ActRight

Yesterday I submitted my post Fake News with photos of Fake Scientists to Reddit in subreddit inthenews.  It received one positive and one negative comments, and then I was banned from inthenews an…

The George Washington University is named for: a) America’s first president b) the president of the 1787 Constitutional Convention c) the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army d) all of the above If you struggled to answer that question, you may be a product of the George Washington University. Recently, GW — a 25,000-student private university located in Washington, D.C.’s Foggy Bottom neighborhood — eliminated its American-history requirement for undergraduate history majors, making it theoretically possible to graduate from GW with a history degree without ever having had to take a college-level course in U.S. history. Of course, GW’s decision is hardly novel. In July, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni found that “only 23 undergraduate history programs at the U.S. News & World Report’s top 25 national universities, top 25 public institutions, and top 25 liberal arts colleges require a single U.S. history class,” and where the requirement remained, students could fulfill it with courses such as “Mad Men and Mad Women” (Middlebury College) and “Hip-Hop, Politics, and Youth Culture in America” (University of Connecticut). But there is a special irony in this latest installment of the trend — and a particularly acute demonstration of how the elite American university is failing its students. GW, like many elite institutions of higher learning, is going global. On its “Our Priorities” webpage, GW presents a “formula for moving the world forward,” declaring its mission to be “finding solutions to national and global problems.” This is the trend in higher education. Stanford University is “one of the world’s great universities.” Columbia University calls itself “one of the world’s most important centers of research,” emphasizes its support for “research and teaching on global issues,” and aims “to convey the products of its efforts to the world.” Down the road, New York University, the height of cosmopolitanism, boasts that it has “50,000 students at three degree-granting campuses in New York City, Abu Dhabi, and Shanghai, and at study away sites in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North and South America.” Put another way, the only continent from which NYU is institutionally absent is Antarctica. “Globalism” as the term of art for a sinister, George Soros–funded “New World Order” has become the bête noire of a particular strain of contemporary politics. But the word “globalism” is an accurate, neutral description of the type of thinking that has characterized elite universities since the end of World War II. To the administrators and academics who revise these institution’s mission statements, the nation-state has had its day. Local attachments breed conflict. Peace on Earth will reign when people share the intimacy of neighborhoods at the distance of nations. We need to work toward a “global community.” Barack Obama was only parroting his education when he declared himself a “citizen of the world.” That’s not an ignoble vision. But “the world” is not a thing like “France” or “Chile” or “the United States.” “The world” does not provide a particular lineage or a set of customs or a canon of stories that helps a person situate himself in time and space, that helps to constitute a unique and coherent identity. No one’s home is “the world.” ‘The world’ has no citizens, and those who hope to change it must do so by way of particular places and specific, local loyalties. In fact, the George Washington University was founded with something like the opposite in mind. “It has always been a source of serious regret with me to see the youth of these United States sent to foreign Countries for the purpose of Education,” George Washington wrote in 1799, “often before their minds were formed, or they had imbibed any adequate ideas of the happiness of their own.” Too frequently, he lamented, they contract “principles unfriendly to Republican Governmt [sic] and to the true & genuine liberties of Mankind; which, thereafter are rarely overcome.” As a remedy, Washington in his will bequeathed his 50 shares in the Potomac Company “towards the endowment of a UNIVERSITY to be established within the limits of the District of Columbia,” to which “the youth of fortune and talents from all parts thereof might be sent for the completion of their Education in all the branches of polite literature; in arts and Sciences, [and] in acquiring knowledge in the principles of Politics & good Government.” In 1821, by an Act of Congress, Washington’s benevolence became the Columbian College in the District of Columbia, renamed in 1904 “the George Washington University,” in honor of its de facto founder. The appropriateness — in 1799 or now — of a “national university” is debatable, but Washington’s larger vision deserves renewed consideration: He wanted the American university to be an American university, in its educational activities faithful to the unique history, circumstances, and meaning of the fledgling country in which it stood. The American university should cultivate leaders with a devotion to their nation, not an intellectual loyalty to an abstract notion. Times having changed, nurturing patriotism now smacks of indoctrination, and elite universities are eager not to tempt a flare-up of nationalism. But the result is not increased global solidarity; it’s more and more elite anomie, as the products of elite institutions absorb the message that natural, concrete loyalties — to country, chief among them — are toxic, and struggle to muster the same affection for high-minded ideological projects. #related#There is a place for cosmopolitanism, for worldliness, for a cultured touch, just as there is a place for international coordination and cooperation. Washington himself hoped his university would help students free themselves from “local prejudices & habitual jealousies” that “when carried to excess, are . . . pregnant of mischievous consequences to this Country.” But the rebel against the British Empire was not under the misimpression that the United States was merely a larval stage on the way to a more perfect global union. That is the view of many of our elite academic institutions, which are keen to speed the process along. But “the world” has no citizens, and those who hope to change it must do so by way of particular places and specific, local loyalties. If the George Washington University wishes to change the world, it might start by relearning its own history. — Ian Tuttle is the Thomas L. Rhodes Fellow at the National Review Institute. 

Anderson Cooper Refuses To Admit To Kathy Griffin He Voted For Hillary Clinton Kathy Griffin fails to get Anderson Cooper to admit he voted for Hillary Clint...

Many conspiracy theorists have declared over the years that there's no two-party system in America. They believe that it's an illusion designed to present a picture of constant battle when in reality there's only one consolidated party that always pushes in the same basic direction. This is almost entirely untrue with one major exception.

Much of the time, fact-checking is opinion journalism in disguise.

And I provide several rights-based arguments for immigration here. Image Source: nobeastsofierce/Shutterstock

Nancy Hayes - Obama wanted America to give up freedoms to become part of this 'One World" government'!

Over his two terms, President Barack Obama unleashed a copious amount of regulations, his administration adding thousands of pages to the Federal Register, which now totals 97,110 pages of regulations, a record number. Here are 11 of Obama's worst regulations imposed by his administration.

An armed assailant who is believed to have been dressed in a Santa Claus costume has opened fire at a nightclub in Istanbul during New Year's celebrations, killing at least 35 people and wounding 40 others, according to Istanbul's governor and Turkey's state-run news agency.

AN ENTREPRENEUR from Germany has created trousers with the aim of protecting women from possible sex attacks while they are out jogging - and the first 150 were sold out immediately.

We're poised to have a more liberated culture in 2017 and reject political correctness completely. We just have to make it happen.

A report recently published in the Washington Post late Friday night boldly claimed a code that the Obama administration has essentially tied to a Russian

President Obama used his final weekly address in 2016 to make it plainer than ever that he won't retire quietly once Donald Trump is sworn in as president. Couching his address to the nation as assurance that he will remain committed to defending the progress achieved by his administration, the president made it crystal clear that he intends to be a thorn in President Trump's side after the official handover of power on Jan. 20. Offering the clearest indication yet of his plan to be active on the political scene after he is ostensibly back in private life, Obama said Saturday, As I prepare to take on the even more important role of citizen, know that I will be there with you every step of the way to ensure that this country forever strives to live up to the incredible promise of our founding — that all of us are created equal, and all of us deserve every chance to live out our dreams.

The "anything goes" media mentality when it comes to Russia strikes again.

Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks, tweeted, "What took you so long?"

TV personality says people can act "completely mad" when they think government has failed them.

it would seem that Washington Post's story about Russian hackers attacking an American power grid was greatly overinflated.

The Montana town of Whitefish has become an unlikely flashpoint in the rise of the so-called "alt-right," due to Richard Spencer's residence there.

Everyone always talks about “political correctness on college campuses” these days, but is it really that bad? Yes. Yes, it is. And if you don’t believe me, here, in no particular order, are the 16 most ridiculously PC moments on college campuses this year:  1. A college had to provide counseling and a “safe space” because some students were so upset that a couple of their classmates were drinking tequila and wearing sombreros at the same time.  Some students at Bowdoin College threw a tequila-themed birthday party where some attendees reportedly wore sombreros. It was explicitly not a “fiesta” or “Mexican” themed party — but apparently, people drinking tequila and wearing sombreros at the same time is in itself an offense so egregious that it warrants administrative action. Note: It is not clear if the offended students were actually at the party, or if they had just heard about it and could not handle knowing that their classmates had been been drinking a kind of booze with a kind of hat on. 2. Students created a “healing space” to recover from a speech that they didn’t even attend.  Students at the University of California–Los Angeles created a “healing space” to recover from the pain of having Ben Shapiro speak on their campus — even though the speech had happened three months ago and they did not even attend it.  3. An academic article claimed that ski slopes are “sexist.” An assistant professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland wrote a real, actual academic article about how ski slopes are “masculinized spaces.” Yes, ski slopes, as in the hills with snow on them.  4. The “War on Harambe”  More than one college banned references to the Late Great Harambe in 2016. Resident assistants at the University of Massachusetts warned students that “any negative remarks regarding ‘Harambe’” were “direct attack[s] to our campus’s African American community” and that certain Harambe jokes were “sexual assault incidences.” Clemson University banned “any reference to Harambe” from dorm spaces over concerns of “racism” and “rape culture.” A poster at Florida State University warned students that Harambe Halloween costumes were “cultural appropriation.” Note: Harambe is not a culture; he was a gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo.  5. The best and the brightest: A Harvard kid declared benches to be a racial issue.  No, “benches” is not a code word here. I am literally talking about actual benches, as in the things people sit on in parks.  6. Privilege-checking became problematic.  You know how social-justice warriors are always telling you to “check your privilege” to see how problematic you are? Well, according to an op-ed by a student at the University of California–Berkeley, privilege-checking is also problematic, because it just makes privileged people feel lucky. (What the hell we are supposed to do to please these people is not clear.) 7. Students at a university considered removing a Martin Luther King Jr. quote from a wall because it wasn’t inclusive enough.  A group of student leaders at the University of Oregon debated removing the famous “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream . . .” quote from a wall in its student center because it talks only about racial discrimination and not discrimination based on things like gender identity . . . and that’s just not inclusive enough.  8. A professor worried that her school’s hawk mascot was so scary-looking that it might be making students incredibly emotionally distressed. Resmiye Oral, a professor at the University of Iowa, wrote an e-mail to the school’s athletic department explaining that she was concerned that the school’s mascot bird, a hawk named “Herky,” may have been traumatizing students and contributing to a culture of violence, depression, and suicide because he never appeared with a smiley facial expression.  9. Materials distributed by the University of Missouri declared that it is a microaggression to call a disabled person “inspiring.”  Compliments are mean.  10. A student was hit with a “safe space” complaint for raising her hand.  A student at Edinburgh University in Scotland said she was hit with a “safe space” complaint for raising her hand to disagree during a student-council meeting. The school’s “Safe Space Policy” strictly forbade “hand gestures which denote disagreement” because apparently they are just too scary for adult students to handle.   11. Campus crime alerts have trigger warnings now.  The University of Iowa put a trigger warning on a campus crime alert about a Peeping Tom on the loose, because apparently maintaining a metaphorical safe space is more important than making sure students know about a threat to their actual safety.  12. A football coach at Cornell University apologized for posting a photo of some of his players wearing sombreros.  A member of the school’s student assembly called the picture of two fully clothed people wearing fun hats an “extremely offensive image.”  13. A school canceled a performance of “The Vagina Monologues” because a white lady wrote it.  The cancellation happened at Southwestern University in Texas. American University canceled their performance of the show, too, but for a different reason: It was not inclusive enough of women without vaginas.  14. A college outdoors club canceled an event over concerns that it was not inclusive enough to people who do not like to go outdoors.  An outdoors club at the Claremont Colleges canceled its annual bikini hike because it implied “bro-iness” (as if that’s a bad thing!) and just wasn’t for everyone. Apparently, those kids don’t realize that the entire purpose of clubs is to allow members to participate in interest-specific activities that are not for everyone.  #related# 15. A professor was accused of sexual harassment for saying that effort would count for 10 percent of the grade in his class.  A professor at Brooklyn College of City University of New York had to change his syllabus because a part of it that said effort was 10 percent of the grade was deemed “sexual harassment.”  What kind of sick person would think he meant “effort performing sexual favors?”  16. Oxford told its law students that they did not have to learn about rape or violence law if they found it too “triggering.”  It is not clear whether or not these students are aware that they would not be allowed to leave a courtroom during a trial if they found it too “triggering.”  — Katherine Timpf is a reporter for National Review.

A friend of mine treated himself to a new revolver for Hannukah, a Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum. He and I took it to the range a few days ago to break it in. For the uninitiated, the S&W .44 Magnum is the gun Dirty Harry describes as the “the most powerful handgun in the world; would blow your head clean off.” It’s unbelievable fun to shoot, and, as you might guess, very, very loud. We were shooting at an indoor range, in Connecticut, and the noise led to a discussion of pistol silencers. My friend mentioned that in a couple of European countries where silencers are legal, it’s considered rude not to use one when you’re firing around other people. This makes sense; I’ve shot a few silenced guns over the years, and — aurally speaking — they are much, much more pleasant than their un-silenced counterparts. Thanks to movies — and the name “silencers” — people tend to think that silencers make guns silent. They don’t. What they do is turn something so loud that it damages your ears into something so loud that it merely hurts them. When you shoot a silenced gun, unless it’s a very low-caliber gun or its silencer is unusually large and effective, it’s still prudent to wear hearing protection. As it turns out, in Connecticut, it’s sort-of impossible to get a pistol silencer. In 1994, congress passed the Assault Weapons Ban. It was an asinine, ineffectual law that banned certain aesthetic features of guns, such as pistol grips, and certain features of convenience, such as adjustable stocks. It had no impact on the lethality of guns; a gun with a pistol grip can’t kill you any deader than a gun without one, or than a car. All the Assault Weapons Ban did was cause a nuisance. After Congress allowed the law to expire in 2004, Connecticut kept a version of it on its own books, as did many liberal states. Among the things that it makes illegal — it’s been expanded over the years — are threaded barrels, which you need in order attach a silencer to a gun. So while silencers are technically legal, you can’t buy a gun to which a silencer can be attached, unless it is a “pre-ban” gun and hasn’t left Connecticut, in which case it’s grandfathered in: A pistol with a threaded barrel that was legal in Connecticut before the ban is still legal today. Such guns are highly sought after, and now come with an enormous premium. Calls to a few gun shops and a look at the classifieds turned up only a handful for sale in the whole state, each selling for a 300 or 400 percent markup over the same pistol, post-ban. A new Glock 17, for instance, retails for four or five hundred dollars; a threaded barrel costs another hundred or so. One pre-ban threaded Glock 17 for sale in Connecticut costs $1,600. As of this writing, it appears to be the only one for sale in the state. An un-silenced Glock 17 will register at just over 160 decibels. According to Purdue University, a jet take-off at 25 yards registers at 150 decibels and will rupture your eardrums. This is why people generally wear hearing protection while they shoot guns. You know when people don’t wear hearing protection while they shoot guns? When someone breaks into their homes and they use their guns in self defense. The Trumps should also support a congressional overturning of all state laws which throw up arbitrary, nuisance restrictions on gun ownership. A silencer will bring a Glock 17 down to about 130 decibels, which is slightly louder than a pneumatic riveter but still 10 decibels short of the threshold for permanent hearing damage. If you have a lot of disposable income in Connecticut, you can exercise your right to self-defense and keep your hearing. If you don’t — if you are, for instance, poor and living in a high-crime neighborhood, Connecticut wants you to choose your ears or your life. How does this not infringe on one’s right to keep and bear arms? It’s disgraceful. Fortunately, there’s someone on the case: Donald Trump Jr. In late September, Trump Jr. gave an interview to an American silencer company called SilencerCo, in which he — like my friend — pointed out that when he shoots in Europe, the guns he uses are almost invariably silenced. “It’s about safety,” he said. “If you had noise levels in any other industry as you [have] in shooting sports, OSHA would be all over the place; people would be going crazy.” Silencer regulations, he argued, are “arbitrary policies” enacted by “people who don’t know what they’re talking about.” #related#Trump Jr. suggested that his father will support legislation to ban silencer bans, and everyone who likes being able to hear should be thankful if he does. The Trumps should also support a congressional overturning of all state laws which throw up arbitrary, nuisance restrictions on gun ownership: rules restricting barrel length, stock adjustability, firing rate, magazine capacity — all the stupid mandates of people who’ve never so much as fired a gun, and couldn’t make a rational argument that these restrictions save lives if their own lives depended on it. Then the Trumps should support a repeal of the asinine 1986 federal “Firearm Owners Protection Act” that invented a lot of these stupid ideas in the first place. Let’s #MakeGunsGreatAgain. — Josh Gelernter is a weekly columnist for the online Weekly Standard and a frequent contributor to NRO.

Many people incorrectly view the United Nations as a tribune of virtue -- an idealized “global god state.”

Guest essay by Leo Goldstein The existence of a foreign command & control center within climate alarmism has long been ignored, despite palpable evidence. The obvious deterrent to recognizing i…

In the future, Americans — assuming there are any left — will look back at 2016 and remark: “What the HELL?”

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton | Right Wing News God bless Louie Gohmert. The conservative Texan Congressman is not only a principled man... he has a spine

Fox News analyst Juan Williams offered a grand political post-mortem in The Hill newspaper this week: “Let’s agree on one fact: Donald Trump upended the political world with his win. But that incredible upset left an incredible hangover. The facts of political life are now subject to partisan interpretation.” So before 2016, the media had never offered facts with a “partisan interpretation”?