The Ku Klux Klan was in Huntington Beach, Calif., on April 12, holding a “White Lives Matter” rally. It was a 37-minute drive away from the Hawthorne district office of Rep. Maxine Waters. “Auntie Maxine” (as the Democrat calls herself) declined to confront the Klan. But she flew all the way to Minneapolis last weekend to coach protesters awaiting the outcome of the Derek Chauvin trial.

“I hope we get a verdict that says guilty, guilty, guilty,” Ms. Waters said. “And if we don’t . . . we’ve got to stay on the street. We have to get more active, we’ve got to get more confrontational.”

The 82-year-old lawmaker has been notorious for such incendiary language since she was first elected to Congress in 1990. She called the 1992 riots that followed the acquittal of the Los Angeles police officers who were filmed beating Rodney King an “insurrection.” She meant it as a term of approbation. Sixty-three people died during the L.A. riots, but Ms. Waters declared that she wouldn’t tell her constituents “to go inside, to be peaceful, that they have to accept the verdict.”

Ms. Waters has always shunned the peacemaker role in favor of rioting. Thirty years after the L.A. riots, nothing has changed.

‘The Science,” we’re told, is settled. How many times have you heard it?

Humans have broken the earth’s climate. Temperatures are rising, sea level is surging, ice is disappearing, and heat waves, storms, droughts, floods, and wildfires are an ever-worsening scourge on the world. Greenhouse gas emissions are causing all of this. And unless they’re eliminated promptly by radical changes to society and its energy systems, “The Science” says Earth is doomed. 

Yes, it’s true that the globe is warming, and that humans are exerting a warming influence upon it. But beyond that — to paraphrase the classic movie “The Princess Bride” — “I do not think ‘The Science’ says what you think it says.”

For example, both research literature and government reports state clearly that heat waves in the US are now no more common than they were in 1900, and that the warmest temperatures in the US have not risen in the past fifty years. When I tell people this, most are incredulous. Some gasp. And some get downright hostile.

These are almost certainly not the only climate facts you haven’t heard. Here are three more that might surprise you, drawn from recent published research or assessments of climate science published by the US government and the UN:

•  Humans have had no detectable impact on hurricanes over the past century.
• Greenland’s ice sheet isn’t shrinking any more rapidly today than it was 80 years ago.
• The global area burned by wildfires has declined more than 25 percent since 2003 and 2020 was one of the lowest years on record.

Why haven’t you heard these facts before? . . .

Michael Bird intended to see the court case through after he was punched in the face during an argument with a neighbor last year.

The neighbor was arrested and charged with assault under Englewood’s municipal ordinances. When Bird tried to attend the first hearing in Englewood Municipal Court, he found out it had been rescheduled. He would be informed of the new date, he was told.

But he never heard another peep from anyone about the case, he said, until March, when he found out the charges had been dropped and the case dismissed at the request of the prosecutor.

“I was dumbfounded,” he said. “The fact that I wasn’t notified at all, that I had no voice in what proceeded with this, it left me feeling revictimized.”

Under Colorado law, victims of some crimes are guaranteed certain rights during the court process. Those victims are entitled to be notified of key hearings and to have a chance to weigh in on a prosecutor’s decision to offer a plea deal or otherwise resolve a case. They also have the right to be told about scheduling changes or cancellations, among numerous other protections. Victims who feel they’ve been mistreated can file a complaint that is investigated by state officials.

But the Victim Rights Act only applies to certain crimes charged under state law, and does not cover municipal courts, where crimes are prosecuted under local ordinances. At that level, officials can choose to follow the guidelines, but are not mandated to provide any rights to victims.

That leaves an entire swath of crime victims in Colorado without the protections afforded others, and with no recourse or avenue to file a complaint if they feel they’ve been mistreated.