John J. Miller, The Unmaking of Americans

Cited by Steven Camarota in his Foreign Affairs essay I posted here.

At Amazon, John J. Miller, The Unmaking of Americans: How Multiculturalism Has Undermined the Assimilation Ethic.

The Truly Lethal F-22/F-15C Combination

Interesting piece, from Dave Majumdar, at the National Interest, "America's F-15 and F-22 Stealth Raptor: The Ultimate Combination?"

The latest by @DaveMajumdar: https://t.co/XbKO2MQ948

— National Interest (@TheNatlInterest) April 5, 2017

Joe Arpaio's Tent City for Illegal Aliens in Pink Underwear Closed Down (VIDEO)

Well, I for one will miss Joe Arpaio.

At the Arizona Republic, "Tent City, infamous home of inmates who wear pink underwear and major piece of Arpaio's legacy, is closing."

The Case Against Immigration

From Steven Camarota, Director of Research for the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), at Foreign Affairs, "Why the United States Should Look Out for Itself."

Hat Tip: Instapundit, "I’M SURPRISED TO SEE THIS IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS."

So am I.

Liz Habib

She's loves taking selfies.

Good Day LA!! Hello Good Morning pic.twitter.com/IwQeVVb7Zm

— Liz Habib (@LizHabib) April 5, 2017

ADDED: Here's a long video with Ms. Habib, "Why I cancelled a trip to the Côte d'Azur-- BIG opportunity on Good Day LA!!"

The Sovietization of American Politics

It's Wretchard, at Pajamas, "Checkmate":

The Sovietization of Washington politics is nearly complete. Strong arm rule, political surveillance and the show trial threatens to replace the orderly alternation at power which characterized elective government. Watching the Beltway is now disturbingly like watching an unfolding power struggle at the Kremlin. Richard Arenberg writing in the Hill asks: "is there any hope of pulling out of the "nuclear option" death spiral before the Senate inflicts permanent damage upon itself and the Supreme Court?" There's growing concern the acrimony will permanently poison the atmosphere by locking both parties into a cycle of retaliation...

Everything is polarized. There's no giving in. There's no compromise. Fuck your partisan enemies. And who can blame Trump and the Republicans? Frankly, fighting back is why people voted for Trump.

Keep reading. (Via Stephan Green, at Instapundit.)

German Foreign Exchange Student Lorraine Gilles

Nice nanny.

At London's Daily Mail, "Mel B and Stephen Belafonte's German nanny pictured."

Mel B claims her estranged husband Stephen Belafonte got the nanny PREGNANT https://t.co/vA7AEnmXxq pic.twitter.com/obatuwYyIv

— Daily Mail Celebrity (@DailyMailCeleb) April 5, 2017

Who Asked Susan Rice to Unmask Those Names?

Following-up, "Susan Rice Unmasked as Top Obama Aide Who Sought Surveillance Reports on Trump Transition Team (VIDEO)," and "Obama Flunky Susan Rice Denies 'Inappropriately Unmasking' Trump Transition Team (VIDEO)."

Here's Matthew Vadum, at FrontPage Magazine, "Obama’s national security advisor is a liar -- and possibly a felon":

Former President Obama’s National Security Advisor Susan Rice asked for the names of Trump transition officials to be unmasked and made public in raw intelligence files, according to media reports, a move apparently carried out to harm the incoming Trump administration.

As recently as March 22, Rice denied knowing anything about the intelligence reports. In an appearance on “PBS Newshour,” she said pretty definitely, “I know nothing about this.” The new news reports paint Rice as a liar.

The evidence we know about in the Trump-Russia saga so far seems to be pointing at Obama.

Adam Housley of Fox News reports:

The unmasked names, of people associated with Donald Trump, were then sent to all those at the National Security Council, some at the Defense Department, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and then-CIA Director John Brennan – essentially, the officials at the top, including former Rice deputy Ben Rhodes.

The names were part of incidental electronic surveillance of candidate and President-elect Trump and people close to him, including family members, for up to a year before he took office.

The spreading of the unmasked names was carried out for “political purposes that have nothing to do with national security” or foreign intelligence, Housley said. "It had everything to do with hurting and embarrassing Trump and his team," he said, citing his sources.

What is incidental collection, by the way?

Incidental collection “happens when an individual is in contact with the target of surveillance,” or is communicating “about” the target, according to Robyn Greene. “So if Bob were being targeted for surveillance and Alice called or emailed Bob, Alice’s communications with him would be collected incidentally.”

In this example, “if Bob is targeted for surveillance and Alice contacts him during that surveillance, resulting in the incidental collection of her communications with him, her name should be redacted or ‘masked’ unless leaving it unredacted provides foreign intelligence value.” Masking is done to protect U.S. persons (i.e. U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, etc.) who get inadvertently caught up in the electronic dragnet from being falsely accused of crimes or otherwise improper behavior.

If a National Security Agency analyst “believes Alice’s communications may contain evidence of any crime, the NSA can share those communications with law enforcement or other relevant agencies … even if the crimes are completely unrelated to the purpose for surveilling Bob’s communications, or to foreign intelligence or national security investigations.”

According to former Obama State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf, “if the intelligence community professionals decide that there’s some value, national security, foreign policy or otherwise in unmasking someone, they will grant those requests,”

Assuming these news reports about data that supposedly was incidentally collected are accurate, they raise a multitude of new questions about the ongoing scandal concerning alleged collaboration between the Trump team and Russia.

We still don’t know who asked then-National Security Advisor Susan Rice to unmask those names – or if she acted on her own initiative. But the most likely culprit has to be President Obama himself, along with those in his inner circle such as his Islamist CIA director John Brennan and his slimy national-security aide Ben Rhodes.

But whoever did the deed, it appears someone used America’s taxpayer-funded national security apparatus to engage in likely unlawful espionage against an opposition presidential campaign, an incoming administration, and that administration’s transition team. It’s the stuff of banana republics, which makes sense, because Obama spent eight long, lawless years trying to turn the United States into precisely that...

Keep reading.

Lawrence Culver, The Frontier of Leisure

I mentioned I'd be posting more on the California frontier, but I was thinking more along 19th century lines, heh.

But you gotta love this one, from Lawrence Culver, The Frontier of Leisure: Southern California and the Shaping of Modern America.

Southern California has long been promoted as the playground of the world, the home of resort-style living, backyard swimming pools, and year-round suntans. Tracing the history of Southern California from the late nineteenth century through the late twentieth century, The Frontier of Leisure reveals how this region did much more than just create lavish resorts like Santa Catalina Island and Palm Springs -- it literally remade American attitudes towards leisure. Lawrence Culver shows how this "culture of leisure" gradually took hold with an increasingly broad group of Americans, and ultimately manifested itself in suburban developments throughout the Sunbelt and across the United States. He further shows that as Southern Californians promoted resort-style living, they also encouraged people to turn inward, away from public spaces and toward their private homes and communities. Impressively researched, a fascinating and lively read, this finely nuanced history connects Southern Californian recreation and leisure to larger historical themes, including regional development, architecture and urban planning, race relations, Indian policy, politics, suburbanization, and changing perceptions of nature.

Obama Flunky Susan Rice Denies 'Inappropriately Unmasking' Trump Transition Team (VIDEO)

She's vile.

And she's a bald-faced liar.

At the Hill, "Rice denies Obama administration inappropriately unmasked Trump team."

Here's the interview, with Andrea Mitchell, at MSNBC this afternoon:



PREVIOUSLY: "Susan Rice Unmasked as Top Obama Aide Who Sought Surveillance Reports on Trump Transition Team (VIDEO)."

Will Bagley, With Golden Visions Bright Before Them

At Amazon, Will Bagley, With Golden Visions Bright Before Them: Trails to the Mining West, 1849–1852.

Robert J. Utley, Wanted

I finished Robert J. Utley's, The Indian Frontier, a couple of weeks ago.

It turns out he published a biography of Billy the Kid in 2015, and it comes highly recommended.

At Amazon, Wanted: The Outlaw Lives of Billy the Kid and Ned Kelly.

Ryan Blacketter's Raft of Great Books

Blacketter's "raft of books" is the lifeboat, so to speak, on which he escapes the brain-dead politics of the literary campus left.

It's an interesting piece, and a warning for those who think they can navigate far-left campus political correctness.

At Quillette:

"It’s a rare English department that respects great books and authors." https://t.co/Z6Q6ild3yV

— Quillette Magazine (@QuilletteM) April 4, 2017

Susan Rice Unmasked as Top Obama Aide Who Sought Surveillance Reports on Trump Transition Team (VIDEO)

CNN's running interference for the Democrats, at the video below. But the latest revelation of Obama administration surveillance, and "unmasking" of Trump transition team members, blows the lid off the left's Russian-meddling election scam and further vindicates President Trump's allegations of the Obama regime's wiretapping. .

At WSJ, via Memeorandum, "Susan Rice Unmasked" (and Ruth King):

Susan Rice sought the name of at least one Trump official in intelligence reports: https://t.co/txUIgCElLY

— WSJ Editorial Page (@WSJopinion) April 4, 2017

Well, what do you know. On the matter of who “unmasked” the names of Trump transition officials in U.S. intelligence reports, we now have one answer: Susan Rice, Barack Obama’s national security adviser.

A U.S. intelligence official confirms to us the bombshell news, first reported Monday by Bloomberg, that Ms. Rice requested the name of at least one Trump transition official listed in an intelligence report in the months between Election Day and Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Ms. Rice received summaries of U.S. eavesdropping either when foreign officials were discussing the Trump team, or when foreign officials were conversing with a Trump transition member. The surveillance was legally authorized, but the identities of U.S. citizens are typically masked so they cannot be known outside intelligence circles. Ms. Rice asked for and learned the identity of the Trump official, whose name hasn’t been publicly disclosed and our source declined to share.

Our source did confirm that Ms. Rice also examined dozens of other intelligence summaries that technically masked Trump official identities but were written in such a way as to make obvious who those officials were. This means that the masking was essentially meaningless. All this is highly unusual—and troubling. Unmasking does occur, but it is typically done by intelligence or law-enforcement officials engaged in antiterror or espionage investigations. Ms. Rice would have had no obvious need to unmask Trump campaign officials other than political curiosity.

We’re told by a source who has seen the unmasked documents that they included political information about the Trump transition team’s meetings and policy intentions. We are also told that none of these documents had anything to do with Russia or the FBI investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign. While we don’t know if Ms. Rice requested these dozens of reports, we are told that they were only distributed to a select group of recipients—conveniently including Ms. Rice.

All of this helps to explain the actions in the last week of House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, the one official in Washington who seems interested in pursuing the evidence of politicized surveillance. Mr. Nunes was roundly criticized by Democrats and the media last week for publicly revealing at least one instance of Obama White House unmasking, albeit without disclosing any names.

Now we know he is onto something. And we know that Mr. Nunes had to go to the White House to verify his information because the records containing Ms. Rice’s unmasking request are held at the National Security Council...

More.

PREVIOUSLY: "Top Obama Adviser Sought Names of Trump Associates in Intel."

Out Today: Laura Kipnis, Unwanted Advances

Following-up from March 28th, "In the Mail: Laura Kipnis, Unwanted Advances."

I'm nearly 100 pages into this book, and it's good.

My only issue with it -- and it's a serious issue --- is that Kipnis insists that the left's Title IX totalitarianism isn't "ideological." She refers to the left's anti-rape jihad on campus as a function of an allegedly hysterical, polarized political environment, said to be productive of schizophrenic college policies on sexual assault.

Frankly, that's much too loose in terms of political responsibility, but it can't be otherwise for Kipnis, since she's desperate to cling to her bona fides as a self-described "far-left feminist." (She'd do well to read Kim Holmes' recent book, which places the left's current campus turmoil firmly in the trenches of radical ideological trends going back to at least the 1960s.)

That said, the volume's a worthwhile read that deserves a spot on the shelf of anyone seriously concerned about the denial of basic due process at America's colleges and universities.

At Amazon, Unwanted Advances: Sexual Paranoia Comes to Campus.

Kendall Jenner as Marilyn Monroe for Love Magazine (VIDEO)

She's so lovely.

Candice Jackson Appointed to Lead the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights

In terms of power, controlling the executive branch bureaucracy's up there with holding the majority on the Supreme Court.

It's going to take a while to clean out Obama's treasonous deep state, but the extremely politicized "Office for Civil Rights" at the Department of Education (in charge of Title IX regulations) is an excellent place to start.

At Instapundit, "SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD APPOINTMENT TO ME":

Report: New Head of Federal Anti-Rape Agency Is a ‘Libertarian Feminist’ and Clinton Critic; Candice Jackson will allegedly become deputy secretary at the Office for Civil Rights. “A conservative legal activist known for defending the women who accused President Bill Clinton of sexual harassment has been tapped to head the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights on a temporary basis. OCR is the agency that regulates Title IX compliance, and is responsible for the recent effort to compel schools to police sexual assault internally.”

Save Big on Major League Baseball Collectibles and Memorabilia

At Amazon, Shop Our Deal of the Day.

And ICYMI, John Florio, One Nation Under Baseball: How the 1960s Collided with the National Pastime.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali Cancels Australia Visit Over 'Security Concerns' (VIDEO)

In other words, she got death threats.

Apparently, these were specific and credible.

From Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, "WHITE SUPREMACY: YOU’RE REALLY DOING IT WRONG! Ayaan Hirsi Ali cancels Oz visit after being threatened, called 'white supremacist(!)'."

And watch, at the Rebel:

Top Obama Adviser Sought Names of Trump Associates in Intel

From Eli Lake, at Bloomberg:

#BetYouDidntExpect #SusanRice Top Obama Adviser Sought Names of Trump Associates in Intel President Trump is right again and again🙂👍 pic.twitter.com/YD02Z0rkNk

— CindyForTrump (@immigrant_legal) April 3, 2017

White House lawyers last month learned that the former national security adviser Susan Rice requested the identities of U.S. persons in raw intelligence reports on dozens of occasions that connect to the Donald Trump transition and campaign, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

The pattern of Rice's requests was discovered in a National Security Council review of the government's policy on "unmasking" the identities of individuals in the U.S. who are not targets of electronic eavesdropping, but whose communications are collected incidentally. Normally those names are redacted from summaries of monitored conversations and appear in reports as something like "U.S. Person One."

The National Security Council's senior director for intelligence, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, was conducting the review, according to two U.S. officials who spoke with Bloomberg View on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly. In February Cohen-Watnick discovered Rice's multiple requests to unmask U.S. persons in intelligence reports that related to Trump transition activities. He brought this to the attention of the White House General Counsel's office, who reviewed more of Rice's requests and instructed him to end his own research into the unmasking policy.

The intelligence reports were summaries of monitored conversations -- primarily between foreign officials discussing the Trump transition, but also in some cases direct contact between members of the Trump team and monitored foreign officials. One U.S. official familiar with the reports said they contained valuable political information on the Trump transition such as whom the Trump team was meeting, the views of Trump associates on foreign policy matters and plans for the incoming administration...

Keep reading.