Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Monday, October 5, 2015
Civics Class
We are told that there are three equal branches of government, but I'm not buying it. If that were the case, how would the unelected members of the Supreme Court be able to legislate on such matters as abortions and same-sex marriages? If things were equally divided, how would Barack Obama be free to decide that he didn't have to call the suicidal nuclear deal he cut with Iran a treaty, which would have required passage by two-thirds of the Senate? For that matter, if the legislative branch is a co-equal of the executive branch, why is it that it requires 60 senators to stop the nuclear deal in its tracks, but Obama only needs 40 senators to over-ride a Senate veto?
Sunday, October 4, 2015
America Visits Pluto
In 1989, America's Voyager 2 spacecraft performed a reconnaissance flyby of Neptune, the distant ice giant planet that orbits about three billion miles from the sun. I was in graduate school then, and I stayed up all night watching PBS's "Neptune All Night" broadcast of the images being sent from Voyager as it swept past Neptune and its retinue of moons. What a fascinating world this was! Neptune, a shimmering blue gem of a planet, had tremendously violent weather with 1,000-mph winds and huge, dark, brooding storms, something utterly unexpected for a planet so cold and so far from the sun. Alan Stern, a young scientist in 1989, knew we needed a mission to Pluto. He agitated for many years to fund a flyby of Pluto, and finally the New Horizons spacecraft was launched on a big Atlas V rocket, speeding away from the Earth at 35,000 mph.
Finding Our Place in the Universe
Twinkling stars are pretty but, for astronomers, problematic. Twinkles are caused by the interference of Earth's atmosphere with light radiating throughout the breathtakingly beautiful and unimaginably violent universe. In 1990, however, the Hubble telescope went into orbit 370 miles above Earth, beyond the atmospheric filter, peering perhaps 12 billion years into the past, almost to the Big Bang of 13.7 billion years ago. It has seen interesting things, including HD 189733b, a planet about 63 light-years (370 trillion miles) away, where winds exceed 4,000 mph and it rains molten glass. As Hubble nears the end of its life, its much more capable successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, named after a former NASA administrator, is being developed at Johns Hopkins University.
Saturday, October 3, 2015
The Day Christians Were Martyred on American Soil
Life or death was determined by the answer to a single question: Are you a Christian? That was the question asked by an anti-Christian gunman who stormed into a classroom at Oregon's Umpqua Community College. Eyewitnesses say the shooter targeted Christians. Kortney Moore was inside the classroom. She told the Roseburg News-Review that the shooter ordered students to get on the ground — and then told them to stand up and state their religion.
Abbas Should Have Been Jeered, Not Applauded, at the UN
Mahmoud Abbas addressed the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday in his capacity as "President of State of Palestine," or so the official text posted on the UN website identifies him. In reality, Abbas is no more the lawful president of Palestine than George W. Bush is the lawful president of the United States. Both were sworn in for four-year terms in January 2005. Those terms expired more than six years ago. If Bush had appeared before the UN plenum this week and presumed to announce a change in American policy, he would have been thought delusional and jeered off the podium. That is the reaction that Abbas deserved when he traveled to UN headquarters in New York and proclaimed that the Palestinian Authority will no longer be bound by agreements signed with Israel.
Another Radical Left Hate Crime?
[Thursday], 26 year-old Chris Harper Mercer walked onto the campus of Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, and murdered nine people. Seven more individuals were injured during his shooting rampage. Our prayers go out to the victims and their families.
EPA Ozone Rule: One More Way to Hurt Poor and Millennials
Let's count the ways the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. government hurt poor people and Millennials. Oh right, that would take years. If you aren't poor or a Millennial, don't tune out. The EPA and the rest of the Obama administration hurt you too. Millennials and those under the poverty line (of any age) have something in common: They lack resources to adapt to changing economic conditions.
Ben Carson Was Right
All that Dr. Carson said was that he would not want to see a Muslim in the Oval Office, and the politically correct jackals fell on him as if he were a gazelle with a bad limp. But why would anyone want to see a Muslim president? It's bad enough that Barack Obama has filled so many positions in his administration with them that he barely has room for all the transgendered freaks and homosexuals he has crammed onto the federal payroll.
Thanks to Obama's Poor Choices, ISIS Has Sophisticated Arms, Weapons
The Islamic State continues to wreak havoc in Iraq and Syria. The extremist Islamic group, unmatched in its atrocities, has slaughtered hundreds of innocent Christians, Yazidis, Alawites, Shiites, and their more moderate coreligionists. Now, hundreds of thousands of desperate Middle Easterners are fleeing the region, creating a worldwide refugee crisis and possibly spreading terrorists throughout Europe and beyond.
Friday, October 2, 2015
School District Fights ACLU, Vows to Keep Saying 'God Bless You'
The American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana has launched a full-scale assault on Airline High School after the principal wrote the words "May God Bless You All" in a message posted on the school's website. "The Future Starts Today – May God Bless You All," wrote Principal Jason Rowland in September. The ACLU also complained about plans by the school's Fellowship of Christian Athletes to place prayer request boxes around the campus.
South Sudan: Obama's Foreign Policy Consistently Finds the Wrong Balance
A good football coach knows that on third down and inches, a quarterback sneak might be the best play. Conversely, on third down and 25, his team will likely throw a long pass. The right play for one situation isn't necessarily right in every situation. Likewise, an effective U.S. president knows when to intervene and project strength and when to keep a low profile. Obama's problem is that when he should show strength and resolve, he is passive and weak. And when he should show restraint and patience, he needlessly inserts himself and seeks to impose his will. Simply stated, given the circumstances, he calls the wrong play. Obama's miscues are endangering the future of South Sudan.
The GOP Is Overmatched
If for some reason you needed additional evidence that the Republican Party is deeply incompetent, unprepared, uncoordinated and inexcusably lazy, then try watching Cecile Richards' appearance in front of Congress earlier this week. Now, I get that these kinds of hearings are normally a waste of time, but in this instance, the GOP had some good reasons to project competence. This is, after all, the issue that's generated so much tension within the party of late. An effective showing — something resembling a smart prosecution — might have allayed a bit of the percolating discontent. Yet there Republicans were, facing a CEO whose organization performs vivisections on humans and harvests baby brains, and the best they could do most of the time was alternate between slow-pitching Richards some hangers and ensuring her martyrdom.
Obama's Syria Debacle
If it had the wit, the Obama administration would be not angered, but appropriately humiliated. President Obama has, once again, been totally outmaneuvered by Vladimir Putin. Two days earlier at the United Nations, Obama had welcomed the return, in force, of the Russian military to the Middle East — for the first time in decades — in order to help fight the Islamic State. The ruse was transparent from the beginning. Russia is not in Syria to fight the Islamic State. The Kremlin was sending fighter planes, air-to-air missiles and SA-22 anti-aircraft batteries. Against an Islamic State that has no air force, no planes, no helicopters?
The Baby Butchers and Their Media Butchers
"I'd say a lot of people want liver." The propagandists of Planned Parenthood don't want you to remember that earlier this summer the group apologized for the "tone" of one of its top officials, Deborah Nucatola, who casually hawked unborn baby parts to undercover journalists from the Center for Medical Progress as she swilled wine and chomped on a salad. Not long after confessing that the "tone" of their butchers might cause offense, another top Planned Parenthood trafficker, Mary Gatter, joked about scoring a luxury car after haggling over $75 baby-organ price tags.
Putin Cutting Obama Down to Size
If the humiliation of the Obama administration continues at this rate, by this time next week you should expect to see Secretary of State John Kerry on all fours at the United Nations, getting paddled by the Russian foreign minister and shouting, "Thank you, comrade! May I have another?" On Monday, President Obama and Vladimir Putin had a meeting at the United Nations. All Putin wanted from it was a photo of the two men huddling together. The Russian president needed to show his people that he's still a major player on the world stage, a big man driving events. Obama, who spent much of the last year trying to isolate the butcher of Ukraine, gave Putin exactly what he wanted. In wall-to-wall coverage, Russian media celebrated the big man's diplomatic triumph and his geo-strategic genius.
When Dad Is the Devil
The bride, Edda, was 20, glamorous and well connected. The groom came from a prominent family. Their wedding was Italy's social event of the year in 1930. If the occasion was marred in any way, it was through the inability of the bride's father to part gracefully with his first-born daughter. He was so distraught that when the couple drove off for their honeymoon on Capri, Dad followed them for miles in his own car until Edda finally stopped, marched back to his car, and told him he had to turn around and go home. That is our introduction to Edda Mussolini and her father, Benito, in Jay Nordlinger's gripping new book, "Children of Monsters: An Inquiry Into the Sons and Daughters of Dictators." "I have managed to bend Italy," Mussolini once said of his daughter, "but I doubt I will ever be able to bend Edda's will."
Humiliation
A few months ago, a Republican operative made an observation that caused something of a political flap when he said, "Every day Donald Trump is emasculating Jeb Bush." I recalled that observation [Thursday] morning as I watched the latest filleting of Barack Obama, and by extension, America, by Vladimir Putin. During his presidency, Obama has regularly said to various segments of the U.S. electorate, "I have your back." If only we were led by a president who had the entire nation's back.
Planned Parenthood Can't Handle the Truth
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's questioning of Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards exposes the depravity and dishonesty of her organization. Richards and her colleagues act like cornered criminal defendants whose only defense is to dissemble and counterattack their accusers, for the truth is not in them. Planned Parenthood piously holds itself out as a benevolent, quasi-sacred entity, selflessly devoted to improving women's health. It has consistently denied critics' claims that it performs no mammograms, but at the hearing, Richards unremorsefully conceded the charge and pretended she never said otherwise. And it's not just about mammograms. Americans United for Life has shown that under Richards' leadership, there has been a marked decrease in cancer screening and breast health services while there has been an increase in abortion.
Beware the Celebrity Baby Deniers
As Planned Parenthood boss Cecile Richards prepared to testify to Congress about the filthy business she leads — thanks in large part to an infusion of a half-billion dollars in federal funds every year — her marketing team tried to change the subject to everything else. They put out a video coaching young people how to make sure they get full consent before sexual activity. This is ironic, considering the Center for Medical Progress tapes include an insider saying Planned Parenthood routinely failed to seek the mother's consent before "donating" the parts of her baby to fetal tissue researchers.