Author: John Hawkins

Offering a proposal that the other side finds to be beyond-the-pale and telling them that you’re not really interested in their ideas doesn’t become a genuine attempt at bipartisanship just because you talk to them for 15 minutes over sandwiches, President Barack Obama’s first date with House Republicans didn’t end so well: He made a […]

One of the more bizarre comparisons, well at least for Star Trek fans, is Barack Obama to Spock. The idea here is supposed to be that Barack Obama is calm and collected like Spock. However, to begin with, it’s a little hard to see exactly what is supposed to make Obama more dispassionate or low […]

Here are the best quotations from Chin-Ning Chu’s book, Thick Face, Black Heart: The Warrior Philosophy for Conquering the Challenges of Business and Life When you conceal your will from others, that is thick. When you impose your will on others, that is black. — Lee Zhong Wu, P.7 The world has a tendency to […]

If you want to see a prime example of why the government isn’t competent enough to handle legislating what happens online, take a look at this story from the Charlotte Observer, RALEIGH N.C. House members overwhelmingly backed legislation Thursday that makes it a crime to bully a minor over the Internet. …The bill, which passed […]

As regular readers of RWN know, I LOVE Obama/unicorn art. How can anyone not love it? Not only does it perfectly sum up Obama’s campaign, the way the media treats him, and the way his supporters view him, it’s just so cheesy & kitschy! It’s like a Jackie Chan movie had a love child with […]

Absent epochal events like 9/11, shifts in public opinion tend to happen very slowly, over a period of years and even decades. Because of this, when these changes reach a tipping point, they often catch us by surprise. One such surprise has just occurred with the news that More Americans (are) “Pro-Life” Than “Pro-Choice” for […]

…And there are always people sitting around going, “Oh, we have too many religious people in the Republican Party. ” You know what? The Democrat Party believes we have too many religious people in the Republican Party, too, and they’re working really hard to peel off a bunch of them. — Maggie Gallagher The mainstream […]

Yesterday, before the Jaz McKay show got started, I was talking with his call screener Puck about a local budget dispute that has turned into a hot issue in Bakersfield, California, The Bakersfield city manager is grappling with the local police officers union over pay and retirement age amid intense budget negotiations. Members of the […]

Barack Obama has gotten crosswise with the ACLU because he has changed his mind about releasing more Abu Ghraib Detainee Abuse Photos, President Obama said Wednesday that he would fight to prevent the release of photographs documenting abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan by United States military personnel, reversing his position on the issue […]

* You can almost feel the conventional wisdom shifting, day by day, from more Democratic gains in 2010 to big GOP gains in 2010. * If you want to see who’s winning a society wide debate, watch the numbers, the energy level, and the fanaticism. Whoever has the most, wins * My idea for a […]

Why do bad things happen to good people? Why does God allow suffering? Why does God allow evil? These are difficult questions to grapple with for Christians because since God is omnipotent, He does have it within His power to make this a heaven on earth. Moreover, since God cares about us, why would He […]

Here are the notes, not quotes, from a blogger teleconference with Senator Saxby Chambliss that was just completed. Opening Statement: I have been to Guantanamo Bay and will be going again soon. I have seen interrogations and have looked these terrorists in the eye. These guys get up every morning hoping for another opportunity to […]

If you want to reduce medical costs via socialized medicine, there are not a lot of easy ways to do so. Preventative medicine certainly isn’t going to do the trick. In fact, preventative medicine tends to raise costs because it takes money to do the testing and because many minor issues that would have never […]

Richard Posner has gotten a bit of attention on the Right for writing a piece bemoaning the intellectual deterioration of the conservative movement. Here’s an excerpt, I sense intellectual deterioration of the once-vital conservative movement in the United States. As I shall explain, this may be a testament to its success. Until the late 1960s […]

I read and liked Shaunti and Jeff Feldhahn’s For Men Only: A Straightforward Guide to the Inner Lives of Women; so when I saw that they were releasing that book, along with For Women Only: What You Need to Know about the Inner Lives of Men as part of a new set, For Couples Only: […]

The primary goal of liberals is to mislead the American public about what they really feel, while the primary goal of conservatives is to explain to the American public what they really think. Similarly, conservatives are forever trying to have a debate on the facts while liberals work incessantly to turn the discussion to motivations, […]

We have a primary shaping up in Florida between Charlie Crist, a pro-stimulus, pro-amnesty, Arlen Specter style “Republican” and Marco Rubio, a young, Hispanic, anti-amnesty conservative who was the Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives for the 2007 and 2008 legislative sessions. Admittedly Crist, who’s the current governor, is the heavy favorite — but, […]

I supported Michael Steele when he ran for Chair, support him now, and think it would be a big mistake to try to dump him as Party Chair. Furthermore, as anyone who read RWN during the primaries knows, I am not a fan of Mitt Romney — at all. Still, these comments from Steele about […]

“A Conservative is a fellow who is standing athwart history yelling ‘Stop!’” — William F. Buckley During the first World War, Kaiser Wilhelm supposedly referred to the British troops as a “contemptible little army.” The British soldiers, rather than ignoring the insult of their enemy, adopted the nickname of the “Old Contemptibles” and then proceeded […]

Dick Cheney, who is probably one of the most honest politicians you’ll ever run across in Washington, gave an answer to a question that would no doubt horrify many of the effette, establishment Republicans in DC, even if they wouldn’t have the guts to admit it publicly, Schieffer brought up recent banter about the Republican […]

I’ve never liked the White House Correspondents Dinner or as people have taken to calling it, “Nerd Prom.” The dinners are implacably hostile to all things conservative, the politicians end up behaving like jackasses about half the time, and the comedians who are invited to perform have every incentive to go way over-the-top to get […]

One of the biggest problems we have in the war on terrorism is that our media, almost by default, takes the side of the terrorists. It’s not just that they reveal sensitive classified data that helps get Americans killed; it’s that they slavishly slant almost every story in a way that helps the terrorists and […]

Back in 2006, when I led the Rightroots effort in the blogosphere to help get Republicans elected, one of the candidates we raised money for was Michelle Bachmann. Happily, she was elected and since then, she has been ferociously fighting for conservative causes in Congress and has become one of the Left’s primary targets. Last […]

Here are my notes, not quotes, from a teleconference with South Carolina Governor, Mark Sanford. Opening Statement I’m low tech. I’m don’t really know a lot about blogging, but I am getting up to speed. We’ve tried to work with Obama on the stimulus package, but we’ve been rebuffed. In-state, we have been going back […]

As the left continues to lecture conservatives about their political future — because, after all, Dems have been fully in charge for 100 days now — let’s recount a couple of facts: The Iraq war was supported by more than 60 percent of Americans. Polls showed wide-ranging support for the Patriot Act. Jimmy Carter was […]

On Tuesday, I interviewed Maggie Gallagher, head of the National Organization For Marriage. What follows is a slightly edited transcript of our conversation. Enjoy! First question, let’s just say that I don’t care much about gay marriage one way or the other — and I’m wondering what difference would it make in my life personally […]

“There is a time to submit to being slapped and there is a time to hit back twice so you will not be slapped again.” — Chin Ning-Chu “There is such a gap between how one lives and how one ought to live that anyone who abandons what is done for what ought to be […]

According to Rupert Murdoch, there will be subscription charges for all of the “News Corporation’s newspaper websites” within a year, Rupert Murdoch expects to start charging for access to News Corporation’s newspaper websites within a year as he strives to fix a :­”malfunctioning” business model. Encouraged by booming online subscription revenues at the Wall Street […]

Liberals tend to attack other liberals for one reason and one reason only: that liberal aided conservatives somehow. Maybe the liberal went the conservative way on an issue or maybe that person said something that gave conservatives an advantage, and therefore had to be taken to the woodshed. Those of us on the Right, on […]

Frylock: “That’s not a toy!” Master Shake: “You say that about everything you own. You should own toys. They’re fun.” — Aqua Teen Hunger Force “The people who did it weren’t caught. So, looks like nobody will ever know the geniuses who masterminded that perfect crime.” — Cartman “Kick him when he’s down, he’s easier […]