THE FBI IS ACTING IN BAD FAITH, TRYING TO HOLD OUT PAST THE MIDTERMS IN THE HOPES THE DEMS WILL WIN AND LET THEM COVER THINGS UP: Senate probes FBI’s heavy-handed use of redactions to obstruct congressional investigators.

WOW: A Stalin-era Gulag survivor never saw her husband again. USA TODAY found him.

Khachatryan’s only “crime” was that she fell in love with, and then secretly married, a Yugoslavian military officer who was studying in Moscow. She was 17. As part of her arrest and then punishment in a subarctic climate in Siberia, Khachatryan endured horrible indignities. She also never saw her husband, Radojica Nenezic, again.

When Khachatryan was finally released from the Gulag after Stalin’s death in 1953 she did not know what had become of her “Yugloslav” as she likes to call Nenezic; nor he, her. For more than 70 years that was mostly the end of their story, such as it was.

Then, in the late spring of this year, journalism the connector, as I learned, intervened.

A grandchild of Nenezic’s, the result of another marriage that produced a daughter, was alerted to a sad tale published in a major U.S. newspaper of a woman who sounded a lot like the “Lyudmila” who they grew up hearing about from their grandfather.

(Nenezic had died more than a decade earlier from a heart attack.)

“We just want to tell Lyudmila that our grandfather never stopped loving her and that even we know the story about his love for her,” this grandchild wrote to me in a Facebook message, from Croatia, a country that was previously part of Yugoslavia until a series of political crises caused that nation to break apart in the early 1990s.

“I thought there is nothing that could be worse than prison and the Gulag camp in the world. But now I know, it can be. It is possible to kill a person twice,” she wrote in reply to the letter from Nenezic’s daughter, referring to confirmation of his death years earlier.

“It is to kill me a third time,” Khachatryan added in that letter.

Heartbreaking — but that’s how Real Socialism™ always turns out.

ATTACKING ISIS AT NIGHT: U.S. Army artillerymen shell an ISIS “pocket” near the Iraq-Syria border.

CIVIL RIGHTS COMMISSIONER: Help Americans First, Before Immigrants.

A key U.S. civil rights official, armed with data that cheap legal and illegal immigrants are taking jobs away from American-born minorities, is calling on Congress to take a hard line stance in its developing immigration policy that gives priority to Americans workers.

Believing he has an allies in President Trump and top White House adviser Stephen Miller, Peter N. Kirsanow, a commissioner on the United States Commission on Civil Rights, said, “Government policy should be formulated around that concept: Benefit Americans first before you start to benefit foreigners.”

In an interview with Secrets, the sole Republican on the eight person commission, added, “We should be looking at what helps Americans first.”

Kirsanow expressed dismay that while the president has a solid immigration blueprint based on his promise to build a U.S.-Mexico border wall, congressional Republicans are unfocused and some have endorsed business demands for more and cheaper imported labor.

“I think this president is by far the strongest president that we’ve ever had from a pro-American immigration policy standpoint,” he said. “We’re getting more from this president than we could ever expect to get,” he added.

Of Miller, he said, “I think Stephen Miller is probably the strongest advocate for a pro-American immigration policy.”

Kirsanow this week sent a letter to Congress warning that minorities could be further squeezed out of the workforce in the tight labor market if more immigration is allowed and if some in Congress follow through with plans to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants.

It’s as if the Dem and Republican establishments care more about votes and cheap labor than the well-being of their voters.

BRINGING OUT THE BIG GUNS: New Army Artillery Doubles Attack Range & Outguns Russian Equivalent.

MY LOW OPINION OF THE FBI IS COMING TO A MIDDLE: Meet the Other Amorous FBI Staffers Who Texted About the Clinton Email Investigation.

CONFIRMING WHAT I’VE LONG SUSPECTED: Comcast disabled throttling system, proving data cap is just a money grab.

My wife and I don’t stream much video, but still manage to find ourselves bumping up against Comcast’s one terabyte data cap, and occasional going over it. And at $10 per ever 50GB over, it’s one helluva money grab.

NOW THAT’S REAL SOCIALISM: Venezuela just keeps on delivering new economic absurdities.

Anyone who has flirted or is flirting with the idea that socialism offers a reasonable remedy for the drawbacks of capitalism should mull the utter absurdity of Venezuela’s current plight.

Considering importing additional oil into a country where it is already more abundant than anywhere else is not just ridiculous but also a reflection of an economic system that doesn’t work.

The common refrain is that capitalism makes what is scarce abundant, whereas socialism makes what is abundant scarce. It seems like that is happening in this case.

The possible importing of oil is of course just the latest laughable move by the South American country.

Maybe Maduro believes that real absurdity has never been tried before.

MICHAEL KOFMAN: Raiding and International Brigandry – Russia’s Strategy for Great Power Competition.

Raiding is the way by which Russia seeks to coerce the United States through a series of operations or campaigns that integrate indirect and direct approaches. Modern great power competition will thus return to forms of coercion and imposition reminiscent of the Middle Ages, but enacted with the technologies of today. Although raiding will be Moscow’s principal approach to competition, international brigandry may be the best term to describe elements of Russian behavior that the West considers to be “bad” or “malign.” These are acts of indirect warfare, both centrally planned and enacted on initiative by entities within the Russian state empowered to shape policy – often in competition with each other. Brigandry may come with negative legalistic connotations, a byword for outlaw, but here the term is meant to define a form of irregular or skirmish warfare in the international system conducted by a partisan.

Russia is, at times, miscast as a global spoiler or retrograde delinquent. Delinquents commit minor offenses and have no plan. Spoilers react to plans, but have little strategy of their own. Raiders, by contrast, launch operations with a strategic outlook and objectives in mind. And while often weaker than their opponents, raiders can be successful. The structure of the international system and the nature of the confrontation lends itself to the use of raiding, which increasingly appears to be the chosen Russian strategy. By focusing on deterring the high-end conventional fight and restoring nuclear coercive credibility, both important in and of themselves, the United States national security establishment may be fundamentally overlooking what will prove the defining Russian approach to competition.

Interesting piece with some creative thinking sometimes lacking in our diplomatic corps and national security/intelligence agencies. You might want to spend some time with this one.

THEN WHY HAVE UBER? Uber will soon know if you’re drunk and could refuse to pick you up.

This seems kind of sleazy, since Uber touts reduction in drunk drivers as one of its benefits.

BRAD POLUMBO: I’m gay, but I’ll pass on Pride Month.

The Pride movement has been hijacked by a left-wing agenda, and some of its advocacy is actually setting gay people back.

A quick look at the national Pride website reveals not a neutral agenda advocating for all gay people, but a blatant endorsement of progressivism — even on issues that have little to do with gay rights. Advocate.com, a news website affiliated with the Pride movement, contains a glowing profile of gun-control advocate Emma Gonzalez on its homepage, even nominating her for their “Hall of Fame.” Another article openly calls on gay people to “fight for gun reform.”

The Pride rallies last year in New York, Boston, and Los Angeles could have easily been mistaken for the gun-control-oriented March for Our Lives, pro-choice Women’s March, or any other left-wing rally. Rainbow flags reading “Make America Gay Again” openly mock President Trump’s signature slogan, and ignore the obvious reality that America has never been more gay-friendly than it is in 2018. One anti-Trump chant at last year’s D.C. rally went viral — “We’re here, we’re queer, get that Cheeto out of here.”

Apparently, so-called advocates of LGBT equality don’t think that gay people are capable of supporting gun rights or President Trump, even though he won 15 percent of the LGBT vote.

Diversity means what they tell you it does.

WESTERN FEMINISTS AREN’T PRO-WOMEN, THEY’RE ANTI-WESTERN: Iranian Feminist Says Western Feminists Make Things Worse for Her Cause at Home.

THIS SOUNDS ABOUT RIGHT: Kurt Schlichter: The Elite Never Takes Your Side.

Just look at what the FBI thinks about Trump voters.

Related: A Closer Look At Extreme FBI Bias Revealed In OIG Report.

REMEMBER WHEN THAT JOKER OBAMA MOCKED SARAH PALIN AND SAID WE COULDN’T “DRILL OUR WAY OUT OF” OUR ENERGY PROBLEMS? ‘Stunning’ West Texas Oil Production to Double by 2023, Says Report.

THE TRANSGENDER BATHROOM CASE WILL BE APPEALED TO FOURTH CIRCUIT:   As predicted, the Gloucester County School Board will indeed be appealing the U.S. District Court’s ruling in Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board.

Gavin Grimm is an anatomical female who identifies as a male and who therefore sued the school board for the right to use the boys’ bathrooms, locker rooms and showers.  In late May, the District Court agreed that the failure to accord Grimm that right was sex discrimination under Title IX.  It held that providing Grimm with private facilities wasn’t good enough.

Peter Kirsanow and I filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of Gloucester County School Board when this case was before the Supreme Court last year.  Back then the case was known by the initials “G.G.” as Grimm was not yet 18 years old.  The precise legal issue was a little different then–whether the courts should defer to the Obama Administration’s Dear Colleague Letter in interpreting Title IX. When the Trump Administration withdrew that Dear Colleague Letter, the Supreme Court remanded the case back to the lower courts for reconsideration in light of the Dear Colleague Letter’s withdrawal.  But so far at least, that hasn’t changed the outcome.

We will be re-tooling that brief for the Fourth Circuit.

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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Michael Barone: California results suggest blue wave has crested and ebbed. Don’t get cocky, kids. And remember, you can do much more good picking a campaign to donate to and volunteer for than you can by tweeting or posting blog comments.