ConservativeOpinion.com

30/06/2024

We talk a lot about subjects that should be taught in schools, like finance and civics, and there’s great merit to that. I’ll give you another: debate. Maybe add public speaking to this, but debate is important, because it forces you to look at all sides of an argument, and more than that, the “why” of an argument. This should be taught in every grade from an early age, and it should be both an independent class, and integrated into other classes. You read a book in English class, now debate one of the topics. You read about some historical event, now debate it. Debate the implications of scientific advances. Debate which sports team is better, or which Star Wars movie, or what should or shouldn’t have happened with a given character. Whatever. Argue it. Now, argue the opposite side. You identify as a Republican, now argue the Democrat side. You believe in God, now argue for atheism. Learn to educate yourself on an issue, and learn the greatest weaknesses in the argument, and learn to think and articulate and see it from multiple perspectives. Learn to lose. Learn that you’re often wrong. Learn humility! Learn that even when you win it’s almost never absolute, and that even the most seemingly obvious positions require nuance. Learn standards of proof. Learn that even the smartest person hardly knows anything, and that other people have valuable things to contribute, and are valuable themselves. Above all, just learn! And no, I say this not just because we have arrived finally at a terminal point, where we have these two ridiculous, clumsy buffoons running for president who can’t even speak in complete sentences or form coherent thoughts; and not just because we live in a deliberately diverse, pluralistic society which requires reconciliation of competing ideas and values (though that’s important); but because debate forces thinking, and to think is to learn, and when we stop learning we surrender to ignorance.

28/06/2024

What a joke. Now that’s misinformation!

28/06/2024

I feel bad for whoever's doing the closed captioning for Joe Biden. Remember that scene in Bruce Almighty when Jim Carrey uses his God powers to cause Steve Carrell to talk gibberish? Same thing.

28/06/2024

If Trump is the crazy unhinged uncle whose attendance at family gatherings is uniformly bemoaned, Biden is the disoriented grandfather who the family has to have difficult conversations about.

28/06/2024

Biden looks like he should be in assisted living. If he were a DUI defendant his attorney would be arguing, credibly, there was no way he could've been expected to understand the officer's instructions.

28/06/2024

Early debate thoughts: Joe Biden is indistinguishable from his Hall of Presidents animatronic.

This is Biden at his absolute best: rambling, scatterbrained, patching together random talking points, barely coherent, trying to remember what to say rather than responding to a question.

Trump looks old and leathery. Also sedated. The rules are keeping him in order and making him look presidential... by the very low standard we have set for "presidential."

27/06/2024

Quick prediction for tonight‘s presidential debate: CNN‘s rules, which, amongst other things, will automatically mute a participant’s microphone if he is interrupting his opponent, are obviously designed to hurt Trump because that’s his style, but will actually help him by making him look more professional and therefore presidential. He is his own biggest weakness. When he debates, he acts childishly. CNN is going to force him to act like an adult.

Quick prediction number two: and this is not much of a prediction, but no matter what happens, the prevailing narrative will be that Trump looked old and tired and angry, and Biden looked surprisingly spry, alert, in command of the issues, and assuaged the concerns of all who doubted his mental acuity. Those posts and essays are already written and ready to go.

09/06/2024

06/06/2024

In December 2020, Donald Trump’s last full presidential month, 17 aliens were released into the nation. Two Decembers later, 191,142 were. I wonder what changed.

03/06/2024

President Biden is expected to sign an executive order Tuesday that would ban migrants who cross the border illegally from claiming asylum, allowing them to be quickly deported back to Mexico or their home countries. OK great, but 1) where has this been for the last 3.5 years, and 2) doesn't this completely eviscerate the argument that it was Republicans who were holding up border security?

02/06/2024

Regarding the Trump verdict: All reasonable people should all be able to agree that every defendant has a constitutional right to a jury of his peers, and that right is violated when the jury pool is comprised of the same people who elected the prosecutor on the specific promise that he would prosecute this specific defendant. Where are all the criminal justice reformers on this one? When I was a Superior Court prosecutor, I could not attend a political event, or give money to a candidate, or even have a candidate's bumper sticker on my car, or speak about politics publicly. But now, candidates campaign on the promise to go after a specific person or party, and raise money off of it, and the people who elect that prosecutor then serve that prosecutor in court! That’s not a jury, that's a lynch mob! I can't even think of an illustrative analogy because what we witnessed with President Trump's prosecution is the worst expression of the problem. If ever there were a conflict of interest, that's the most obvious, and the idea that I'm not supposed to criticize this process, or even notice it, and that I have to respect whatever outcome it produces because the ABA says so, is completely fatuous. Criticism is not what undermines public confidence in the process, it's what's needed to fix the process and restore confidence.

29/05/2024

I have to tell you, Trump consistently hires the worst lawyers. His defense team has banked their entire case on the credibility of the prosecution’s witnesses. That’s fine for a second line of defense, but the theme of his case should’ve been: “Trump is the victim. He’s the victim of blackmail. The victim of extortion. In fact, he’s probably the first victim of blackmail and extortion ever to be prosecuted for being the victim. We’re here today, ladies and gentlemen, because the state’s primary witness, Stormy Daniels, engaged in a blackmail scheme, with her felon attorney who is now incarcerated for doing the exact same thing to Nike, to extort money from President Trump. But is Stormy Daniels being prosecuted for this? No! Is her convicted felon attorney with whom she conspired, Michael Avenetti? No! Instead, they prosecute the victim, Mr. Trump, because the conspirators were successful in blackmailing and extorting him. Those two should be in jail. Instead, we’re prosecuting the victim!“ Then go into the credibility part. Then sum up by going back to the victim theme.

Good grief, these people!

16/05/2024

That world is now.

15/05/2024

Has anyone else noticed that the country under Biden is exactly the way Democrats said it would be under Trump: wars popping up all over the place, lawlessness, a sharp rise in antisemitism, greater polarization and acrimony, greater economic inequality, a diminishing standard of living, less civic pride, crazy and unqualified people appointed to high positions, and, of course, politically motivated prosecutions of political opponents?

And before anyone says anything about Trump being guilty of this whole Stormy Daniels thing, he must be the first victim of blackmail every to be prosecuted, while the state’s primary witnesses against him are a convicted perjurer and his actual blackmailer. You’d have to be on something pretty exotic to think this isn’t politically motivated.

22/03/2024

Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker said the unborn are "the greatest victims of our society," stating that he feels it’s necessary to stick up for the unborn in that public space.

22/03/2024

In honor of Women’s History Month.

22/03/2024

One of my favorite things about living in Joe Biden’s America is going into a CVS and having to ask a store clerk -- of which there seem to be much fewer these days -- to unlock an anti-theft glass case so I can access an over-the-counter antihistamine, or some other low-value product that I never thought would require jewelry store level security. And this is Joe Biden’s biggest barrier to re-election. It’s not that he’s obviously in the early-middle stages of significant cognitive decline (so much so that he has actually been adjudged -- get this! -- to be legally incompetent to obstruct justice because he is unable to form the requisite mental state). It’s not that he is incapable of extemporaneous speech, and requires note cards on the rare occasion he deals with the press, or speaks with a foreign leader, or members of Capitol Hill. It’s not that he bumps around like a Roomba every time he walks away from a podium, aimlessly turning this way and that. His problem is that everywhere you look, there are constant reminders that things have changed, and for the worse. There are a lot of people who will vote for Trump who do not want him nor his brand of politics, but want even less to live in a country where thieves can just steal and get away with it; where hoards flood across the border while our President does nothing; where good Samaritans are prosecuted for trying to stop shoplifters, or rescue victims from violent criminals; where pictures of kidnapped Jews are torn down by terrorist sympathizers; where those of us who live the right way and experience any modicum of success are made to feel guilty and are constantly blamed for the failures of others; where merit matters not; and where we always have money for other people and other countries, but the American middle class comes last. Seriously, somedays I wake up and I feel like we’re being run by the psycho junta government that took over in The Dark Knight Rises. We don’t need Batman. All we want is a government that punishes criminals instead of blaming the victim, that protects our borders instead of allowing the country to be looted, and that puts the American middle class first, for a change. None of that should be too much to ask. But it is for our feckless President, diminished as he is and incapable of standing up to the radicals who have hijacked his once great party, and whose collective hands now prop him up in his chair, wipe his chin, and move his lips to help him form words.

21/03/2024

It’s really a testament to capitalism that it can support this much socialism, and sustain this much failure.

08/03/2024

Here are three laws I'd like to see passed: 1) anyone injured by an illegal border crosser can sue the federal government for its negligence. 2) Anyone convicted of a felony loses government benefits for five years on a first offense, an additional ten on a second, and a lifetime on a third, and anyone convicted of an illegal gun offense loses it for a lifetime on the first offense. 3) Anyone who comes here illegally is ineligible for government benefits, and anyone born here to someone here illegally does not get the benefit of birthright citizenship.

21/02/2024

I never cared for Jon Stewart’s politics, but I always appreciated his sense of humor, and more than that, that he was making politics interesting to a generation of Americans who were mostly left out by more traditional media. People became engaged because of him who otherwise would not have, and that’s a good thing. Democracy flourishes that way. And though he wasn’t even-handed (who is?), he was at least minimally respectful to his Republican guests, and he could give it to the Democrats once in a while as well. But this new Jon Stewart -- which is to say: this craggy, old, decrepit-looking, sad-sack Jon Stewart -- is just mean-spirited and angry and supercilious and disdainful. You don’t disagree with him, you disgust him. I think part of it is that he’s gone from being a generation older than his audience (the cool teacher), to at least two generations removed (needs to have stayed retired cranky old fart) and he’s struggling to maintain his grasp, and that’s frustrating to him. But there’s something beyond that. It’s hard not to notice that he’s now less about educating and entertaining than he is about being a leftist counterweight to Tucker Carlson, and with a crowded field already filling that role, he tries to distinguish himself by being the worst of the group. And in doing that, not only is he revealing himself to be just an ugly person, he’s also proving to be dull and boring and predictable. For a comedian, what could be worse?

It’s sad, really. Stewart left the political scene a few years ago with a mostly positive legacy of being part of the solution, but he’s returned as just another part of the problem.

13/01/2024

https://www.facebook.com/share/AGwzojcvGyUzzg3a/?mibextid=CTbP7E

🗣️A powerful voice in sports echoes a powerful message for life.

13/01/2024

13/01/2024

Congratulations Harbaugh and Michigan Football!

12/01/2024

Understand that one of the reasons Democrats are trying to kick Trump off the ballot in various states is to hurt the down-ballot Republicans. The idea is that Republican voter turnout is likely to be much lower without a presidential candidate at the top of the ticket, and that will hurt the Republican Congressional candidates, and any state and local Republican candidates as well. And these are the people who claim that Republicans are a threat to democracy.

11/01/2024

Make no mistake about it, labeling people as “privileged” serves the purpose of separating them for scorn.

11/01/2024

Rates of diagnoses for cannabis-induced disorders were more than 50% higher at the end of November than in 2019, healthcare-analytics company Truveta said this week. The trend is contributing to the broader burden of caring for people who developed mental health and addiction problems during the pandemic.

Even one psychotic episode following cannabis use was associated with a 47% chance of a person developing schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, a 2017 study in the American Journal of Psychiatry showed. The risk was highest for people 16-to-25-years-old and higher than for substances including amphetamines, hallucinogens, opioids and alcohol.

More potent cannabis and more frequent use are contributing to higher rates of psychosis, especially in young people.