Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
Voters to Establishment: Hold DeMaio
While the GOP has plenty of victories to celebrate, their stubborn backing of far-Left Republicans isn't one of them. Against the wishes of their base, House leaders threw their support -- and plenty of cash -- at a handful of extreme anti-values candidates -- who, it turns out, no amount of money could make more attractive to conservatives. For all the talk of expanding the GOP tent, the openly homosexual trio of Carl DeMaio (Calif.), Richard Tisei (Mass.), and Dan Innis (N.H.) were just as unpopular with voters as they were unfaithful to key issues. In Oregon, the Republicans' same-sex "marriage" supporters fared just as poorly. Senate candidate Monica Wehby (R), a "social progressive" who made the redefinition of marriage a centerpiece of her campaign, lost handedly to the Democratic incumbent.
When Republicans Win, Politics Are 'Dysfunctional'
Since the Bolsheviks inaugurated the first edition of their party newspaper Pravda (the Russian word for truth), the left has shaped truth to serve its goals. On an individual level, there are plenty of progressives who are honest and plenty of conservatives who aren't. But truth is just not a left-wing value -- feminism, environmentalism, material equality, and fighting racism, sexism, homophobia and Islamophobia are far more important. The myriad falsehood-based hysterias unleashed by the left in our country -- the alleged heterosexual AIDS epidemic in America, the number of homeless people, the number of deaths from anorexia, the current charges of a "war on women" in our society and of a "culture of rape" on American college campuses, the immediate assertion that the killing of a black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri was caused by racist police -- testify to the left's cavalier attitude toward truth.
A Smoking Gun for Us 'Stupid American Voters'
Recently, a very disturbing video emerged that contains the metaphorical smoking gun concerning President Obama's many lies about Obamacare. This should remove any lingering doubt that we're dealing with a fascist-type administration. Of course, there should be no need for a smoking gun, because it is now undeniable that Obama lied on his major selling points about the Affordable Care Act. Unlike many Democrats in falsely accusing President George W. Bush of lying about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, I don't use the term "lie" lightly.
Coolidge in 2016
At a dinner sponsored by the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation last Thursday (I am an unpaid national advisory board member), there was a debate about wealth redistribution. A team of Canadian students who think government should "spread the wealth around" faced off against a team of American students who think government has no business doing any such thing. The theme continued when former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) debated Chrystia Freeland, a member of Canadian Parliament. While all of this was informative, civil, interesting and at times entertaining, the final speaker, CNBC commentator Larry Kudlow, may have uttered the most profound thought of the evening.
America: For Americans
Despite a GOP wipeout of Democrats last Tuesday, illegal immigration remains the 800-pound gorilla, due to our Narcissist-in-Chief's contemptible effort to remain in absolute control. And make no mistake: despite every attempt by Democrats and their media allies to convince America otherwise, Democrats had their collective heads handed to them. Not because the GOP is great, not by a long shot, but because Democrats who ran on racism and sexism -- because they couldn't run on anything else -- finally overplayed that tiresome, and possibly anachronistic, hand.
Two Hidden Factors in the 2014 Campaign
Looking back on the 2014 election cycle, I see two largely unnoticed turning points that worked against Democrats and in Republicans' favor. The first came in response to the October 2013 government shutdown. This was blamed, as shutdowns usually are, on Republicans, partly because of their skepticism about big government, and partly because media professionals tend to fault the GOP in any partisan fight. The shutdown occurred because about 40 Republican House members refused to support a continuing resolution funding the government without a proviso defunding Obamacare. Texas freshman Sen. Ted Cruz had been barnstorming the country arguing that this would somehow delay Obamacare from going into effect on schedule in October.
What Happened?
Just what happened last week on election day? And what is going to happen in the years ahead? The most important thing that happened last week was that the country dodged a bullet. Had the Democrats retained control of the Senate, President Obama could have spent his last two years in office loading the federal judiciary with judges who share his contempt for the Constitution of the United States. Such judges -- perhaps including Supreme Court justices -- would have been confirmed by Senate Democrats, and could spend the rest of their lifetime appointments ruling in favor of expansions of federal government power that would make the freedom of "we the people" only a distant memory and a painful mockery.
Monday, November 10, 2014
Blacks Must Embrace Freedom, Learn, and Progress
I am a conservative. I believe in the truth of traditional values, of limited government, and free markets. And I believe in personal freedom and that it is not possible without all the above. Our country has been going in the opposite direction and things, predictably, have not been going well. The American people spoke last Tuesday, and I am happy with what they had to say.
Court Makes a Sutton Impact on Marriage
What was already a great week for conservatives just turned into an incredible one -- thanks to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Good news hasn't been easy to come by on marriage, but after big wins in the election, voters can finally celebrate one in the courts. After a couple of bright spots for states' rights in an otherwise gloomy year, two judges may have just turned the same-sex "marriage" debate on its head.
The Wall Came Tumbling Down
They used to tell a joke in West Berlin: "What are you going to do when the Wall comes down?" "Find a tree and start climbing." "Why?" "Because there won't be any room to stand in the streets."
'Marriage Should Not Exist,' Says Masha the Marriage-Ender
When a panel of judges from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals pulled the nation back from the brink this week, they provided a rare glimpse of common sense in the debate over ending marriage. The majority opinion asks us to: >*Imagine a society without marriage. It does not take long to envision problems that might result from an absence of rules about how to handle the natural effects of male-female intercourse: children. May men and women follow their procreative urges wherever they take them? Who is responsible for the children that result? How many mates may an individual have? How does one decide which set of mates is responsible for which set of children? That we rarely think about these questions nowadays shows only how far we have come and how relatively stable our society is, not that States have no explanation for creating such rules in the first place.*
Israel-Bashing from Amnesty International
A new report turns the victim into the villain.
Que Sera Sera
In the words of an old tune introduced by Doris Day in "The Man Who Knew Too Much," what will be, will be. I am writing this three days before the mid-term elections. The polls suggest that the GOP will wrest control of the Senate from Harry Reid's sweaty grasp, but they also indicate that in several races, the Democrat is running 10-15% ahead of Obama's approval numbers. If you were ever in doubt, this alone should convince you that millions of our fellow citizens are fatheads. I mean, when Obama's approval numbers range between 30 and 40%, when 60% of the nation believe America is going to hell in a hand basket, and, yet, those who have voted for Obama's policies 97% of the time still have a good chance of being re-elected, contagion by Ebola is the least of our problems.
Good News: A GOP Congress Usually Correlates With Booming Financial Markets
It was exactly 20 years ago, in November 1994, that Republicans under the maverick leadership of Newt Gingrich and his Contract with America took over the House of Representatives for the first time in nearly half a century. What may not be remembered is that the GOP sweep continued what became the longest and strongest stock market expansion in American history. Investors fell in love with the idea of a centrist Democrat, Bill Clinton, in the White House and a conservative Congress.
Sunday, November 9, 2014
Democrats Discover Race Baiting
Actually the Democrats have been race baiting for decades. And it's not going away. Using fear and race-polarizing agitation to drive minority voters to the polls is going to be the increasingly overt face of the Democratic Party. They can't win any other way. What's new is that the mainstream media has suddenly discovered all of this. Through the years, these same news outlets have wasted no time at all in spotting anything that even hints of Republican race baiting. Take the presidential campaign of 1988.
The Biggest Winners and Losers in the 2014 Elections
The magnitude of the GOP's tidal wave in Tuesday's election is just coming into focus. Just as in 1994's landslide election that gave Newt Gingrich and the GOP control of the U.S. House for the first time in half a century, the media are underplaying the rout and portraying the 2014 midterm as a temper tantrum on the part of the electorate. NBC said that it was a bad night to be an incumbent. No: It was a miserable night to have a D next to your name. Only one major Republican, Governor Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania, lost.
Rethinking Hillary 2016
Now that two of the last three Democratic presidencies have been emphatically judged to have been failures, the world's oldest political party -- the primary architect of this nation's administrative state -- has some thinking to do. The accumulating evidence that the Democratic Party is an exhausted volcano includes its fixation with stale ideas, such as the supreme importance of a 23rd increase in the minimum wage. Can this party be so blinkered by the modest success of its third recent presidency, Bill Clinton's, that it will sleepwalk into the next election behind Hillary Clinton?
Saturday, November 8, 2014
Return of the Zombie Congress
With the midterm elections just behind us, Americans might think they can finally stop worrying about politics for a while. Not so fast! Now is when they need to be more vigilant than ever. Although dozens of politicians were replaced with fresh faces on Election Day, the losers don't have to vacate their offices for two months. That means they can keep on voting in a "lame duck" session of Congress. While "lame duck" is the standard parlance in D.C., I prefer the more colorful term "Zombie Congress," popularized in recent years by George Will and others. It more aptly conveys the peril of the situation. Zombie legislators are those unhappy senators and representatives who have been voted out of office, yet still stagger dutifully back to Washington for a month or so before Christmas break. 'Tis the season when they are most dangerous.
For 2016, Hillary Had the Worst Night
We all know the Republican midterm landslide was largely a repudiation of President Obama's policies and his handling of the job of chief executive. And of course, we don't know who will succeed him in 2016. But buried deep inside Tuesday's exit polls is a series of numbers on presidential contenders that will blow your mind. It's completely different from most anything you've seen in the newspapers, the Internet or on TV.
Big GOP Win a Rebuke of the President
We know Barack Obama is good at least one thing -- getting Barack Obama elected president of the United States. How good he is at being president of the United States is a subject of considerable debate. A less debatable proposition: He is just plain awful at running a political party. People often forget that among the many formal roles the president has -- commander in chief, first diplomat, etc. -- he is also the leader of his own party. And in that role, he stinks.