Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Thursday, August 13, 2015
Not News: Unarmed White Teen Killed by Cop; Two White Cops Killed by Blacks
The media enthusiastically remind us that it's the first anniversary of the death of Ferguson's Michael Brown, a death that spawned the so-called Black Lives Matter movement. In a September speech at the United Nations, President Barack Obama said, "The world also took notice of the small American city of Ferguson, Missouri — where a young man was killed, and a community was divided." Never mind that both a grand jury and the federal Department of Justice exonerated the officer who shot and killed Brown. Never mind that neither the physical evidence nor eyewitness testimony corroborated the assertions that Brown had his hands up or that he said, "Don't shoot."
Another Education Subsidy
If elected president, Hillary Clinton has promised to spend $350 billion to make college "more affordable." The U.S. already has an $18 trillion debt (and growing by the day), but Clinton wants to add to it. That's not affordable. Too many young people are graduating from universities unable to find jobs, or are underemployed. Slate.com references a 2014 study of youth joblessness by the Economic Policy Institute. It found "...roughly 8.5 percent of college graduates between the ages of 21 and 24 were unemployed. That figure is based on a 12-month average between April 2013 and March 2014, so it's not a perfect snapshot of the here and now.
Jindal Puts the Emphasis on Assimilation
Bobby Jindal's presidential quest may not take him all the way to the White House. But if his time on the campaign trail helps put assimilation back at the heart of the nation's immigration debate, he will have rendered his country a valuable service. The 44-year-old governor of Louisiana was born and raised in Baton Rouge. His parents had immigrated to the United States from Punjab in northern India, and Jindal's election in 2007 made him the first Indian American chief executive of any state in US history.
Trump, the Counterfeit Republican
In every town large enough to have two traffic lights there is a bar at the back of which sits the local Donald Trump, nursing his fifth beer and innumerable delusions. Because the actual Donald Trump is wealthy, he can turn himself into an unprecedentedly and incorrigibly vulgar presidential candidate. It is his right to use his riches as he pleases. His squalid performance and its coarsening of civic life are costs of freedom that an open society must be prepared to pay. When, however, Trump decided that his next acquisition would be not another casino but the Republican presidential nomination, he tactically and quickly underwent many conversions of convenience (concerning abortion, health care, funding Democrats, etc.). His makeover demonstrates that he is a counterfeit Republican and no conservative.
The Trump Catharsis
The coarser and cruder Donald Trump becomes, and the more ill-informed on the issues he sounds, the more he coasts in the polls. Apparently, a few of his targets must be regarded as unsympathetically as their defamer. Trump is rightly mocked for cynically spreading quid pro quo money around. But he quickly counters that his critics — from Hillary Clinton to his Republican rivals — have all asked him for such cash or for favors. Trump preps little. He has no real agenda. And he makes stuff up as he goes along. For such a New York brawler, he has thin skin, smearing his critics, often in creepy fashion. How can a former Democrat, once a pro-choice, pro-amnesty liberal and a supporter of single-payer health care, remain the godhead of the conservative base for weeks on end?
Federal Agencies Fight for Warrantless Access to Emails
How would you feel if the government could access a trove of information about who you are, what you do, who your friends are and what they do by collecting it from email and cellphone providers, search engines, social networking sites, and other websites every day? If you'd be outraged, hold on to that feeling. Back in 1986 — in a bygone era before email, the modern Internet, Facebook, the widespread use of cellphones and sharing economy sites — the government passed the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. And believe it or not, this is still the law that protects the privacy of your electronic life in 2015.
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
The Christian Purge Has Begun
Chaplains banned from preaching that homosexuality is a sin
Megyn Kelly's Very Smart Question to Donald Trump
Unfortunately, the circus that Donald Trump has created around Fox News commentator Megyn Kelly and her allegedly "unfair" question to him in the Republican debate has drowned out the central importance of that "unfair" question. Voter frustration on the right reflects two things. One, we want to hear tough and straight talk from candidates. But two, we want a candidate who will be elected and set change in motion. All the tough talk in the world means nothing if the candidate doesn't get elected. Kelly's question to Trump was about this. It wasn't about whether Trump is courteous, or a jerk, or politically correct.
Immigration Is Great
Yikes, you really hate me! Many of you, anyway, based on Twitter and Facebook comments posted after I argued immigration with Ann Coulter on my TV show. "Move into an illegal-heavy neighborhood and get back to us!" "Another libertarian who believes illegal invaders are good for our country. Madness." Madness? Clearly, lots of Americans are mad about immigration. But we libertarians believe that people trapped in horrible countries deserve a chance at a better life and that free trade in labor, not just products, is a good thing.
Chris Christie's Fearmongering Argument Against Privacy
His Clash with Rand Paul Reflects the Clash Between the GOP's Authoritarian and Libertarian Tendencies
No Means No: Keep Gitmo Jihadists Out of U.S.A.
Get off that late-summer snooze button, America. The Obama administration is plotting to break a major promise made under oath — and jeopardize our nation in the name of social justice. This week, top White House officials floated renewed plans to close down Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Pentagon and Justice Department bureaucrats have been powwowing over how to shutter the facility and import up to hundreds of detained jihad suspects into the U.S. It's a longtime legacy promise President Obama wants to fulfill to progressives before he rides off permanently to Martha's Vineyard and Hawaii's lushest golf courses.
The Extreme Party
During last Thursday night's inaugural 2016 Republican presidential debate, Fox News' Megyn Kelly got into a spat with Donald Trump over his history of vulgar comments about women. Trump followed up that tiff by dropping a thinly veiled reference to Kelly's menstruation in the media. Those comments prompted Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton to praise Kelly — a woman with whom she would never deign to do an interview — bash Trump, and then lash out at Senator Marco Rubio, R-Fla., whom she perceives as the most serious threat to her presidential aspirations.
Conservatives vs. 'The Real World'
As she runs to hold on to her base against an openly declared socialist in the Democratic primaries, Hillary Clinton is declaring she intends to go even further than President Obama and his radical executive amnesty efforts. She continues to defend Planned Parenthood even after those horrific videos documented the ghastly sale of baby body parts for profit. She is wrapping herself in a gay agenda, viciously attacking religious freedom. But it's the Republicans that are the extremists.
Should America Redistribute More Wealth?
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont deserves credit for a certain candor many of his congressional colleagues lack. He calls himself, according to The New York Times, a "democratic Socialist." In Oakland on Monday, Sanders, who is running for president, ranted against what he called "the billionaire class" and called for redirecting the redistribution of wealth in America. "What our campaign is about is creating a political revolution, which says to the billionaire class, they can't have it all, this country, our government, belong to all of us," he said.
Academic Fascism
George Orwell said, "There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them." If one wants to discover the truth of Orwell's statement, he need only step upon most college campuses. Faculty leaders of the University of California consider certain statements racism and feel they should not be used in class. They call it micro-aggression. To them, micro-aggressive racist statements are: "America is the land of opportunity." That is seen as perpetuating the myth of meritocracy. "There is only one race, the human race." Such a statement is seen as denying the individual as a racial/cultural being. "I believe the most qualified person should get the job." That's "racist" because it gives the impression that "people of color are given extra unfair benefits because of their race."
Trumping the Status Quo
Back in the late '80s, I worked in the music business with a well-known producer who shepherded Bruce Springsteen to fame and fortune. Like every producer, he was in search of a follow up act, and one idea he had involved creating a heavy metal band with a mythical god as the lead singer. Because much of that effort involved creating a spectacle of sorts, I got assigned to attend one those professional wrestling matches that routinely sold out at Madison Square Garden. It was a highly entertaining night with plenty of over-the-top action, thrills and lots of silliness. And despite the fact that everyone in the room knew the winner of each fight was "predetermined," the crowd cheered for their favorite heroes with as much gusto as they could muster up. I never attended another match, nor did I see anything like it — until last Thursday night's GOP debate on Fox News.
GOP's Trump Problem Will Fade, but Dems' Sanders Troubles Are Just Beginning
"We are trying to be reasonable," an organizer for Bernie Sanders' Seattle rally said. The black female protesters who stormed the stage became enraged. "We aren't reasonable!" they shouted back. "If you do not listen to [us], your event will be shut down," one of them declared to the crowd. Sanders caved to the protesters from the Black Lives Matter movement and gave activist Marissa Johnson the microphone. "I was going to tell Bernie how racist this city is, even with all of these progressives, but you've already done that for me. Thank you," she said, apparently in response to members of the crowd who booed her. I suppose if you've already conceded that you aren't reasonable, it's not hard to argue that booing an uninvited rabble-rouser is "racist."
Tuesday, August 11, 2015
Fox Debate: Unfair and Unbalanced?
Twenty-four million people tuned in to watch the first primetime debate among 10 Republican presidential candidates. What were they expecting, a love-in? Some conservative critics dumped on Fox News with a vitriol usually reserved for liberal media. David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network said Fox (where I appear as a commentator) should be "utterly ashamed," calling the questions asked of Donald Trump "unethical and downright nasty." "Shame" was a word frequently used by critics of Megyn Kelly, Bret Baier and Chris Wallace.
A Tough Day for the President and His Party
Thursday was the biggest night of the political year so far, for what happened on the stage at Cleveland's Quicken Loans Arena and for what happened offstage as well. The stage was the scene of the first two Republican presidential debates, hosted by Fox News, which together lasted some 200 minutes between 5 and 11 p.m. EDT. What happened there did not go unnoticed. According to overnight Nielsen ratings, the two-hour prime-time debate got a rating as high as the national basketball finals — almost triple the highest rating of a Republican debate in the 2012 cycle and more than half that of the first Obama-Romney debate that fall. It was apparently the most watched primary debate in history.
A Debatable 'Debate'
The so-called "debates," among too many Republicans to have a debate, are yet another painful sign of how much words and ideas have degenerated in our times. No one expects these televised sound bites and "gotcha" questions to be anything like the historic Lincoln-Douglas debates on the momentous national issue of slavery. But the mob scene of candidates on stage that began with the 2012 campaign, and is now being repeated, is a big step down from the modern one-on-one debates between presidential candidates that began with John F. Kennedy versus Richard Nixon in 1960.