Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
How a Biden Bid Could Help Hillary Clinton's Campaign
The scuttlebutt in Washington is that Vice President Joe Biden is going to throw his hat into the presidential race, which means there is at least a 50 percent chance that he will. I mean, when is the Beltway scuttlebutt ever wrong? Under different conditions, I'd guess that, if he does announce, Biden has almost no shot at winning the Democratic primary, and that his candidacy could prove a gift to Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Feeling Good About America on a Chilly Autumn Evening
Don't you love it when something heartwarming happens to you unexpectedly? That happened to me on October 1. My friend Ron invited me to go with him to Cleveland to see the game that night between the Indians and the Minnesota Twins. Neither of us had any connection to either of the teams (I'm a lifelong Tigers fan and Ron is a lifelong Pirates fan) but I had never seen Progressive (formerly Jacobs) Field before, so off we went.
Hollywood Can't Handle the Truth
There are many things that real people do to become the subject of sympathetic movies. Make a flawless emergency landing in the Hudson River with a disabled passenger jet full of passengers. Survive a devastating storm atop Mount Everest. Become the most lethal sniper in the history of the U.S. military.
School Says Air Force Logo Violates Dress Code
A Texas school district threatened to punish two patriotic sisters who refused to remove hoodie-style jackets emblazoned with the U.S. Air Force logo. "It's political correctness run amuck," said Phillip Rolen. His twin daughters were told that the Air Force logo violated the dress code policy of the Aubrey Independent School District. The 11-year-old girls were told they could face disciplinary action if they wore the jackets on school property.
They Really Hate Ben Carson
The invective against Dr. Ben Carson coming from the left is extraordinary, even for the left. Now that Carson, one of the pre-eminent brain surgeons in America, has become a viable candidate for president, the left has labelled him everything awful it can come up with. One left-wing columnist, Charles Blow of The New York Times, even disparaged his intelligence.
Liberal Cynicism and Double Standards on Race
Fair people are disgusted with GQ columnist Drew Magary's vile denunciation of Ben Carson and his comments on the Oregon shooting, but it shouldn't surprise anyone familiar with leftist vulgarity and double standards. Not only did GQ print the post, in which Magary wrote "f— him," but also it titled the piece "F— Ben Carson." So much for civility, decency, tolerance, intellectual heft and — oh, yes — racial sensitivity. GQ tweeted a link to the column, which means it wants people to read it.
The 'Gun Control' Farce
President Obama's intrusion into the mourning community of Roseburg, Oregon, in order to promote his political crusade for stronger gun control laws, is part of a pattern of his using various other sites of shooting rampages in the past to promote this long-standing crusade of the political left.
Are Both Parties Incapable of Governing?
Important parts of our two great political parties seem bent on demonstrating that their parties are incapable of governing coherently. House Republican rebels have pushed Speaker John Boehner out the door without advancing a plausible successor and have risked leaving the speaker's chair vacant. Hillary Clinton has backpedaled and flip-flopped to fortify her flagging campaign so much that she risks making herself a figure of fun.
America's $12 Trillion House of Cards
What is the price tag for the audacious Obamanomics experiment? How much has it all cost — the bailouts, the debt, the stimulus plans, the printing of cheap money, Obamacare and all the rest? The answer to that question is just shy of $12 trillion. That's the sum of the $8.3 trillion added to the national debt since Sept. 15, 2008 (the day Lehman Brothers filed bankruptcy) for all the government spending and the $3.5 trillion of easy money flushed into the economy by the Federal Reserve through the initial monetary expansion — QE1, QE2 and QE3.
The Man Who Wasn't There
For the briefest of moments on Sunday night, "60 Minutes" veteran Steve Kroft decided to impersonate a newsman during his interview with Barack Obama. "He's challenging your leadership, Mr. President. He's challenging your leadership," Kroft insisted, in reference to Vladimir Putin's Syrian excursion.
Banana Republicans?
When Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) walked into a Capitol Hill conference room to meet with his Republican colleagues last Thursday, he seemed a certain bet to be elected the next speaker of the House of Representatives. Subsequent reports revealed McCarthy already knew he didn't have enough votes to win, or if he did, it was barely enough, but an insufficient majority to rule the contentious GOP caucus. And so he shocked everyone when he emerged and announced his withdrawal as a candidate.
Monday, October 12, 2015
Condemned if You Do: Sgt. Charles Martland
We should all want our troops in Afghanistan to intervene to stop the rape of boys, right? Surely, we don't want our U.S. Army to act like morally neutered crew members of the Starship Enterprise from the famed Star Trek TV series. Those fictional time and space travelers had a Prime Directive that forbade them from interfering in the development of less technologically advanced beings they encountered as they went "where no man had gone before."
Many Presidents Have Known the Grief of Burying a Child
After simmering for months, the speculation about the likelihood of a Joe Biden presidential campaign — and about the impact of his oldest son's death from brain cancer in May — has suddenly gone to a boil.
The College of Coulter
Fresh from reminding the Republican contenders that there aren't as many "f—ing Jews" in America as they seem to think when they pledge their commitment to the survival of Israel, Ann Coulter has come up with a new litmus test, basing their fitness to be president on the college or university they attended. She stoops to this nonsense because she wishes to remind us that not only did she attend Cornell and graduate from the University of Michigan Law School, but that her current heart throb, Donald Trump, graduated from the prestigious Wharton School of Business.
Sunday, October 11, 2015
Lawsuit: Baby Jesus Doesn't Belong in Christmas Play
You would think the anti-Christmas crowd would wait until there's frost on the pumpkin patch before pillaging and plundering our long-cherished yuletide traditions. But the Freedom From Religion Foundation has been chomping at the bit to bully those who celebrate the birth of Jesus.
Ted Cruz Calculates a Path to the Nomination
If America's 58th presidential election validates Ted Cruz's audacious "base plus" strategy, he will have refuted assumptions about the importance of independent "swing" voters and the inertia of many missing voters. Critics say his plan for pursuing the Republican nomination precludes winning the presidency.
Skeptical Climate Change Is Real? These 20 Academics Think You Should Be Prosecuted.
Are you skeptical of human-caused global warming or climate change like many respected scientists and climate experts? Then you should be prosecuted like a Mafia mob boss, according to 20 academics at ivory towers like Columbia, Rutgers, and the University of Washington.
Why Not Just Get Rid of Labor Law?
While politicians seem to never tire of proposing new ways to regulate the workplace, I want to propose a radically different idea: get government out of the workplace altogether. If that's too radical for you, here is a compromise proposal: allow parallel systems under which workers in the same industry can choose to work as employees or work as independent contractors in an essentially unregulated labor market.
Saturday, October 10, 2015
No, Alabama Closing Part-Time DMVs Is Not ‘New Jim Crow’
Many on the left are in a ferment over Alabama's closure of some part-time Department of Motor Vehicles offices. It's being done for budgetary reasons, but liberals are claiming it's being done to raise a "barrier for poor and minority voters" in getting an ID to vote, according to the Washington Post. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that "it's a blast from the Jim Crow past," and Jesse Jackson claimed that "this new Jim Crow isn't subtle."
Army Petitions Sarge Ahead!
The Pentagon may not have Sergeant First Class Charles Martland's back, but more than 130,000 Americans do! Since the Bronze Star winner came under fire for roughing up a child rapist in Afghanistan, Martland is building his own army of support. More than 130,000 Americans are standing up and demanding the Green Beret's reinstatement for doing what most of them would have done in his place: protect an innocent boy.