Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Thursday, October 15, 2015
The Democratic Presidential Debate: There They Go Again
Watching the Democratic candidates' presidential debate Tuesday night one might think a Republican has been in the White House since 2009. These political Lilliputians could find little to say that was positive. The economy is bad, too many people aren't working (whose fault is that?), we should spend trillions more we don't have because everything we're spending now isn't producing results. Memo to Democrats: If your policies are failing, try something different.
Ben Carson: Clear and Present Danger?
Dr. Ben Carson, now second in most polls for the Republican presidential nomination, naturally finds himself under attack by threatened lefties. GQ published an anti-Carson article with the headline "F—k Ben Carson," except it spelled out the f-word. Comic actor Seth Rogen tweeted "F—k you" to Carson. And a Daily Beast column accused him of anti-Semitism. The columnist cited Godwin's law, which states that debate gets shut down the minute one invokes Nazi Germany to make a point.
Emanuel Battles History in Chicago
A Midwestern humorist, Indiana's Kin Hubbard, said people often confuse bad management with destiny. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel knows better. He must play the cards that fate has dealt him, and he is too polite, or at least too prudent, to say that another name for fate is Democratic rule of the city since 1931.
Football Coach Says He Will Defy School's Prayer Ban
There's a scene in the great football film "Facing the Giants" when the coach decides to implement a new coaching philosophy — to praise God no matter what the result. Joe Kennedy, a football coach at Bremerton High School in Washington, was so inspired by the film he decided to embrace that philosophy — knowing that to do so could cost him his job. I'll explain why in just a few more paragraphs.
Are Sanctuary Cities the New Confederates?
There are now 340 sanctuary cities — and the list is growing. All of them choose to ignore federal immigration law by refusing to report detained undocumented immigrants to federal authorities under most circumstances. Partly as a result, deportations of those who entered the U.S. illegally are at a 10-year low — even according to the Obama administration's new rigged redefinition of deportation as also occasionally preventing illegal entry at the border.
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
School Reverses Ban on Air Force Logo
It was known as the wild blue blunder. A Texas school district has decided to reverse a controversial ban on large military logos. The reversal came 12 hours after I told you the story of two girls who were ordered to remove jackets that were emblazoned with large Air Force logos.
Humility in New Hampshire
In his 1850 short story, "The Great Stone Face," Nathaniel Hawthorne described the legend of the Old Man of the Mountain: "At some future day, a child should be born hereabouts, who was destined to become the greatest and noblest personage of his time, and whose countenance, in manhood, should bear an exact resemblance to the Great Stone Face." In this short story, immortalizing this geological structure in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, a series of high profile figures is each declared to be the front runner, until the local citizen, Ernest, determines that the resemblance is lacking.
The DOJ Is Wrong: Cops and Criminals Are Not Morally Equivalent
Recently the acting head of the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, Principal Deputy Attorney General Vanita Gupta, gave a very long speech for the "Community Policing Summit" hosted by the U.S. Attorney's office in New Jersey. The speech was a longer and more detailed version of remarks delivered repeatedly by Obama administration officials these days, so it is worth reading with some care.
When Cops Steal From Innocent Civilians: Civil Forfeiture Undermines the Justice System
Not many people make a habit of carrying large amounts of cash around. After all, thieves could steal it. How ironic, then, that a growing threat to your money is the people you'd call if your money was stolen: the police. And all because of a little-known law-enforcement tool known as civil forfeiture. It allows police departments to keep the proceeds from whatever property they seize in the course of conducting an investigation or making an arrest.
Why Are Married Couples With Kids Wealthier Than Other Americans?
When the Census Bureau recently released its 2014 data on household income in the United States, the numbers once again pointed to a basic trend that this nation's liberal political and cultural elite has no interest in publicizing. Married people with children generally do better financially than other Americans.
Blessed Assurance: Message Is Fine...
God isn't the enemy, but He's sure been treated like one on some military installations. At Marine Corps Base Hawaii, activists have one mission: booting God from base. But thanks to commanding officer Sean Killeen, it won't happen without a fight. For weeks, a secular group with nothing better to do than harass the military has demanded that a sign come down that says, "God bless the military, their families, and the civilians who work with them."
Obama Lied, My Health Plan Died ... Twice!
It's *deja screwed* all over again. In the fall of 2013, our family received notice from Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield of Colorado that we could no longer keep our private health insurance plan because of "changes from health care reform (also called the Affordable Care Act or ACA)."
Bullying Ben Carson, Coddling Democrats
We've been waiting for the media attacks on Ben Carson to begin. To this point he'd been (relatively) untouched: He wasn't viewed as a credible threat. But his numbers aren't receding. They're growing. So he's now in the crosshairs. The "news" networks have spent several days manufacturing outrage over Carson, saying that if he were in a mass-shooting situation, he would want to fight back. "I would not just stand there and let him shoot me."
GOP Money Race
Politico reports that billionaire Sheldon Adelson may be on the verge of endorsing Florida Senator Marco Rubio and committing his considerable wealth to backing the junior senator's candidacy. This would be a huge development. Adelson is the Republican Party's biggest donor. He spent $100 million in 2012. If Adelson commits to Rubio, he could single-handedly neutralize Jeb Bush's financial advantage.
Donald Trump Loves Land Grabs
Donald Trump, who in the 1990s tried to force an elderly widow out of her Atlantic City home as part of a plan to expand his casino, now says he is glad she resisted, because it helped him avoid a bad investment. By successfully fighting condemnation of her home, Trump told Breitbart News last week, Vera Coking "saved me a fortune."
The Anti-Jew Anti-Gun Crusade
This week, 2016 Republican presidential contender Dr. Ben Carson bore the brunt of the media's ire for his politically incorrect take on the evils of gun control. "Through a combination of removing guns and disseminating propaganda, the Nazis were able to carry out their evil intentions with relatively little resistance," Carson writes in his new book, "A Perfect Union."
The 'Gun Control' Farce: Part II
The grand illusion of zealots for laws preventing ordinary, law-abiding people from having guns is that "gun control" laws actually control guns. In a country with many millions of guns, not all of them registered, this is a fantasy and a farce. Guns do not vanish into thin air because there are gun control laws. Guns — whether legal or illegal — can last for centuries. Passing laws against guns may enable zealots to feel good about themselves, but at the cost of other people's lives.
Censorship in America
Support for the idea that it's good to hear all opinions, even offensive ones, is thin. A plurality of Americans now support laws against "hate speech." Conservatives once wanted to ban Playboy magazine, violent rap lyrics and offensive depictions of Jesus. Leftists then were right to fight such bans, but today leftists encourage censorship in the name of "tolerance."
Who Is a 'Real' Black?
Rupert Murdoch got the predictable avalanche of liberal pushback when he recently tweeted, "Ben and Candy Carson terrific. What about a real black president who can properly address the racial divide? And much else." What? Murdoch is suggesting our current president is not a "real black"?
Wealth, Poverty and Politics
Dr. Thomas Sowell, my colleague and friend, told me several years ago that he wasn't going to write any more books, but that was two books ago, and now he has just published his 45th. The man writes with both hands, as can be seen from his [website](http://tsowell.com), which lists his 45 books, 19 journal articles, 71 essays in periodicals and books, 34 book reviews, and occasional columns written in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Star, Newsweek, The Times (Britain) et al. Plus, he writes a semiweekly column for Creators Syndicate.