
Of course, it's not a new verb; it's in older dictionaries. I have been hearing it much more frequently, however, and I am becoming alarmed. We as a society are much more aware of the risks of being concussed, and we have developed strict and cautious protocols, whereby individuals having been concussed are told to avoid physical exertion and to limit activities that require thinking and mental concentration, such as schoolwork. Some have been told to stay home from school for weeks in order to facilitate their recovery.
Solving America's Problems
Because I make it a practice to point out what everybody else is doing badly, I thought for a change I would offer solutions or at least suggestions. The problem with guns, as even Barack Obama would admit if you could water board him into telling the truth, has nothing to do with law-abiding citizens, everything to do with loons and thugs having access to weapons when, in a sane society, the only things those two groups would have access to are insane asylums and jails, respectively.
Friday, October 30, 2015
Bernie's Conspiracy Theory
Bernie Sanders is the most prominent conspiracy theorist in America. He runs around the country saying that the economy is "rigged" by what he calls "the billionaire class." Sanders doesn't mean this metaphorically. He's dead serious. As he put it in his speech at Liberty University a couple of months ago, our economy is "designed by the wealthiest people in this country to benefit the wealthiest people in this country at the expense of everybody else."
Champion Teen Runner Disqualified After Helping Rival in Medical Distress
Iowa's Zachary Hougland smoked the competition. The cross country runner sprinted across the finish line on October 22 and into the record books as the Davis County High School's first district champion. As Zach exchanged high-fives with his coach he turned around and saw one of his rivals struggling to finish the race. "This guy was about 20 meters from the finish line and he looked awful," Zach told me. "His face was turning white and he was holding his chest. He looked like he was going to fall."
Primary Losers
Donald Trump did not dominate the debate stage in his usual way. Ben Carson may have put a few people to sleep. Former GOP heavyweight hopeful Jeb Bush was badly bloodied by the counter punches of Kid Rubio. Mike Huckabee and Carly Fiorina were lost in the crowd and held scoreless all night. John Kasich yelled too much and Rand Paul continued his slow disappearing act.
Skip the Investigations, Win the Election
At a certain point, you have to realize you can't hit a fastball. House Republicans don't quite get that they are hopeless at oversight hearings. They keep losing — and now the chairman of the House Oversight Committee has just introduced articles of impeachment against IRS Commissioner John Koskinen. I'm sympathetic to the GOP motive, given how the Obama IRS has consistently obstructed and misled Congress in the tax-exemption scandal. But impeachment is no ordinary move. No agency chief or Cabinet officer has been impeached since 1876. And even proponents admit that there is no chance of Koskinen being removed from office because the Senate will never convict.
Hurray for CNBC
Jeb Bush's campaign may be mortally wounded. Limping in the polls despite his massive war chest, he stooped (almost literally if you check the body language) to attacking Marco Rubio in an attempt to revive his fortunes. Rubio's response, suggesting that Bush had been "told" to attack him, seemed like a bull's-eye. Jeb Bush is an honorable man, a man raised to behave like a gentleman; but he was feeling desperate at Wednesday's debate, and tried to play against type.
Being a Minority and a Conservative Is Not a Contradiction
Here's something you may not know: Dr. Ben Carson is black. Of course, I'm being a little cute here. The only way you wouldn't know he's black is if you were blind and only listened to the news. For instance, Tuesday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" — a program that often serves as a kind of artisanal boutique of inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom — host Joe Scarborough expressed his consternation over Carson's popularity. "I just don't get it," Scarborough said more than once.
Speaker Ryan, Cruz & Rubio Score Big, the Biggest Loser
Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin became Speaker Ryan [Thursday] morning. In doing so, he becomes the youngest speaker of the House in nearly 150 years. He is now second in the line of presidential succession, behind Vice President Joe Biden. While I have concerns about some of Ryan's positions, I will say this for the new leader of the House: Well-known for his devotion to policy solutions, Paul Ryan is one of his party's most articulate spokesmen. There will be many contentious battles in the weeks and months ahead, and his ability to articulate a conservative vision for the country will be tested like never before.
Paul Ryan Starts Off on Wrong Foot With Budget Deal
Grass-roots conservatives have many unrealistic expectations and political objectives. And then sometimes they have a good point. The new budget deal arranged by John Boehner and Democrats — approving $50 billion of additional spending in 2016 and $30 billion in 2017 — will be split between domestic discretionary programs and defense. Cuts will supposedly take effect in 2025, by which time this deal is likely to be buried under a dozen budget debates and a trillion dollars of bad memories for fiscal conservatives.
About That Campaign to Censor Trump's Comedy Show
Weeks after NBC granted Hillary Clinton the favor of appearing on "Saturday Night Live," playing a bartender to the actress who impersonates her on the comedy show, the same leftist activists who adored that routine are trying to prevent Donald Trump from hosting the show on Nov. 7. A group called "The National Hispanic Leadership Agenda" has written a letter to NBC objecting to the booking. MoveOn.org has organized a "Dump Donald Trump" petition drive with hundreds of thousands of leftist signatures. Another petition on Change.org also drew a leftist throng through social media, aided by the hashtag RacismIsntFunny.