Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Voters Want Super-sized Government to Crash Diet
Let's put government on a diet. That's what voters seem to be saying in response to the Barack Obama Democrats' vast expansion of the size and scope of government. Evidence comes from pollster Scott Rasmussen. He asked likely voters -- his usual sample, which tilts more Republican than all adults -- whether increased government spending is good or bad for the economy.
Gen. Jones is NOT a Useful Idiot
Gen. James Jones is not a “useful idiot.” He’s a well-educated, most respected military professional. He’s also a highly decorated Marine. He is President Obama’s National Security Adviser. Ordinarily, that would be good news for all Americans. That cynical “useful idiot” phrase comes to us from Vladimir Lenin, the Bolshevik revolutionary who overthrew Russia’s democratic government in 1917. Lenin set up the world’s first Communist regime. Soon after taking power in Moscow, the Communists saw famine overtake their new Soviet Union. Everything was rationed. All property was owned by the proletariat—and soon everything was in short supply.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
The General's Goodbye
As I get older, perhaps my sentiment grows. Maybe it is because the flowers smell sweeter, or perhaps ice water tastes better, but at a time I once suspected my senses might become dulled, I am now aware the ones that matter most to me are wonderfully better refined. So step with me to a sweltering parade ground in Washington D.C., where one of the greatest warriors our country has ever known finally ended a spectacular career of service to America. I speak of U.S. Army General Stanley McCrystal, who was fallen not by an enemy's bullet but by an unguarded, after-hours conversation in a Paris hotel.
Grizzled Veterans of America's Math Wars
I am a veteran of the math wars. I was there in 1995 when the shiny new California Learning Assessment System (CLAS) test told graders to award a higher score to a student who incorrectly answered a math problem about planting trees -- but wrote an enthusiastic essay -- than to a student who got the answer right, but with no essay. The genius responsible for that math question explained that her goal was to present eighth-graders with "an intentionally ambiguous problem in which no one pattern can be considered the absolute answer." Gov. Pete Wilson's education czar, Maureen DiMarco, promptly dubbed new-new math "fuzzy crap."
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Left-Wingers and the People Who Hate Them
Now I know how liberals felt 40 years ago when they failed to make the cut on Richard Nixon’s notorious enemies list. Even after reading Townhall magazine’s list of the 100 Americans the Left Hates the Most, and checking it twice, I didn’t find my name mentioned. The ground rules were that you had to be living and you had to be American, which were the reasons, the editors took pains to point out, that Ronald Reagan, William F. Buckley, Mark Steyn and the Pope, weren’t included, but would hardly explain my own absence.
Freedom And Your Duty
On August 5 the people of Tennessee will exercise one of our nation's most important freedoms -- the right to vote -- and it is ironic that same day is when those who remember will celebrate the birthday of Roy Benavidez. The son of a Mexican sharecropper and a Yaqui Indian, Roy's parents died before he was seven years old and his early years in south Texas were both brutal and filled with anguish.
From The Comedy Store
Oakland's City Council voted to allow industrial size marijuana farms of one hundred thousand square feet. That's half the size of a football field. If you think the Red Sox and Yankees play slowly wait'll you see the length of a Raiders game this fall.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Another Day, Another Federal Assault on Liberty
Yesterday's federal court decision to enjoin enforcement of the Arizona immigration law is the latest example of a virtually unchecked renegade federal government waging war against the states and against the liberties of its citizens. We've seen that Obama will exercise any power he can get away with, from strong-arming secured creditors and favoring unions as he gobbled up automakers to making a mockery of due process with his Oval Office shakedown of BP. But he might have reached a new low with his assaults on the sovereignty of the people of Arizona.
