International Cyberattacks Redefine Warfare

Cyberwarfare is a frontier issue in international security, not as well researched as traditional warfare, and not that well understood, particularly the dangers.

At the Wall Street Journal, "When Does a Hack Become an Act of War?":

WASHINGTON—A tremendous number of personnel records—including some quite personal records—have likely been stolen by computer hackers. The White House won’t say who did it, but a number of U.S. officials and even some lawmakers have said all signs point to China.

The Chinese government has denied it, but the staggering haul of records could amount to one of the biggest feats of espionage in decades.

Right now, the White House and Congress are trying to ascertain what was stolen and how to protect people whose identifies have been compromised, not to mention their “foreign contacts” that are listed on the security clearance forms that could now be on the hard drives of the hackers.

But very soon a much different question will be asked in Washington: If the White House finds out who stole the information, what will President Barack Obama do about it?

Even though large-scale cyberattacks have been used for more than a decade, they have only become extremely effective national-security weapons in the past few years.

In December, the White House accused North Korea of stealing and destroying a large amount of records from Sony Pictures Entertainment. President Barack Obama called it “cyber vandalism,” angering some of his critics who wanted the U.S. government to retaliate.

But cyberattacks by nation-states are a relatively new phenomenon, in which there isn’t a road map of deterrents and responses.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter and National Security Agency Director Adm. Michael Rogers have said in recent weeks that U.S. policy makers need to decide how they are going to respond to cyberattacks as countries become more brazen in their attempts.

“What we’ve seen in the last six to nine months in general...trends are going in the wrong direction,” Adm. Rogers said in January. “Doing more of the same and expecting different results, my military experience tells me, is not a particularly effective strategy.”

More.

Scroll down at the XX Committee for more, lots more.

'We pay significant property taxes based on where we live ... And, no, we're not all equal when it comes to water...'

There's some moneyed privilege for you.

At the Washington Post, "Rich Californians balk at limits: ‘We’re not all equal when it comes to water’."

The community discussed is Rancho Santa Fe, in San Diego County, where finance mogul Ralph Whitworth paid $2 million for private concert with the Rolling Stones, heh. More on that at the San Diego Union-Tribune, "Story behind Stones' secret concert."

Obama's Plan for Islamic State: Leave It for the Next President

"Maybe that's not such a bad idea after all," says Fuzzy Slippers, at Legal Insurrection.

Cat Thrown Into Crocodile-Infested Lagoon (VIDEO)

Those crocs don't wait around to nab that poor cat, damn.

At the Independent UK, "Animal rights activists attack Peruvian men who threw cat into crocodile-infested lagoon."

U.S. to Bulk Up Military Presence in Eastern Europe

If you take seriously the analysis of Graham Allison and Dimitri Simes from April, at the National Interest, then the U.S. plan to bulk up its military presence along the Russian border is extremely provocative and probably counterproductive.

See the New York Times, "U.S. Poised to Put Heavy Weaponry in East Europe":

RIGA, Latvia — In a significant move to deter possible Russian aggression in Europe, the Pentagon is poised to store battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and other heavy weapons for as many as 5,000 American troops in several Baltic and Eastern European countries, American and allied officials say.

The proposal, if approved, would represent the first time since the end of the Cold War that the United States has stationed heavy military equipment in the newer NATO member nations in Eastern Europe that had once been part of the Soviet sphere of influence. Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the war in eastern Ukraine have caused alarm and prompted new military planning in NATO capitals.

It would be the most prominent of a series of moves the United States and NATO have taken to bolster forces in the region and send a clear message of resolve to allies and to Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, that the United States would defend the alliance’s members closest to the Russian frontier.

After the expansion of NATO to include the Baltic nations in 2004, the United States and its allies avoided the permanent stationing of equipment or troops in the east as they sought varying forms of partnership with Russia.

“This is a very meaningful shift in policy,” said James G. Stavridis, a retired admiral and the former supreme allied commander of NATO, who is now dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. “It provides a reasonable level of reassurance to jittery allies, although nothing is as good as troops stationed full-time on the ground, of course.”

The amount of equipment included in the planning is small compared with what Russia could bring to bear against the NATO nations on or near its borders, but it would serve as a credible sign of American commitment, acting as a deterrent the way that the Berlin Brigade did after the Berlin Wall crisis in 1961...

Interesting, although there's not a lot of talk of the downsides.

Are Western nations, and in particular the United States, prepared to take military fatalities in a conflict with Moscow? There's nothing I've seen this past few years to indicate this is so, in fact, polls show entirely the opposite when discussing any proposal for boots on the ground overseas.

There was one poll out a few months ago suggesting that Americans are ready to put troops back into Iraq, but how about into Poland or Eastern Ukraine? Call me skeptical.

Perhaps a show of force will make Vladimir Putin think twice about his foreign policy challenges to the West? But considering the minimal price he's paid for the push toward Russian expansionism, I wouldn't bet against him.

Keep reading, in any case.

Emilia Clarke Bikini Photos

She's a natural brunette, it turns out.

I've never seen her outside of her role as Daenerys in "Game of Thrones."

At London's Daily Mail, "Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke shows off trim figure in bikini as she joins shirtless co-star Sam Claflin on set of Me Before You in Spain."

And at GCeleb, "Game of Thrones Emilia Clarke Wore a Bikini in Spain."

Great Baseball Game Last Night at Anaheim Stadium

Last night's game reminded me of the Athletics' 2014 wildcard game against the Kansas City Royals, which saw five lead changes before the Royals went on to beat the A's 9-8 in the 12th inning.

The Angels' Cole Calhoun was the star, with a dramatic 8th-inning home run to take the lead.

At LAT, "Kole Calhoun delivers on his bobblehead night in 5-4 win over A's."

And at MLB on YouTube, "6/12/15: Trout, Calhoun homer late as Halos top A's."

Under Attack, Dallas Police Are Safe at Home for Now

An editorial from the Dallas Morning News, where the editors note that the police department has been planning to beef up security at the headquarters, which is especially urgent now, with threats to law enforcement coming from all sides, especially from the radical left's "BlackLivesMatter" cadres:

It’s unrealistic to expect 100 percent safety at any building, even one where police officers work. Every layer of security — whether bulletproof glass, metal detectors or restricted-access zones — places another barrier between police and the people they are paid to protect and serve.

Heavily Armed New Yorkers Hunker Down as Manhunt for Escaped Killers Nears Second Week — #2A

Heh, leftists just can't stand when regular citizens empower themselves against unpredictable criminal eventualities.

I mean, what's idiot Shannon Watts got to say about this mild-mannered guy, Ken Snyder, with a loaded rifle in the laundry room, lol?

At the Wall Street Journal, "As Manhunt for Escaped Killers Nears Second Week, Upstate N.Y. Residents Adjust to Siege Mentality":

As manhunt nears 2nd week, upstate New Yorkers adjust to ‘siege mentality’ http://t.co/02HK275AE2 pic.twitter.com/6dVgS3G8yf

— WSJ Greater New York (@WSJNY) June 12, 2015

CADYVILLE, N.Y.— Ken Snyder refused to waste a perfect sunny afternoon and spent it reseeding his lawn, despite a manhunt under way behind his home in this rural corner of upstate New York.

It wasn’t a typical day of yardwork for the 70-year-old retiree.

On Thursday, as helicopters buzzed overhead and a small army of heavily armed police lined a nearby country road, Mr. Snyder was ready if the two convicted murderers who escaped from a state prison emerged from the woods backing up to his property.

Inside his garage were two phones should he need to call for help. In his laundry room, on the washer and dryer, was a loaded rifle with extra ammunition. Upstairs in the bedroom: another rifle.

Mr. Snyder, who reckons the escapees are likely far from the prison by now, said he is less anxious than his wife, who suggested using chairs to barricade the doors they never used to lock.

“People just want to be back to normal,” he said.

As an intensive search for Richard Matt, 48 years old, and David Sweat, 34, nears its second week, some residents in the area surrounding the Clinton Correctional Facility expressed increasing weariness with what has seemed at times to be a siege mentality in the bucolic countryside surrounding the prison in Dannemora, N.Y.

“People are on such a heightened alert that if there’s just the simplest thing out of the norm, especially in that area right now, they’re calling it in and we’re following up,” Andrew Wylie, the Clinton County district attorney, said in an interview Friday.

Residents and business owners in Pennsylvania’s Monroe County, in the Poconos resort area, know how it feels to live in the middle of a manhunt.

The rural county was the epicenter of a seven-week search for Eric Frein , a local resident accused of shooting two state troopers—one fatally—before fleeing into the woods last September.

“It was abnormal, but we went along with our day-to-day,” said Barrett Township Supervisor John Seese. “If they had an area that was closed off, you just didn’t go there that day.”

Ray Cawolsky, who owns a deli in nearby Mountainhead, said he best remembers two contrasting sounds from that manhunt: the quiet of a stifled tourist season and the roar of search helicopters.

“It was a lot of helicopters flying over 24 hours a day, armored vehicles running up and down the road,” Mr. Cawolsky said. “We had state police for customers, but we lost all our tourists. Everyone was afraid to come here.”

Fall is a busy season for Poconos business owners, who cater to tourists visiting to hike, leaf peep or hunt. But outdoor activity was severely restricted during the search, and the hunting season was canceled altogether.

In upstate New York, it remains unclear how the efforts to find Mr. Matt and Mr. Sweat will pan out. It may mean a short-term boon for area hotels and restaurants and may boost overtime pay for law-enforcement officers involved, but it also could strain government budgets.

For now, many locals said they are adapting to the immediate threat. They are locking their doors and windows while some, like Mr. Snyder, have been getting their guns ready...

Yep, regular Americans "getting their guns ready." There's nothing the left hates more than proud, independent, self-sufficient citizens looking out for their own.

Keep reading.

Hillary Clinton, in Roosevelt Island Speech, Pledges to Close Income Gap

From Amy Chozick, at the New York Times:

Hillary Clinton, in Roosevelt Island speech, pledges to close the income gap. http://t.co/Luo7t2yLAy via @amychozick pic.twitter.com/rHCgbUJjYl

— NYT Politics (@nytpolitics) June 13, 2015

Bill Clinton sported the fedora today (h/t @eorden) pic.twitter.com/IDnpEjTNqF

— Amy Chozick (@amychozick) June 13, 2015

This is the old sanitarium. Roosevelt island used to be used for quarantines. pic.twitter.com/L3imG3KRpo

— Philip Bump (@pbump) June 13, 2015

Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a speech that was at times sweeping and at times policy laden, delivered on Saturday a pointed repudiation of Republican economic policies and a populist promise to reverse the gaping gulf between the rich and poor at her biggest campaign event to date.

Under sunny skies and surrounded by flag-waving supporters on Roosevelt Island in New York, Mrs. Clinton pledged to run an inclusive campaign and to create a more inclusive economy, saying that even the new voices in the Republican Party continued to push “the top-down economic policies that failed us before.”

“These Republicans trip over themselves promising lower taxes for the wealthy and fewer rules for the biggest corporations without any regard on how that will make inequality worse,” she said before a crowd estimated at 5,500, according to the campaign.

“I’m not running for some Americans,” Mrs. Clinton said. “I’m running for all Americans.”

Offering her case for the presidency, she rested heavily on her biography. Her candidacy, she said, was in the name of “everyone who has ever been knocked down but refused to be knocked out.”

Mrs. Clinton portrayed herself as a fighter, sounding a theme her campaign had emphasized in recent days. “I’ve been called many things by many people, quitter is not one of them,” she said.

Standing on a platform set in the middle of a grassy memorial to Franklin D. Roosevelt on the East River island named after him, Mrs. Clinton invoked his legacy. She also praised President Obama and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, but declared that “we face new challenges” in the aftermath of the economic crisis...

More.

Rachel Dolezal Keeps Quiet as Questions Persist — #WrongSkin

At Spokane's Spokesman Review.

Today's @SpokesmanReview cover. Saturday. 6/13/15. #RachelDolezal pic.twitter.com/kxmju9RYjK

— deray mckesson (@deray) June 13, 2015

Today's front page #RachelDolezal #NAACP #Spokane pic.twitter.com/AWBYRi91by

— SpokesmanReview (@SpokesmanReview) June 12, 2015

#TheStruggleIsReal pic.twitter.com/IUcS8hbMXc

— Milo Yiannopoulos (@Nero) June 13, 2015

Obama on Track for Least Successful Foreign Policy Record of Any President, Bar None

From Walter Russell Mead, at the American Interest, "Obama’s Grave Miscalculations":

Obama is in danger of the achieving the least successful record in foreign policy of any president, bar none. http://t.co/QpxQWs9vSS

— Walter Russell Mead (@wrmead) June 12, 2015

Driving residents from their homes, imposing an iron-fisted dictatorship, looting and murder—no, this isn’t ISIS in Iraq. It’s the Shi’a militias backed by Iran and the government that President Obama has a kinda-sorta strategy for working with. The Times of London:

The Iranian-backed Shia militias used by the embattled Iraqi army to fight Islamic State have looted Tikrit and exiled most of its population, a development that will confirm some of the West’s worst fears.

Two months after the supposed liberation of the city that once was home to 260,000 people, it has been turned into a ghost town, controlled by the militias who run it with an iron fist.
The city’s mostly Sunni civilian population has not been allowed to return, even though the Baghdad government has promised to protect their rights.
A Sunni official inside Tikrit said that Shia militias, commanded by Iran, maintained total control over the city. A local force of about 1,000 government police and Sunni tribesmen were little more than totemic and were banned from leaving their bases after sunset.

It’s worth noting that President Obama, who inherited two difficult wars in the region, made exactly the wrong strategic decision about both of them. He abandoned Iraq, where victory was won and remained to be consolidated; he doubled down on what he called the war of necessity in Afghanistan, and six years later is no closer to either victory or a safe withdrawal than he was on the day he took the oath of office. (Indeed, new reports indicate that Iran has been increasing its support for the Taliban in Afghanistan—the same people who have led to more than 2,000 dead and more than 20,000 wounded U.S. servicemen in what has become America’s longest-running war.)

In any case, the people of Iraq, like the people of Syria, face the prospect now of increasingly bitter religious conflict, with escalating atrocities on all sides of the war. The radicalization of Saudi foreign policy, and its growing alienation from the U.S. means that radical Sunnis throughout the region can now count on many more arms with many fewer questions asked than they would have faced if U.S. policy had been more robust and clear-sighted. And of course Iran is on the brink of acquiring billions of dollars in new resources to feed the Shi’a radicals and push the region closer to an even greater catastrophe.
Particularly in his second term, when the consequences of errors made in the quieter years before 2012 have begun to take their toll and the significant misjudgments and missteps made since the election have added to the chaos, President Obama is in danger of the achieving the least successful track record in foreign policy of any American president, bar none. The White House is still hoping, perhaps, that an Iran deal could turn that around, and trade deals could still soften history’s verdict a bit, but with every passing week it looks more and more as if future Democratic presidential candidates will have to persuade the public that they won’t repeat President Obama’s mistakes...

Devastating. And there's more at the link.

And flashback to last September, "Foreign Policy Editor David Rothkopf Hammers Obama's Foreign Policy: Says Barack Should Take a Page from George W. Bush's Second Term."

Yeah, well, the Bush years were the good old days. G.W.'s even pining for a return to office, heh.

Suspect Dead in Dallas Police Headquarters Attack

Following-up from earlier, "Dallas Police Headquarters Attacked: Police Chief, 'We Barely Survived the Intent' of Suspect (VIDEO)."

At the Dallas Morning News, "Dallas PD defuse additional bombs after attack on HQ; suspect dead."

And at CNN, "Dallas police: Shooting suspect is dead."

Also, watch via Mediaite, "CNN anchor Fredricka Whitfield Refers to Dallas Gunman’s Actions as ‘Courageous and Brave’."

Dallas Police Headquarters Attacked: Police Chief, 'We Barely Survived the Intent' of Suspect (VIDEO)

The natural outgrowth of the left's anti-brutality "BlackLivesMatter" movement.

It's open season on America's law enforcement.

At the Dallas Morning News, "Dallas chief: 'We barely survived the intent' of man who fired on officers":

Urgent update: A police sniper has fired at the suspect but police say the suspect's condition is unknown.

Previous article:

Police were continuing attempts to negotiate with a man in an armored vehicle after he opened fire on Dallas police headquarters and led dozens of squad cars on a chase that ended in Hutchins.

No injuries had been confirmed in the attack early Saturday, but the gunman told police he had been wounded.

By 7:30 a.m., because the gunman had not been heard from for hours, speculation was spreading that he might be unconscious or dead. Officials, however, were not commenting on his condition.

The man identified himself as James Boulware, 50, who has a history of family violence and blames authorities for his losing custody of his son, Dallas police Chief David Brown said.

Boulware's mother, Jeannine Boulware, declined to comment Saturday morning when she was reached at her Dallas home by phone.

"I don't want to talk to the media. I want to talk to my son. I want my grandson to talk to his father. Do not call this number again," she said.

Mesquite's bomb squad was at James Boulware's last known address to check for explosives because of devices that had been found and detonated by Dallas police at their headquarters.

Check the Dallas Police Twitter feed as well.

Wikipedia is Moving to HTTPS by Default

This is interesting.

At Motherboad, "Wikipedia Is Finally Encrypting the World's Knowledge."

Black or White? Rachel Dolezal, NAACP President in Spokane, Accused of Lying About Her Race

This story's getting heavy mainstream news coverage.

At the New York Times, "Black or White? Woman’s Story Stirs Up a Furor":

She has professed an affinity for black people since she was a teenager, when her parents adopted four black children. She chose a college where she could immerse herself in racial issues. She married a black man and built a reputation as an advocate for civil rights.

Rachel A. Dolezal would hardly be the first person to embrace a racial identity she was not born or raised in, but a rare twist in her story has suddenly turned her into a subject of national debate. Ms. Dolezal, president of her local N.A.A.C.P. chapter and a university instructor in African-American studies, has claimed for years that her heritage is partly black.

And that, her parents say, is a lie.

“She’s clearly our birth daughter, and we’re clearly Caucasian — that’s just a fact,” Lawrence A. Dolezal said in an interview from his home in Montana on Friday. “She is a very talented woman, doing work she believes in. Why can’t she do that as a Caucasian woman, which is what she is?” Ms. Dolezal did not respond to numerous phone calls, emails or knocks on her door in Spokane, Wash., on Friday, but the allegation lit up the Internet, fueled by Ms. Dolezal’s apparent refusal to give a direct answer about her racial background, and by family photos of her as a blue-eyed teenager with straight blond hair.

Ms. Dolezal, 37, quickly became a punch line on Twitter, the subject of countless barbed one-liners. But she also touched off a fierce Internet debate over the nature of race and racial categorization in America today, with commenters black and white, liberal and conservative, finding meaning in her story.

“The reason that her story is so fascinating to me and to the rest of the world is that it exposes in a disquieting way that our race is performance — that, despite the stark differences in how our races are perceived and privileged (or not) by others, they are all predicated on a myth that the differences are intrinsic and intrinsically perceptible,” wrote Steven W. Thrasher, a columnist for The Guardian.

Blacks and liberals accused Ms. Dolezal of an offensive impersonation, part of a long history in which whites appropriated black heritage when it suited them. Jonathan Capehart wrote in The Washington Post, “Blackface remains highly racist, no matter how down with the cause a white person is.” Others noted that for her, unlike black people, casting off the advantages of whiteness was a choice. “I wonder what race Rachel would become if she got stopped by the police?” the author Terry McMillan wrote on Twitter.

But many conservative commentators accused liberals of hypocrisy for accepting Caitlyn Jenner as a woman, but not Ms. Dolezal as black. “So, to recap, if Rachel Dolezal says she is a man, we must all agree, on pain of being publicly censured,” Rod Dreher wrote in The American Conservative. “But if Rachel Dolezal says she is black, it is fair game to challenge her claim.”

In National Review, Charles C. W. Cooke wrote that “lies are not necessarily delusions, and it is possible that Dolezal is just a good old-fashioned fabricator,” but he predicted that people on the left would eventually come to her defense.

American history is full of tales of partly black people “passing” as white, trying to shed the burdens of an oppressed people, but doing the reverse is much rarer. A recent study of census data by Yale researchers says that in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as many as one-fifth of American black men posed as white at some point in their lives.

Faking a racial history, in either direction, raises difficult questions about what race is and why it matters, and about the assumptions people make.

Jim Crow laws often imposed a “one-drop rule” so that people with even a sliver of black ancestry, no matter how white they appeared, were legally considered black. It is only because of that history that Ms. Dolezal could be accepted as black, said Martha A. Sandweiss, a history professor of Princeton University.

“There was very little to be gained by identifying yourself as black, so if you did, no one questioned it,” said Ms. Sandweiss, author of “Passing Strange,” an acclaimed book about a man who did just that in the late 19th century. “It shows how absurd racial classifications often are.”

There have been other examples of white people living as black, in American history and culture, but not many...

More.

House Rejects Trade Bill, Rebuffing Obama's Dramatic Appeal

Following-up from earlier, "Obama Suffers Stunning Loss as Trade Bill is Defeated by #Pelosi Democrats."

At the New York Times:

The Democratic Party is Officially Leaderless - by @noahcrothman - http://t.co/WmCcSOD3re pic.twitter.com/Qxgri0W0lT

— Commentary Magazine (@Commentary) June 13, 2015

WASHINGTON — Hours after President Obama made a dramatic, personal appeal for support, House Democrats on Friday thwarted his push to expand trade negotiating power — and quite likely his chance to secure a legacy-defining accord spanning the Pacific Ocean.

In a remarkable blow to a president they have backed so resolutely, House Democrats voted to end assistance to workers displaced by global trade, a program their party created and has supported for four decades. That move effectively scuttled legislation granting the president trade promotion authority — the power to negotiate trade deals that cannot be amended or filibustered by Congress.

“We want a better deal for America’s workers,” said Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House minority leader, who has guided the president’s agenda for two terms and was personally lobbied by Mr. Obama until the last minute.

The vote that prevented the president from obtaining trade promotional authority now imperils the more sweeping Trans-Pacific Partnership, a proposed trade agreement with 11 other nations along the Pacific Ocean that affects 40 percent of the global economy on goods ranging from running shoes to computers.

“They have taken their own child hostage,” said Representative Charlie Dent, Republican of Pennsylvania, adding, “Does it hurt the president? Of course it hurts the president, but it hurts America more.”

The Democratic revolt left Republican leaders trying to summon support from their own party for trade adjustment assistance, a program they have long derided as a waste of money and a concession to organized labor. Eighty-six Republicans voted for the program, more than double the 40 Democrats who supported it. But the trade adjustment assistance bill failed when 126 voted for it and 303 against.

Republican leaders then passed, in a 219-to-211 vote, a stand-alone bill that would grant the president the trade negotiating authority he sought. But that measure cannot go to the president for his signature because the Senate version of the legislative package combined both trade adjustment and trade promotion...

More.

"PHOTO EXCLUSIVE - 'I consider myself to be black and I don't give two sh*ts what you think': Defiant NAACP is pictured for the first time since her white parents said she is pretending to be black..."

Heh, that's the sensational banner headline right now at London's Daily Mail.

Exclusive pics of #RachelDolezal as she’s seen for the first time since scandal broke http://t.co/UgNi3Szpcn pic.twitter.com/DX0EIzCEFv

— Daily Mail US (@DailyMail) June 12, 2015

Carly Fiorina's New Anti-Hillary Ad is Indescribably Awesome

From Dan Calabrese, at Canada Free Press (careful the autoplay ads there).

And watch the video: "Titles Are Not Accomplishments."

#RachelDolezal Strikes Defiant Tone Over Ethnicity: 'I consider myself to be black...' #WrongSkin

She's a shameless, disgusting leftist liar (but I repeat myself).

At the Guardian UK:

President of the NAACP chapter in Spokane, Washington, adds in interview with Sky News she did not ‘give two shits’ what her parents said about her ethnicity.

The civil rights activist in the middle of a tempest over her ethnicity has insisted she is black and denounced her parents for telling the media she is white.

Rachel Dolezal, an outspoken activist for African American culture and racial injustice in Washington state, struck a defiant tone on Friday and said the controversy reflected ignorance over race and ethnicity.

Asked in an interview with Sky News if she identified as African American, Dolezal said she did not like the term.

“I prefer black,” she said. “If I was asked I would say, yes, I would definitely consider myself to be black.”

Dolezal, the head of the Spokane chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), added she did not “give two shits” what her parents said.

She said she was not in touch with the couple because of an ongoing lawsuit and does not view them as her real parents.

The combative statements were likely to inflame an already combustible mix of race, lies and identity that quickly dominated the airwaves and social media.

The city of Spokane is investigating whether Dolezal, 37, misidentified her race on her application for the ombudsman commission, where she serves as chair.

The Eastern Washington University professor has been a prominent activist in the Pacific north-west for years, speaking at demonstrations and giving interviews, including about hate mail and nooses allegedly sent to her, claims which are now also under scrutiny.

Her black persona unraveled this week when Ruthanne and Larry Dolezal, a couple named on her Montana birth certificate as her biological parents, told Spokane’s KREM 2 News that her ancestry was German and Czech, with traces of Native American...

More.

Yeah, well, the radical left is unraveling right before our very eyes.

Reporter Katya Leick Attacked by Cicadas (VIDEO)

This is pretty good, heh.

At KSTN Topeka:

Hey #Dolezal-Supporting Leftists, Even Salon Says She's a Sick Racial Appropriator and Lying Civil Rights Shakedown Artist

Heh, if you've lost Salon ...

See Mary Elizabeth Williams, via Memorandum, "Stop making excuses for Rachel Dolezal: The Spokane NAACP official’s fraud is unforgivable":

"Are you African-American?" "I don't understand the question” Who is supporting #RachelDolezal & who is not? 8p @CNN pic.twitter.com/QJrF7s6LKd

— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) June 12, 2015

Maybe if this story hadn’t blown up at such a unique moment in our cultural history — a moment when transgender rights are gaining unprecedented visibility while we still, tragically, have to say the words “Black lives matter” as if that should ever be up for discussion — Dolezal’s apparent ruse would not be sparking the conversation it has. But social media is already seizing on the debate over whether someone who “identifies as black” can be “transracial.” As a commenter on the Spokesman Review asked, “What’s wrong with identifying as a different race? Obviously she’s probably felt for years that she was black on the inside and denied it all through her childhood. I mean look at her education and profession. She’s obviously ‘transitioned’ and able to share it with the world. I would think since she’s transitioned and identifies herself as black, than we should just let her be and live her life in peace.” Let me help out here. No.

What you do with your hair is totally your business. And Dolezal still has supporters. Spokane NAACP’s Criminal Justice Committee chair Cedric Bradley told Inlander Thursday, “In my opinion, it wouldn’t make a difference to me. It’s not about black and white, it’s about what we can do for the community.”

But based on what is currently known about Dolezal, this is not a case of feeling more comfortable within a different culture. The Chicago Tribune reports that “Rachel Dolezal has said she has biracial parents, was abused by a step-father, and lived in South Africa as a child. Her parents say they are white. They also say she never had a step-father, and though the couple did live in South Africa, it was from 2002 to 2006, it was after Rachel had left the house and married.” And the Washington Post notes that her father told them that “When Rachel applied to Howard University to study art with a portfolio of ‘exclusively African American portraiture,’ the university ‘took her for a black woman’ and gave her a full scholarship.” The family also says that she has claimed that her now 21 year-old adopted brother, who is African American, is her son.

The city of Spokane, meanwhile, is looking into whether she misidentified her race on her Ombudsman Commission application. She also has a lengthy history, going back several years, of claiming she’s been targeted for hate crimes. Just this week, KXLY4′s Melissa Luck reported on Dolezal’s alleged problems, including one in which she told authorities “Someone had threatened her at work about her ethnicity.” She also claimed she’d received hate mail earlier this year. A police report indicates “the initial package Dolezal reported receiving did not bear a date stamp or bar code… it was either very unlikely or impossible that the package could have been processed through the post office, and that the only other alternative was that it had been put there by someone with a key.”

So this isn’t about being an ally, or making the family of your choosing, or even how one feels on the inside. It’s about, apparently, flat out deception. It’s about how one person chose to obtain a college education and jobs and credibility in her community. It about allegedly pretending to speak from a racial experience you simply don’t have. You want to live your truth, that’s not how you go about it. And it’s an insult to anyone honestly trying to do just that to suggest anything otherwise, for even a moment.

I'd add that anyone who is defending Dolezal, and especially those attacking people who've criticized and mocked the Montana-born racial appropriator, is a bad person who needs to take a hard look in the mirror and to check their ideological hatred before decency and common sense. YOU are a terrible human being if you're down with Dolezal's lying civil rights cultural appropriation shakedown scam. Shame on you.

New York Times to Block Employees' Desktop Access to Home Page Next Week

The Old Gray Lady really wants folks to read their paper on smartphones, heh.

At WSJ:

Next week NYT will block access to their homepage on desktop in their entire building. forced to read on mobile https://t.co/hkqat9fxx7

— Hadas Gold (@Hadas_Gold) June 12, 2015

Desk jockeys at the New York Times are about to get a lesson on the importance of mobile — whether they like it or not. Next week, the company will temporarily block access to the nytimes.com homepage on desktop computers at its headquarters, according to an email sent to staff Friday. Employees that try to access the desktop site will receive a message prompting them to switch over to phones or tablets.

“More than half of our traffic to The Times is on mobile. We’re hopeful that this temporary change will help spur us to make mobile an even more central part of everything that we do,” read the email, which was attributed to a handful of top newsroom and company executives, including Publisher and Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Executive Editor Dean Baquet.

The switch will apply to just the homepage on desktops, not all articles across the site.

The Times’s experiment comes as Web publishers reckon with a handful of unnerving shifts in digital media. Mobile traffic is on the rise, but publishers are struggling to monetize that audience. That has made new offerings like Facebook’s Instant Articles — where publishers can post articles directly to the service and take home most of the ad money — more attractive. In some cases, publishers already derive the lion’s share of their traffic from Facebook...

Obama Suffers Stunning Loss as Trade Bill is Defeated by #Pelosi Democrats

Heh, this is big!

At LAT, "Obama suffers big loss as trade bill is defeated at hands of Democrats."

Michelle Malkin has been all over this, hilariously so.

What part of "Stop selling out America?" don't Beltway crapweasels in both parties understand? http://t.co/v2CugIksCc pic.twitter.com/ObWmAlMXwe

— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) June 12, 2015

Boehner's transformation into Pelosi is complete: Urges yes vote on Obamatrade...FOR THE KIDS==> https://t.co/7TJBfagNGP

— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) June 12, 2015

Yep. @SenatorSessions is RIGHT on raw #tpp #tpa deal. Unfortunately, @SenTedCruz is wrong. #StopObamaTrade https://t.co/nCS16cWfY9

— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) June 12, 2015

It's come to this: Boehner and Pelosi cross-dressing on Obamatrade==> https://t.co/aVe0lKccq7

— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) June 12, 2015

Hilarious #WrongSkin Twitter Campaign Goes Viral

I guess it goes to show that Twitter truly is the great equalizer!

I mean, when you can knock Caitlyn Jenner out of the news, that's saying something.

Following-up from earlier, "Far-Left White Privilege Racial Appropriators: Stop Stealing My Ethnic Marginalization! — #Dolezal #WrongSkin."

The Mirror UK's got a write up on our hilariously confused "black" leftist Godfrey Elfwick.

#WrongSkin: Twitter campaign by white man who 'identifies as being black' goes viral http://t.co/jJaijt2XyK pic.twitter.com/OYZodfCZT2

— Daily Mirror (@DailyMirror) June 12, 2015

Call Me Shaniqua! — #RachelDolezal #WrongSkin

I cannot stop laughing.

This Rachel Dolezal lady was made for Twitter!

Social media just kills me #RachelDolezal pic.twitter.com/SBIJCZK94V

— Jade (@Jaydemwah) June 12, 2015

Far-Left White Privilege Racial Appropriators: Stop Stealing My Ethnic Marginalization! — #Dolezal #WrongSkin

So this happened early this morning:

.@GodfreyElfwick Stop with the racial and cultural appropriation brother.

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 12, 2015

.@GodfreyElfwick I'm black you idiot. I don't appreciate white people stealing black identity.

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 12, 2015

I don't appreciate you denying my right to choose my cultural heritage. #MyBodyMyRules @AmPowerBlog

— Godfrey Elfwick (@GodfreyElfwick) June 12, 2015

.@GodfreyElfwick You're a despicable person attacking a real black man as a "honky." I'm sick of your shit. pic.twitter.com/fI5Skb83tU

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 12, 2015

.@MrBakunda I'm marginalized you dolt. @GodfreyElfwick stealing my marginalization and I want it back!

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 12, 2015

And man, turns out this is really a thing! A hilarious thing!!

@RoyCalbeck @AmPowerBlog @GodfreyElfwick I'm a black unicorn with a gold horn trapped in European human body.😭

— Bristol Common Sense (@BristolComSense) June 12, 2015

@AmPowerBlog @GodfreyElfwick Don't call him brother! He's not a white brother he's a black brother so don't call him that!

— Amadeus Winqvist (@Ammadillen) June 12, 2015

Sad for poor northern #transracial ppl like @GodfreyElfwick. I get atomic tans but he has to make do with shoe polish #wrongskin #struggle

— Milo Yiannopoulos (@Nero) June 12, 2015

#cisblack ppl can be really racist against #transrace folk like me and @GodfreyElfwick but I’m all like pic.twitter.com/3uMLuUzikD

— Milo Yiannopoulos (@Nero) June 12, 2015

They legitimately won't be happy until they take everything from us. INCLUDING OUR ACTUAL SKIN COLOR https://t.co/FLFjrwpd2r

— NO JUSTICE NO PEACE (@GrandDuchessRae) June 12, 2015

When you are #transracial, everything changes. pic.twitter.com/MmsN3A8yfo

— Milo Yiannopoulos (@Nero) June 12, 2015

If you support transgender rights but deny the lived experience of #transracial #WrongSkin and erase our identities you are a hateful bigot

— Milo Yiannopoulos (@Nero) June 12, 2015

You're a dumbfuck and I honestly hate you with all my heart black is not a feeling black is not a state of mind https://t.co/8Dpe67OLu0

— Emma (@SlavetoJackson) June 12, 2015

You're not in the wrong skin your white trash saying a tan is equivalent to knowing the black struggle, get shot https://t.co/ogw8TVAEOy

— Emma (@SlavetoJackson) June 12, 2015

You're a dumbfuck and I honestly hate you with all my heart black is not a feeling black is not a state of mind https://t.co/8Dpe67OLu0

— Emma (@SlavetoJackson) June 12, 2015

I've been experimenting with blackface in my home because society said it was unacceptable in public. Tomorrow we #EndTheStigma #WrongSkin

— Ricky Vaughn (@Ricky_Vaughn99) June 12, 2015

Boeing Dreamliner Near Vertical Take-Off

This is phenomenal.

Video here: "New Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner performs near vertical take-off."

At Telegraph UK:

Pass the sick-bag: Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner lifts off in near-vertical ascent http://t.co/mzH9BI96uB pic.twitter.com/IqorsfMM5Q

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) June 12, 2015

Legacy of Joseph Stalin Enjoys Resurgence in Putin's Russia

At LAT, "Putin, once critical of Stalin, now embraces Soviet dictator's tactics":

Only six years ago, President Vladimir Putin visited the Polish port of Gdansk, birthplace of the Solidarity movement that threw off Soviet domination, and reassured his Eastern European neighbors that Russia had only friendly intentions.

Putin spoke harshly that day of the notorious World War II-era pact that former Soviet leader Josef Stalin had signed with Adolf Hitler — an agreement that cleared the way for the Nazi occupation of Poland and Soviet domination of the Baltics — calling it a "collusion to solve one's problems at others' expense."

But Putin's view of history appears to have undergone a startling transformation. Last month, the Russian leader praised the 1939 nonaggression accord with Hitler as a clever maneuver that forestalled war with Germany. Stalin's 29-year reign, generally seen by Russians in recent years as a dark and bloody chapter in the nation's history, has lately been applauded by Putin and his supporters as the foundation on which the great Soviet superpower was built.

Across a resurgent Russia, Stalin lives again, at least in the minds and hearts of Russian nationalists who see Putin as heir to the former dictator's model of iron-fisted rule. Recent tributes celebrate Stalin's military command acumen and geopolitical prowess. His ruthless repression of enemies, real and imagined, has been brushed aside by today's Kremlin leader as the cost to be paid for defeating the Nazis.

As Putin has sought to recover territory lost in the 1991 Soviet breakup, his Stalinesque claim to a right to a "sphere of influence" has allowed him to legitimize the seizure of Crimea from Ukraine and declare an obligation to defend Russians and Russian speakers beyond his nation's borders.

On May 9, the 70th anniversary of the Allied war victory was marked and Stalin's image was put on display with glorifying war films, T-shirts, billboards and posters. Framed portraits of the mustachioed generalissimo were carried by marchers in Red Square's Victory Day parade and in the million-strong civic procession that followed to honor all who fell in what Russians call the Great Patriotic War.

Putin's embrace of Stalin's power-play tactics is applauded by many Russians and other former Soviet citizens as the sort of decisive leadership they longed for while watching communism collapse around them. To the proponents of a reinvigorated Russia, reformist Mikhail Gorbachev and his successor, Boris Yeltsin, are seen as having submitted Russia to Western domination.

Stalin "kept us all together, there was a friendship of nations, and without him everything fell apart," said Suliko Megrelidze, a 79-year-old native of Stalin's Georgian birthplace who sells dried fruit and spices at a farmers market. "We need someone like him if we want peace and freedom from those fascists in Europe and America."

Such sentiments are no longer confined to those with actual memories of the Stalin era. A poll this spring by the independent Levada Center found 39% of respondents had a positive opinion of Stalin. As to the millions killed, 45% of those surveyed agreed that the deaths could be justified for the greater accomplishments of winning the war, building modern industries and growing to eventually give their U.S. nemesis a battle for supremacy in the arms race and conquering outer space.

The share of Russians who look back approvingly has been increasing steadily in recent years, and the segment of those who tell pollsters they have no opinion on his place in their history has shot up even more sharply, said Denis Volkov, a sociologist with the Levada Center. He points to this year's massive Victory Day events as the Kremlin's message to ungrateful neighbors that they owe their peace and prosperity to the wartime deaths of more than 20 million Soviet citizens...

American Hegemony Is Here to Stay

Never heard of this Salvatore Babones dude, but this is great.

This is the "BIG ARTICLE" - please read, everyone - "American Hegemony Is Here to Stay" @thenatlinterest http://t.co/nQstPrdSvX

— Salvatore Babones (@sbabones) June 11, 2015

Twitter Chief Stepping Down as Growth Weakens

Maybe we're going to have to pay for Twitter pretty soon, since it appears no one's found a way to grow the company.

At WSJ, "Twitter CEO Dick Costolo Stepping Down":

Dick Costolo is stepping down as Twitter Inc.’s chief executive after five years, as Wall Street began losing faith in him and the social-media company’s future growth.

The move puts a spotlight back on co-founder and Chairman Jack Dorsey, who will serve as interim CEO while he remains chief executive of payments startup Square Inc. Mr. Dorsey was Twitter’s first CEO from May 2007 to October 2008.

Twitter said it would be looking both inside and outside the company for a new chief.

Notably, Mr. Dorsey isn’t part of the search committee, which will include board members Peter Currie, Peter Fenton and co-founder Evan Williams.

Mr. Dorsey declined to comment on whether he would accept the job if it were offered to him. “I’m not going to answer that question because it’s not what I’m focused on,” he said in an interview. He said he already spends his time at both Twitter and Square, which are located on the same block in San Francisco.

Mr. Costolo’s departure July 1 will leave Twitter without a permanent replacement while the company wrestles with mounting questions from investors as to whether it can overcome disappointing user growth, a series of executive changes and flip-flopping on product strategy.

Messrs. Dorsey and Costolo said that the transition is happening only because Mr. Costolo, 51 years old, wanted to move on. Mr. Costolo said he began discussions with the board at the end of last year and continued those talks through last week when he and the board came to an agreement.

“There’s never a perfect time to do these things,” Mr. Costolo said in an interview.

Under Mr. Costolo, Twitter evolved from a scrappy startup to a public company with a market value of some $25 billion. At the same time, the 140-character messaging service gained cultural prominence, becoming a powerful microphone for celebrities, activists and citizen journalists.

Mr. Costolo has been credited with helping the company formulate its business plan in its early days and rallying the troops after a contentious fight between co-founders Messrs. Dorsey and Williams.

But the former improv comedian’s strengths—his ability to make snap decisions—frustrated senior executives as the company faced the scrutiny of Wall Street after it went public in November 2013, according to current and former employees.

During Twitter’s first year as a public company, Mr. Costolo replaced or lost five direct reports, including his chief operating officer Ali Rowghani and chief financial officer Mike Gupta. He also replaced his product chief four times as the company struggled to release critical features to make the product easier to use.

Mr. Costolo has attempted to right the ship in recent months. He elevated veteran executive Kevin Weil to run consumer products, and since then Twitter has rolled out new features at a faster pace. Whereas its private chat feature was left untouched for years, it can now support group chats, users can share photos, and on Thursday, Twitter said it would be getting rid of the 140-character limitation on each message.

Mr. Costolo has sought to get investors to focus on the size of Twitter’s reach—an audience that sees Twitter content but doesn’t use the service—instead of the 302 million users who sign in once a month. That user base only grew 18% in the year through March 31, and remains about one-fifth the size of users who log into Facebook Inc.

Making matters worse for Mr. Costolo, Twitter reported its weakest quarterly revenue growth in April, sending its stock down nearly 20%, throwing into doubt Twitter’s one consistent bright spot. The disappointing earnings report suggested that the company’s advertising strategy might be faltering. Twitter’s revenue, which grew 74% from a year earlier to $435.9 million, fell short of its own projections as well as analysts’ forecasts.

Shares finished Thursday at $35.84 on the New York Stock Exchange, little changed, before rising 4% after hours following the announcement on Mr. Costolo. Since the company’s first day of trading, the shares are down about 20% through Thursday’s close.

“I don’t think Costolo by himself was an impediment to the growth of the business,” said Mark Mahaney, analyst at RBC Capital Markets. “There’s been more C-level turnover at this company than I have ever witnessed in the year-and-half after the IPO of any company.”

In its announcement Thursday, Twitter sought to give confidence to investors. The company reaffirmed its second-quarter outlook, expecting revenue of $470 million to $485 million and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $97 million to $102 million.

Mr. Costolo’s resignation immediately raises the question about who will succeed him...

And go to Techmeme, "Dick Costolo to step down as Twitter CEO, will remain on board; Jack Dorsey to become interim CEO effective July 1."

Rachel Dolezal, Spokane NAACP President, Misrepresented Her Race in Years-Long Cultural Appropriation Scam (VIDEO)

This is truly mind-boggling to me.

At Weasel Zippers, "Unbelievable: Head of Spokane NAACP Falsely Portrays Herself as Black, Family Says…"

And at Gateway Pundit, "NAACP President Is BUSTED as FRAUD – SHE’S ACTUALLY WHITE & BORN IN MONTANA!"

More at KXLY‑TV 4 Spokane, "Did NAACP president lie about her race? City investigates":

SPOKANE, Wash. - The City of Spokane announced Thursday it's investigating whether the president of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP violated the city's code of ethics in her application to serve on the citizen police ombudsman commission.

Rachel Dolezal serves as chair of the independent commission, in addition to her work as an adjunct faculty member at Eastern Washington University and president of the NAACP local chapter. On her application to serve on the commission, she identified herself as African-American. But public records, including Dolezal's own birth certificate, list her biological parents as Ruthanne and Lawrence Dolezal of Montana. The Dolezals told KXLY Thursday that Rachel is their biological daughter and that they are both white.

"We are committed to independent citizen oversight and take very seriously the concerns raised regarding the chair of the independent citizen police ombudsman commission," Mayor David Condon and City Council President Ben Stuckart said it a joint statement Thursday. "We are gathering facts to determine if any city policies related to volunteer boards and commissions have been violated. That information will be reviewed by the City Council, which has oversight of city boards and commissions."

On the NAACP Spokane Facebook page, a picture was posted earlier this year showing Dolezal and an African-American man. In the post, he's identified as Dolezal's father. KXLY4's Jeff Humphrey asked Dolezal about that claim Wednesday afternoon.

"Ma'am, I was wondering if your dad really is an African-American man," Humphrey asked.

"I don't understand the question," Dolezal answered. "I did tell you [that man in the picture] is my dad."

"Are your parents white?" Humphrey asked. At that point, Dolezal removed the microphone, ended the interview and walked away....

More

Also at BuzzFeed, "A Civil Rights Leader Has Disguised Herself as Black for Years, Her Parents Say."

This is how far we've come on race relations in America. A white woman born in Montana passes herself off as black American in an obvious cultural appropriation rip off. It's perfectly representative of what's become of "progressivism" today. The truth never matters. Reality is whatever you want it to be. You can paint your skin with faux-mulatto pigmentation and then give community lectures on "Ferguson and Race Relations in America." This scandal proves that racial grievance is a massive industry with tremendous resources to be bilked from a deep well of decent, regular people constantly under assault and made to feel guilty for the color of their skin.

It's so sick and abusive it makes me ashamed for my country.

Added: From Daniel Greenfield, at FrontPage Magazine, "NAACP Leader Exposed as White After Faking Hate Crime."

Jackie Johnson's Got Your Weekend Forecast

It's pretty much classic June gloom right now.

At CBS Los Angeles, "Jackie Johnson's Weather Forecast (June 11)."

Florence and the Machine Streamline Their Sound in 'How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful'

Florence Welch is cool.

She's got a new record out with the band: "How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful [Deluxe Edition]."

See the Los Angeles Times, "Florence Welch says no tricks on new, stripped-down Florence and the Machine album."

To put these songs into the world, you've got to be OK w/them yourself @flo_tweet @MikaelWood http://t.co/KRapD5T0QG pic.twitter.com/YrNWHAR0dh

— Cindy Hively (@cindyhively) May 29, 2015

Some Afternoon Rule 5

At Daley Gator, "Sexy Poses."

At the Other McCain, "Rule 5 Sunday: Welcome to Las Vegas."

Also at Pirate's Cove, "If All You See……is a tree stump, the last remnants of a tree killed by carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist."

And at Knuckledraggin', "Well, a couple of good things came out of Oklahoma."

Photo pic.twitter.com/xltMJh9oaP

— Tacticalpeaks (@tacticalpeaks) June 4, 2015

BONUS: At Drunken Stepfather, "KENDALL JENNER IN A PRINT AD OF THE DAY." Plus, "TAYLOR SWIFT INFLATABLE WITH HER BOYFRIEND OF THE DAY," and "KATY PERRY FASHION MODEL OF THE DAY."

I Give You Anthony Berteaux, Author of 'Open Letter to Jerry Seinfeld' on the Politically Correct Way to Do Comedy

My God, is this kid out of central casting, or what?

This little twerp published his crappy politically correct drivel at PuffHo, "An Open Letter to Jerry Seinfeld from a 'Politically Correct' College Student."

See AoSHQ for the takedown, "College Student to Jerry Seinfeld: Sir, I Shall Now Endeavor to Explain Comedy to You."

I give you Anthony Berteaux:

@AceofSpadesHQ Author of the "That's not funny" piece in Puffho: pic.twitter.com/kFqh7C6G1v

— Gary Crant (@Beefsteak101) June 10, 2015

.@thebasedviking pic.twitter.com/hWbQl5HLHF

— Snark Enlightenment (@jokeocracy) June 10, 2015

Hey Leftists, Time to Stop Saying 'You Guys,' You Hypocritical Sexist Ghouls

Heh, at Althouse, "'Why I’m finally convinced it's time to stop saying 'you guys'.'"

And at Twitchy, "Hey! You g*ys! Vox has proclaimed that ‘you guys’ is totes sexist for reals."

You gotta love the hilarious lack of self-awareness among the sexist ghouls on the radical left.

Shot and chaser: pic.twitter.com/gzAkWKOXZn

— CounterMoonbat (@CounterMoonbat) June 11, 2015

You know what? Vox is right. Saying "you guys" is sexist and wrong and tota... Oops! pic.twitter.com/Dhzg8Sx0dj

— neontaster (@neontaster) June 11, 2015

Honda Enters the Street Legal Superbike Race with Race Replica Retailing for Eye-Popping $184,000

Crazy.

Honda's $184K superbike http://t.co/k6WI0WiBZD Made to order, and street legal

— charles fleming (@misterfleming) June 11, 2015

The College Board’s Sabotage of American History

Here's Daniel Henninger from yesterday's Wall Street Journal, "Bye, Bye, American History: Professors and historians urged opposition to the College Board’s new curriculum for teaching AP U.S. History." (At Memeorandum.)

Comment from Dave Blount, at RWN, "College Board Prepares Cultural Marxist Attack on American History."

And don't miss Michelle Malkin, who wrote on this last week:

Read this key passage from U.S. historians' protest against #apush - Exactly right==> pic.twitter.com/V1EgopERKJ

— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) June 2, 2015

A stellar group of American historians and academics released a milestone open letter yesterday in protest of deleterious changes to the advanced placement U.S. history (APUSH) exam. The signatories are bold intellectual bulwarks against increasing progressive attacks in the classroom on America’s unique ideals and institutions.

Moms and dads in my adopted home state of Colorado have been mocked and demonized for helping to lead the fight against the anti-American changes to APUSH. But if there’s any hope at all in salvaging local control over our kids’ curriculum, it lies in the willingness of a broad coalition of educators and parents to join in the front lines for battles exactly like this one.

As the 55 distinguished members of the National Association of Scholars explained this week, the teaching of American history faces “a grave new risk.” So-called “reforms” by the College Board, which holds a virtual monopoly on A.P. testing across the country, “abandon a rigorous insistence on content” in favor of downplaying “American citizenship and American world leadership in favor of a more global and transnational perspective.”

The top-down APUSH framework eschews vivid, content-rich history lessons on the Constitution for “such abstractions as ‘identity,’ ‘peopling,’ ‘work, exchange and technology,’ and ‘human geography’ while downplaying essential subjects, such as the sources, meaning and development of America’s ideals and political institutions.” The scholars, who hail from institutions ranging from Notre Dame and Stanford to the University of Virginia, Baylor, CUNY, Georgetown and Ohio State, decried the aggressive centralization of power over how teachers will be able to teach the story of America.

This is not a bug. It’s a feature, as I’ve been reporting for years on Fed Ed matters. These so-called APUSH reforms by the College Board, after all, are part and parcel of a radical upheaval in testing, textbooks and educational technology. It is no coincidence that the College Board’s president, David Coleman, supervised the Beltway operation that drafted, disseminated and profits from the federal Common Core standards racket.

The social justice warriors of government education have long sought, as the NAS signatories correctly diagnosed it, “to de-center American history and subordinate it to a global and heavily social-scientific perspective.” Their mission is not to impart knowledge, but to instigate racial, social and class divisions. Their mission is not to assimilate new generations of students into the American way of life, but to turn them against capitalism, individualism and American exceptionalism in favor of left-wing activism and poisonous identity politics.

The late far-left historian Howard Zinn has indoctrinated generations of teachers and students who see education as a militant political “counterforce” (an echo of fellow radical academic, domestic terrorist and Hugo Chavez-admirer Bill Ayers’ proclamation of education as the “motor-force of revolution.”) Teachers aim to “empower” student collectivism by emphasizing “the role of working people, women, people of color and organized social movements.” School officials are not facilitators of intellectual inquiry, but leaders of “social struggle.”

The APUSH critics make clear in their protest letter that they champion a “warts and all” pedagogical approach to their U.S. history lessons. But they point out that “elections, wars, diplomacy, inventions, discoveries — all these formerly central subjects tend to dissolve into the vagaries of identity-group conflict” as a result of the APUSH overhaul.

“Gone is the idea that history should provide a fund of compelling stories about exemplary people and events,” the scholars point out. “No longer will students hear about America as a dynamic and exemplary nation, flawed in many respects, but whose citizens have striven through the years toward the more perfect realization of its professed ideals.”

Michelle new book is at Amazon, Who Built That: Awe-Inspiring Stories of American Tinkerpreneurs.

Anti-Slut Walk Video Gets 300,000 Views in Just Over 12 Hours!

At Rebel Media, "'There Is No Rape Culture in the West': She held up that sign at SlutWalk, and this is what happened."

Hat Tip: Five Feet of Fury.

Father's Day Gifts — Get 20 Percent Off

Do some shopping!

Fox Plans Second-Tier Debate in Response to Threat from N.H. Newspaper

At National Journal, "Candidates who don't meet the criteria for the prime-time event will get to make their cases to voters on television earlier the same day."

Also at LAT, "New Hampshire fights to maintain its status in campaign season."

Holly Williams Reports: Local Militias Say #ISIS Advanced 20 Miles Tuesday, Seizing Power Plant Just Outside Sirte

Via CBS News This Morning, "Libyan militias scramble as ISIS seizes territory."

New Video Shows Suspect Getting 'Horrific' Beating by Salinas Police

The never ending story.

We might as well take police off the job in America. They can't win no matter what the circumstances.

Watch, at CBS News San Francisco, "Use of Force by Salinas Police Under Scrutiny."

Also at the Monterey County Herald, "Man’s beating, arrest by Salinas PD caught on video."

Nyjah Huston Wins Gold in Men's Skateboard Street Final at X Games Austin 2015

Nyjah's freakin' incredible.

Delicious Melissa Debling

For Zoo Today, "Melissa Debling strips ready for bed!"

Hannah Davis Super Sexy Outtakes

For Sports Illustrated Swimsuit.

Here, "Fun and Sexy outtakes from Hannah Davis' SI Swimsuit 2015 shoot in Blackberry Farm, TN."

Bill O'Reilly's Talking Points: Back to Iraq

There's no difference between ISIS and the Nazi regime, yet still America dithers under Obama.

O'Reilly keeps hammering President Oppeasement:



PREVIOUSLY: "Obama: No Plan to Stop Islamic State."

Anonymous Baltimore Cops to CNN: Public Asked for 'Softer' Police Force, They Got It (VIDEO)

At Gateway Pundit, "Baltimore Cops: “Public Asked for Softer, Less Aggressive Police Dept. & We’ve Given Them That” (VIDEO)."



BONUS: At Truth Revolt, "Prosecutor Had Asked Cops to Target Area Where Freddie Gray Was Arrested."

Happy Birthday Kate Upton!

The lovely Ms. Upton turned 23 today.

Help us wish two-time #SISwim cover model @KateUpton a happy birthday! We love you, Kate! http://t.co/VdMtT2PtMj pic.twitter.com/jYb3hR6CHv

— SI Swimsuit (@SI_Swimsuit) June 10, 2015

BONUS: "Kate Upton Uncensored Topless Pic Leaks Online."

Obama's Iraq Escalation Needs More Than 450 Advisors

As Charles Krauthammer was saying the other day on O'Reilly's, Obama's just going through the motions, looking to offload the Iraq clusterfuck onto the next presidential administration in 2017.

Hopefully, Islamic State won't use weapons of mass destruction before then.

At WSJ, "Obama’s Latest Iraq Escalation":

President Obama all but admitted on Wednesday that his strategy against the Islamic State is failing by ordering an additional 450 U.S. military advisers to join the 3,500 already in Iraq. Alas, this looks like more of the half-hearted incrementalism that hasn’t worked so far.

The new troops won’t be used as spotters to call in airstrikes against Islamic State, much less join Iraqis at the front lines. Apache helicopters won’t provide air cover for Iraqi soldiers. There won’t be additional special forces to conduct raids against high-value targets. The highest ranking U.S. military officer will remain a mere two-star general.

Instead, the additional advisers will buttress Mr. Obama’s current strategy at the margins by putting Iraqi troops and Sunni tribesmen through a basic training course of between two and four weeks. This may be enough to show recruits how to march in drill and maintain and fire a AK-47.

But as retired four-star Gen. Jack Keane told us Wednesday, while the training is helpful, it “is insufficient to transfer a civilian to the physical, psychological and disciplinary demands of combat. And it doesn’t address the leader issue in terms of quantity or quality.”

That second point is vital, since the Iraqi army suffers from a dearth of competent and courageous leaders, particularly at the tactical levels of command. “We were not deserters,” one soldier told the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Aswat after Mosul fell last June. “Our commanders abandoned us while we were sleeping in the night, and fled by helicopter.”

A similar point concerns the weapons the Administration now wants to rush to the Iraqis, including the Kurdish peshmerga and the Sunni tribes. The Kurds in particular need heavier weapons to deter Islamic State in Iraq’s north. But the danger of delivering stores of American arms to ill-led Iraqi troops has been plain every time they abandoned positions and equipment amid Islamic State advances, most recently during the fall of Ramadi.

Some of these deficiencies could no doubt be addressed by a more robust training program, though 450 more advisers is still too few. General Keane, who was instrumental in devising the surge strategy that saved Iraq in 2007, also makes the case for putting a three-star general in command of the effort—someone with the political clout and organizational pull that made Generals David Petraeus and Raymond Odierno so effective.

Mr. Obama’s mini-escalation includes setting up a new U.S. training base in Anbar province. This is progress, but it would do more good if it became the headquarters of a brigade combat team that would oversee the training and could help the Sunni tribes with medical evacuations, secure travel and force protection. A combat brigade is some 4,000 heavily equipped soldiers.

This kind of deployment would be a show of seriousness of the scale that’s needed to persuade Sunni Arabs to risk their lives against Islamic State. Iraqi soldiers may not have the officers they deserve, but they are still likely to fight if they know there’s an Apache helicopter clearing their advance. That dynamic took hold during the 2007 surge, when American successes emboldened the Iraqis to drive out the Shiite Mahdi Army from the southern city of Basra in 2008.

The fundamental problem with Mr. Obama’s strategy is that he is so determined to show that the U.S. isn’t returning to war in Iraq that he isn’t doing enough to win the war we are fighting...

Yep, that's the fundamental problem. Obama is determined to double down on his abandonment of the Iraqi people and on his betrayal of the American troops who died to secure Iraq when Bush was still in office. This administration is treasonous.

Still more.

NPR's Diane Rehm Smears Socialist Bernie Sanders as 'Dual Citizen' of U.S. and Israel

Sanders was offended.

God, it's like leftists have run out of ideological enemies and have started to eat their own.

At Politico, "Bernie Sanders offended by Diane Rehm's Israeli citizenship question" (via Memeorandum).

North Miami Senior High School Principal Fired for Comments Defending #McKinney Police Officer

Man, this is ominous.

At Gateway Pundit, "BREAKING: Principal LOSES JOB for Defending McKinney Police Officer Casebolt (VIDEO)."

And at the Miami Herald, "Miami-Dade schools remove principal after his post about police controversy":

.@Cameron_Gray Tyranny has descended on this once great nation, big time.

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 10, 2015

The principal of North Miami Senior High School inadvertently injected himself into the racially charged national debate over police treatment of blacks with a social media comment — and it wound up costing him his position at the school.

The Miami-Dade County school district announced Wednesday that Alberto Iber had been removed as principal after going online to defend a white Texas police officer who waved a gun at black teens while responding to a call about an unruly pool party.

In a brief statement, the district said employees are required to conduct themselves, both personally and professionally, in a manner that represents the school district’s core values. The district said a replacement would be named shortly and that Iber would be reassigned to administrative duties.

“Judgment is the currency of honesty,” said Superintendent of Schools Alberto Carvalho. “Insensitivity — intentional or perceived — is both unacceptable and inconsistent with our policies, but more importantly with our expectation of common sense behavior that elevates the dignity and humanity of all, beginning with children.”

Cellphone footage from McKinney, Texas, caught white officer David Eric Casebolt throwing a black teenage girl to the ground, then briefly drawing his gun while responding to a call about an raucous pool party. The incident last week was just the latest in a string of encounters that have sparked charges of abusive police treatment of minorities.

Iber — in a brief public post on a story on the Miami Herald’s website — defended the officer’s response.

“He did nothing wrong,” Iber wrote in a comment that showed his Facebook picture, name, school and title. “He was afraid for his life. I commend him for his actions.”

Iber’s stance quickly prompted a passionate online response from Ambrose Sims, a black, retired Miami Beach Police veteran who joined the force at a time of racial strife in Miami in the 1980s. He also came out as gay and led a campaign for equal rights. Sims wrote, in part: “Such a comment reveals to me that you’re a serious part of the problem.”

Iber’s comment — which was removed after a few hours but not before being captured in screen grabs that were circulated in the community — also raised eyebrows in North Miami, a diverse city in northeast Miami-Dade where a majority of residents are black. The student body at his school also is 99 percent minority, according to state records.

Alix Desulme, a recently elected councilman who is Haitian-American and also a school teacher, said he was “appalled.”

“For him to make such a comment is insensitive to the community,” Desulme said.

Iber responded to a reporter’s questions on Tuesday by reading a prepared statement.

“I support law enforcement, and also the community and students that I serve as the proud principal of North Miami Senior High,’’ he said. “The comment I posted was simply made as the result of a short video that I watched and my personal opinion.”

Iber, who just finished his first year as the head of North Miami Senior, said he meant to write the comment anonymously.

“I regret that I posted the comment as it apparently became newsworthy and has apparently upset people,’’ he said. “That was not my intention in any way.”

Fired for stating his opinion. Fired. That's it.

That is a First Amendment violation, big time.

The collectivist-left. Destroying this once-great country one citizen at a time.