Live: Taliban enter outskirts of Kabul
as US evacuates embassy
Posted By: IowaDad, 8/15/2021 6:49:17 AM
Taliban fighters entered the outskirts of Afghanistan's capital Kabul from all sides on Sunday as panicked workers fled government offices and helicopters began landing at the US Embassy in the Afghan capital, further tightening the militants' grip on the country. Follow our live blog for all the latest developments. Taliban fighters were on Sunday in the districts of Kalakan, Qarabagh and Paghman, three Afghan officials told the AP. The militants have pledged not to take the capital “by force” as sporadic gunfire could be heard in the capital.
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Taliban fighters entered the outskirts of Afghanistan's capital Kabul from all sides on Sunday as panicked workers fled government offices and helicopters began landing at the US Embassy in the Afghan capital, further tightening the militants' grip on the country. Follow our live blog for all the latest developments. Taliban fighters were on Sunday in the districts of Kalakan, Qarabagh and Paghman, three Afghan officials told the AP. The militants have pledged not to take the capital “by force” as sporadic gunfire could be heard in the capital.
The NFL will pay very close attention to whether unvaccinated players follow Covid protocols this season, and if they don’t, the players will end up paying the league. [Snip] The new penalty comes on the heels of another restriction announced this week in which the league said that if a Covid outbreak among unvaccinated players caused a game to be canceled, players from neither team would be paid. Moreover, the team that had the outbreak would forfeit the game and be liable for financial penalties.
WASHINGTON — Two weeks after celebrating America’s near “independence” from the coronavirus, President Joe Biden is confronting the worrying reality of rising cases and deaths — and the limitations of his ability to combat the persistent vaccine hesitance responsible for the summer backslide. Cases of COVID-19 have tripled over the past three weeks, and hospitalizations and deaths are rising among unvaccinated people. While the rates are still sharply down from their January highs, officials are concerned by the reversing trendlines and what they consider needless illness and death. And cases are expected to continue to rise in coming weeks.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Thursday on CNBC’s “Closing Bell” that the U.S. economy will have “several more months of rapid inflation.” Yellen said, “We will have several more months of rapid inflation. So I’m not saying that this is a one-month phenomenon. But I think over the medium term, we’ll see inflation decline back toward normal levels. But, of course, we have to keep a careful eye on it. Measures of inflation expectations, I think, still look quite well contained over the medium term. [Snip]. I believe fundamentally, you know, that this is something that will settle down.”
ROME — Pope Francis cracked down Friday on the spread of the old Latin Mass, reversing one of Pope Benedict XVI’s signature decisions in a major challenge to traditionalist Catholics who immediately decried it as an attack on the ancient liturgy. Francis reimposed restrictions on celebrating the Latin Mass that Benedict relaxed in 2007. The pontiff said he was taking action because Benedict’s reform had become a source of division in the church and been used as a tool by Catholics opposed to the Second Vatican Council, the 1960s meetings that modernized the liturgy. Francis issued a new law requiring individual bishops to approve celebrations of the old Mass
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will host New York City’s Democratic mayoral candidate and other city and law enforcement leaders from around the country to talk about reducing crime. Eric Adams, Brooklyn borough president and the likely next mayor of New York, plus Washington, D.C. [Snip] Biden will also host Memphis Police Chief C.J. Davis, Chief David Brown of Chicago, Lt. Anthony Lima of the Newark, New Jersey, police, and Chief Robert Tracy of the Wilmington, Delaware, Police Department. Shootings and killings are up around the nation, with local politicians and police struggling to manage the violence that has ballooned since the coronavirus pandemic.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court sided Tuesday with a pipeline company in a dispute with New Jersey over land the company needs for a natural gas pipeline. Both liberal and conservative justices joined to rule 5-4 for the PennEast Pipeline Co. The 116-mile planned pipeline is to run from Pennsylvania’s Luzerne County to Mercer County in New Jersey. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission had allowed the company’s project to move forward in 2018 by granting PennEast a so-called certificate of public convenience and necessity, but lawsuits followed. The company ultimately took New Jersey to court CORRECTION*
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the government can indefinitely detain certain immigrants who say they will face persecution or torture if they are deported to their native countries. Over the dissent of three liberal justices, the court held 6-3 that the immigrants are not entitled to a hearing about whether they should be released while the government evaluates their claims. Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the court that “those aliens are not entitled to a bond hearing.”
Consumer prices roared higher last month, rising at their fastest pace in decades. Inflation rose 5% in the 12-months ending in May, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday. That marked the biggest jump since August 2008. Stripping out food and energy costs, which tend to be more volatile, inflation stood at 3.8% over that 12- month period. It was the biggest increase in so-called core inflation since June 1992.
In the month of May alone, prices rose 0.6% on a seasonally adjusted basis, slightly less than in April. Core inflation, excluding food and energy prices, stood at 0.7%, down from 0.9% in April.
Lifts and amusement park rides grinding to a halt, businesses, and employees left in the dark, hospital equipment stopping suddenly … People around Iran have been experiencing regular power outages since the beginning of May. While the state energy distributor has tried to schedule these outages to align with energy demands, our Observers tell us that power cuts have been more frequent, and lengthier, than planned. Iranians have been reporting daily, prolonged power cuts since early May, leading to widespread inconveniences and dangerous consequences
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Tuesday suspended oil and gas leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, reversing a drilling program approved by the Trump administration and reviving a political fight over a remote region that is home to polar bears and other wildlife — and a rich reserve of oil. The order by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland follows a temporary moratorium on oil and gas lease activities imposed by President Joe Biden on his first day in office. CORRECTION*
There is bad news and good news coming out of the Cornell University Faculty Senate vote on Critical Race Theory mandates for faculty and students.First, the bad news. The Faculty Senate nominally voted for some forms of Critical Race Theory mandates on faculty and students. Second, the good news. The margins were surprisingly thin, there was suprisingly substantial opposition, and some of the six resolutions contradicted others, leaving a muddled mess that has to be viewed as a loss for proponents who must have expected overwhelming support.
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President Joe Biden will remain hidden at his presidential retreat at Camp David through Monday, according to the White House, as the Taliban swiftly seized control of Afghanistan.
The president’s daily guidance for Monday indicated Biden would remain at Camp David for at least one more day, with no public events scheduled.
But a senior administration official indicated to reporters Sunday evening that Biden might address the country “in the next few days,” according to reports.
It remains unclear whether Biden will speak from Camp David or return to the White House to deliver his speech, the reports noted. He was previously scheduled to remain at Camp David until Wednesday.
John R. Bolton says the calamitous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan will go down in history as “the Trump-Biden policy.” Mr. Bolton, who served as former President Trump’s national security adviser, said in a Daily Telegraph op-ed that Mr. Biden’s approach to withdrawing troops from Afghanistan was “virtually indistinguishable from Donald Trump’s.” The former adviser, though, said Mr. Biden’s insistence that Mr. Trump left him with only two bad options—“follow Trump’s blueprint or else considerably increase US combat forces in Afghanistan”—is a “strawman argument” and “palpably false.” Mr. Bolton, who has been an outspoken Trump critic since he was pushed out of the White House
Chief White House medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that the vaccine-hesitant should “put aside” their concerns about personal liberty and recognize the “common enemy” is the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fauci said, “What’s coming next is that we are going to have to continue to get people vaccinated so that right now, even in states in which you have a good relative proportion of people vaccinated, you have to get the overwhelming proportion of people vaccinated. But you also have to do mitigation. And that gets to the controversial issue of mask-wearing and the mandating of things mandating of vaccines,
Actor and activist George Takei on Sunday said that the “willfully unvaccinated” who refuse to be inoculated against coronavirus should be last in line for priority care. “The willfully unvaccinated who wind up in hospitals from Covid should not receive priority medical care over other very sick or injured people who are as much in urgent need of medical care,” the actor known as Lieutenant Sulu for his years on “Star Trek” said on Twitter. He followed that with, “Anti-vaxxers think they are owning us liberals by refusing to get vaccinated. But as the kids say, this is an epic self-own.”
What will it take for Joe Biden to admit he is disastrously wrong about Afghanistan? The US leader struck a defiant pose last week. Sounding like a slightly desperate Olympics coach, he told Afghans it was their country. If they want it, they have to fight for it. In American politics-speak, this is called tough love. Without the love.
Biden has more hands-on foreign policy experience than any president since George HW Bush. That doesn’t mean he knows what he’s doing. Opinion polls suggest his abrupt Afghan withdrawal has majority public support. That doesn’t mean Americans will remain indifferent as the carnage and misery mount.
Thousands of people were seen running for planes in countless videos posted to social media at the airport in Kabul, the capital city of Afghanistan, as the Taliban takes control of the country.Some of the videos were posted late on Sunday night and during the early morning hours on Monday local Afghanistan time.“Witnesses at the civilian domestic terminal said they had heard occasional gunshots and said thousands of people had crammed into the terminal and filled the parking lots, desperately seeking flights out,” The New York Times reported. “Late Sunday, the State and Defense Departments issued a statement saying the U.S. was working to secure control of the airport
Rep. Liz Cheney said Sunday President Bidens and Trump shoulder the blame for the unfolding “catastrophe” in Afghanistan. The Wyoming Republican and member of the House Armed Services Committee said during an appearance on ABC’s “This Week” the situation in Afghanistan was avoidable, and the fallout will tarnish the nation’s image on the world stage for years to come. “I think that, absolutely, President Biden bears responsibility for making this decision, but there is no question that President Trump, his administration, [former Secretary Mike] Pompeo, they also bear very significant responsibility for this,” Ms. Cheney said. “They walked down this path of legitimizing the Taliban, of perpetuating this fantasy,
Obama’s Former Ambassador to Afghanistan:
I Question Biden’s ‘Ability
to Lead Our Nation’ 36 replies
I Question Biden’s ‘Ability
to Lead Our Nation’ 36 replies
The fall of Afghanistan has shocked Obama’s former ambassador to such a degree that he is now questioning President Joe Biden’s ability to lead the nation.
Speaking with The Spokesman-Review, Ryan Crocker, who served as Obama’s ambassador from 2011 to 2012, lamented that the Biden administration failed to see the Taliban’s swift takeover when preparing for the withdrawal from Afghanistan.“I think the direction was predictable; the trajectory was not,” he said. “What President Biden has done is to embrace the Afghan policy of President Trump, and this is the outcome.”Just a little over a month ago, Joe Biden rejected assertions that U.S. withdrawal would lead to
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin reportedly said he was 'beyond disappointed' with the Afghan army's capitulation to the Taliban and added: 'You can't buy willpower, and you can't buy leadership.' The Pentagon chief is said to have made remarks during a call with other US government members Sunday, as the Afghan capital began to fall to the Taliban, its US embassy closed, and the number of American troops deployed there rose by 1,000 to 6,000. Austin and fellow intelligence officials blame the Afghan army for not opposing the Taliban in a more prominent way, FOX News reported.
President Joe Biden is quickly proving that he is not only a threat to the safety of Americans, but he is also a threat to people throughout the world.According to a bombshell report, Biden refused to listen to the advice of his top military officials and decided to move ahead with the disastrous US pullout in Afghanistan.Biden allegedly overruled his generals who advised that he should keep 2,500 servicemen on the ground in Afghanistan to help with negotiations between Afghanistan and the Taliban. Instead, Biden decided to conduct a complete withdraw which led to a quick Taliban takeover who now control many US assets
Joe Biden on Monday delivered a short speech on his Afghanistan disaster.After mumbling through prepared remarks, blaming Trump and the Afghan security forces on his botched withdrawal, Biden fled the lectern without taking any questions from reporters.Biden delivered the worst speech ever, said he stands by his decision to hastily withdraw from Afghanistan and admitted it ‘unfolded more quickly that he anticipated.’After blaming everyone under the sun, Biden quickly took off as reporters shouted questions.
As the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack looms, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum is crying poverty for the second year in a row. This time, it says it can’t afford to mount special exhibitions planned to mark the two-decade milestone.
In 2020, the twin-beam “Tribute in Light” was canceled only to win a last-minute reprieve after soon-to-be-ex Gov. Cuomo pitched in state resources. But no such bailout appears in the offing this time.
In fact, this year, the museum is shamefully restricting the reading-of-the-names ceremony exclusively to the families of 9/11 victims. No hero firefighters, cops, first responders or emergency workers,
Comments:
This is a live report. Scroll down to see lots of tweets etc, most vilifying Biden's appalling mismanagement.