ActRight

I live in liberal Boulder, Colorado. No, that’s not right, because that understates just how liberal it is here in my little college town just thirty minutes from Denver. We’re actually ranked one of the five most liberal-friendly cities in the United States. To be fair, I consider myself mostly a liberal Democrat and am ? Continued

Prominent conservative activist Alveda King, the niece of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., said Wednesday that Sen. Elizabeth Warren played the “race card” and used the King name on the Senate floor to divide the American people.

Let's keep this movie alive! (Spanish subs for those who don't speak english)

The Georgia congressman, dogged by ethics questions, will run the $1 trillion agency and is expected to help dismantle the Affordable Care Act.

The court's ruling on Trump's immigration executive order uses statements made before an official even took office to interpret -- and limit -- his official acts.

Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan has wielded power in one of America’s most dysfunctional legislatures for three decades. Now the state is beyond broke.

Mark Levin weighed in on the ruling from the 9th circuit on Trump?s immigration executive order, calling it both pathetic and predictable: The bottom line, as Levin points out, is that the co…

Brought to you by Desert Diamond: http://ddcaz.com The Senate has confirmed Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions to be attorney general in the Trump administration. Th...

A CSU-Fullerton professor allegedly assaulted a conservative student during a demonstration against President Trump’s executive order on immigration.

Narrative whiplash.

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The president had earlier called the policy on Taiwan into question.

The court's ruling on Trump's immigration executive order uses statements made before an official even took office to interpret -- and limit -- his official acts.

The Ninth Amendment doesn't spell out the rights it protects, because they are basic, natural human freedoms.

Parody of 84 Lumber's Super Bowl commercial "The Journey Begins" which is nothing more than Liberal propaganda to promote open borders and to denounce Presid...

A POLICE officer who claimed migrants were to blame for most serious crimes in his city in a seething Facebook rant has sparked a political storm.

A transgender woman who spent time behind bars for a botched castration that led to the death of her sixth husband was arrested this week after she allegedly threatened to shoot a Westmoreland County, Pa., judge, according to news reports and police.

Ninth Circuit Claims Unprecedented Power, Affirms Ban on Immigration EO

The Folks Back Home - Rich Galen: Republicans control the Senate by a 52-48 margin. Because of a .02/09/2017 23:00:13PM EST.

What We Owe The World - Derek Hunter: Refugees are the new black. They’re the new Hansel – .02/09/2017 22:56:20PM EST.

A new poll found that 49 percent of voters believe that the Trump administration is "truthful," while only 39 percent feel that way about the media.

It’s often said that bad facts make bad law. In the case of the Ninth Circuit’s just-issued ruling continuing the nationwide injunction against Donald Trump’s executive order pausing immigration from seven jihadist or jihad-torn countries, it’s necessary to amend that saying. Bad facts combined with superheated politics can make terrible law. Before addressing the court’s ruling, let’s refer back to some of the bad facts that made it more likely. Critically, the Trump administration issued a significant executive order (and then defended it in court) without laying any real factual foundation for its finding. Next, the administration enforced the order in a haphazard and unnecessarily cruel manner, initially including even green-card holders in its scope. By slamming the door (at least temporarily) in their faces, it created a crisis atmosphere that not only ramped up the political stakes, it told the court that the administration didn’t exactly know how to interpret its own order. This invites judicial meddling. What does the opinion actually say? It made four critical rulings and one dangerous implication. First, the court ruled that the states of Washington and Minnesota had standing to assert legal claims against the Trump administration — mainly on behalf of their state universities and the scholars and students impacted by the order. Here’s the court: We therefore conclude that the States have alleged harms to their proprietary interests traceable to the Executive Order. The necessary connection can be drawn in at most two logical steps: (1) the Executive Order prevents nationals of seven countries from entering Washington and Minnesota; (2) as a result, some of these people will not enter state universities, some will not join those universities as faculty, some will be prevented from performing research, and some will not be permitted to return if they leave. Applied more generally, this ruling would give state attorneys general extraordinarily broad powers to act essentially as lawyers for actual or potential immigrants — merely by pointing to the alleged costs incurred by key state institutions if they are even temporarily deprived of the immigrant’s presence. While the standing ruling might be more credible if applied to individual immigrants whose exclusion from the country causes specific and identifiable harm to the state, here the court used the possibility of specific harm to confer general standing on states to act on behalf of immigrants as a class. This is extraordinary. Second, the court held that it had the constitutional authority to review and determine the legality of the order. This is the least problematic aspect of the court’s ruling. I don’t agree with the administration’s assertion that it has “unreviewable authority to suspend the admission of any class of aliens.” The order should receive judicial deference, but it is still subject to judicial review. And that’s what the court said: In short, although courts owe considerable deference to the President’s policy determinations with respect to immigration and national security, it is beyond question that the federal judiciary retains the authority to adjudicate constitutional challenges to executive action. Third, after paying lip service to deference, the court ignored its own words and dramatically extended ‘potential’ due-process rights beyond green-card holders to citizens from jihadist and jihadist-torn countries seeking to enter the nation for the first time. After an extended discussion of the due-process rights of permanent legal residents of the United States (an unobjectionable and just proposition), the court specifically declined to limit the injunction to green-card holders — or even to “previously admitted aliens who are temporarily abroad now or who wish to travel and return to the United States in the future.” Instead (and incredibly) it said this: Even if the claims based on the due process rights of lawful permanent residents were no longer part of this case, the States would continue to have potential claims regarding possible due process rights of other persons who are in the United States, even if unlawfully, see Zadvydas, 533 U.S. 693; non-immigrant visaholders who have been in the United States but temporarily departed or wish to temporarily depart, see Landon, 459 U.S. 33-34; refugees, see 8 U.S.C. § 1231 note 8; and applicants who have a relationship with a U.S. resident or an institution that might have rights of its own to assert, see Kerry v. Din, 135 S. Ct. 2128, 2139 (2015) (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment); id. at 2142 (Breyer, J., dissenting); Kleindienst v. Mandel,408 U.S. 753, 762-65 (1972). The court is going to stop enforcement of a temporary pause in entry from jihadist and jihadist-torn countries (while in a state of war against jihadist terrorists) because there are “potential claims” regarding “possible due process rights” even of illegal aliens? That’s not deference. Moreover, if you actually follow the cited legal authorities, you’ll see that none of them are on-point with this case, and all of them deal with highly-specific, individual legal claims. Yet the court used this “authority” to grant sufficient due-process rights to potential immigrants to halt enforcement of a wartime executive order motivated by the desire to protect America from the rising threat of jihadist terror. Astonishng. Fourth, the court cracked open Pandora’s Box — noting that it will likely consider Trump’s campaign statements in determining whether the executive order violated the Establishment Clause. While it didn’t rest its order on Trump’s repeated claims that he intended to implement a Muslim ban, it did say this: The States’ claims raise serious allegations and present significant constitutional questions. In light of the sensitive interests involved, the pace of the current emergency proceedings, and our conclusion that the Government has not met its burden of showing likelihood of success on appeal on its arguments with respect to the due process claim, we reserve consideration of these claims until the merits of this appeal have been fully briefed. Here’s the translation — the court didn’t rule that Trump’s campaign statements rendered the order invalid, but it clearly forecast that it might. Never mind that the order plainly isn’t a Muslim ban, and never mind that the campaign statements weren’t made about the order in question. The mere fact that at one point he stated a desire to ban all Muslims may be used to cut through the “considerable deference” the court owes the president. While there is precedent for considering lawmaker motivations in the Establishment Clause context, the consideration of sweeping campaign statements (about a different kind of measure entirely) push that precedent to the breaking point. Finally, and crucially, the court made a statement near the end of its opinion that is deeply, deeply troubling. In discussing the evidence before the court, the panel says this: The Government has pointed to no evidence that any alien from any of the countries named in the Order has perpetrated a terrorist attack in the United States. Putting aside, for the moment, the administration’s inexplicable failure to include in the executive order or the record the extensive documentation and evidence demonstrating the threat of jihad from the seven identified countries (including terror attacks in the U.S., plots in the U.S., and a record of plots and attacks abroad), whether an attack has been completed in this country is not the standard for implementing heightened security measures. The president doesn’t have to wait for completed attacks to protect the U.S. from dangerous immigrants. He can see the deteriorating security situation on the ground, evaluate the intentions and capabilities of the enemy, and then act before the enemy can strike. Indeed, that’s the goal of national defense — to prevent attacks, not respond after the carnage. So, what should the administration do? So, what should the administration do? It should think long and hard — especially given its own considerable mistakes — before galloping to the Supreme Court. Victory is far from assured, and a tie in the eight-member Court would uphold the Ninth Circuit’s dreadful decision. Rather than risk making terrible law, perhaps the administration should redraft its order, lay the proper foundation, and fight from higher ground. This fight goes beyond the politics of the moment and could impact national security for years to come. If it continues in confusion and haste, the administration may well lose more than a news cycle. If the administration slows down, it increases the chance of victory and of preserving important presidential prerogatives. The Ninth Circuit’s decision was bad enough that Trump now has to win, and the best way to win is to do things right, not to charge headlong into the legal cannonade. — David French is a staff writer at National Review and an attorney.

.Santa Monica, Calif The Cold War was waged and won in many places, including this beach city, home to the RAND Corporation. Created in 1948 to think about research and development as it affects military planning and procurement, RAND pioneered strategic thinking about nuclear weapons in the context of the U.S.–Soviet competition. Seven decades later, it is thinking about the nuclear threat from a nation created in 1948. When Defense Secretary James Mattis said that any North Korean use of nuclear weapons would draw an “effective and overwhelming” U.S. response, he did not, according to RAND’s Bruce W. Bennett, “overcommit” the president by saying that the response would be nuclear. But an overwhelming response could be. On January 1, North Korea’s 33-year-old leader, Kim Jong Un, said that his regime was at “the final stage in preparations to test-launch” an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), perhaps one capable of reaching America’s Pacific coast. On January 2, Donald Trump tweeted: “It won’t happen!” He thereby drew a red line comparable to his predecessor’s concerning Syrian chemical weapons. So, Trump, who excoriated Barack Obama for ignoring that red line, must, Bennett believes, be prepared to threaten actions that would prevent North Korea from learning from its test, actions such as shooting down the missile. The United States has 30-some ground-based interceptor missiles at Fort Greely in Alaska and others at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. This small capability is intended to cope with an accidental firing by an adversary, or an intentional firing by a rogue general, or to deter or defeat a deliberate attack by an adversary with a small nuclear arsenal, such as North Korea. Will the U.S. anti-ballistic missile system work? Bennett says technologies can go wrong, so this would be an opportunity to fix any failures. And unless we then are prepared to shoot down theater-range ballistic missiles, we will signal less-than-convincing commitment to South Korea and Japan. To those who say it is premature to conclude that Kim is capable of delivering a nuclear warhead, Bennett says: In 1966, China, in its fourth nuclear test, just two years after its first, had a missile carry a nuclear weapon to its detonation over its western desert. In 2006, William Perry, who had been defense secretary for Bill Clinton, and Ashton Carter, who would be Obama’s final defense secretary, recommended U.S. action to destroy any ICBM set for testing on a North Korean launch pad. But that nation’s conventional retaliatory capabilities, including artillery and rockets capable of inflicting considerable damage on at least Seoul’s northern suburbs, forestalled this. And North Korea has perhaps 1,000 tactical-range ballistic missiles capable of striking throughout South Korea and Japan. Furthermore, North Korea has cyberwar, commando, and sabotage capabilities. Today, U.S. surface ships and submarines alone could deliver dozens of cruise missiles, and each of up to 10 B-2 bombers could carry two Massive Ordnance Penetrators to destroy underground leadership or missile bunkers. But as soon as Kim has one or more ICBMs (probably road-mobile) capable of delivering, on short notice, a nuclear payload to, say, Santa Monica, preemptive U.S. action, even just against his nuclear infrastructure, might be too risky. Furthermore, preparations for a more ambitious strike — against North Korean artillery and rockets, ports, airfields, command-and-control centers, leadership bunkers, and forward-positioned forces — might be apparent and might provoke Kim to strike first against Seoul and U.S. forces in South Korea. South Korea talks openly of creating, this year, a “decapitation brigade” involving perhaps as many as 2,000 troops whose mission would be to eliminate North Korea’s leadership in the event of war. Kim recently dismissed the head of his secret police, the latest sign of insecurity. Bennett believes Kim, undeterred by tweets, might test his ICBM for internal purposes — to impress restive North Korean elites. Bennett suggests that the threat to shoot down the test flight would constructively exacerbate Kim’s problems. As might U.S. propaganda, for example by reminding North Korean elites that China’s president has had eight summits with South Korea’s president in the last four years but never has had one with Kim, whom China apparently considers not important. North Korea, which has been run opaquely for the Kim family’s benefit since 1953, is approaching a red line. Although the line was drawn before Trump took office, perhaps it represents continuity. It prefigured the kind of improvisational governance that has made his early weeks so interesting. — George Will is a Pulitzer Prize–winning syndicated columnist. © 2017 Washington Post Writers Group

Sen. Richard Blumenthal may have thought he put his “stolen valor” controversy to rest during an apologetic press conference in 2010. Then President Trump picked up his cell phone.

Guest essay by Larry Hamlin Dr. Judith Curry conducted an interview on British radio on February 6th  addressing, among many topics, how the politicalization of climate science created and driven b…