Posts on Monday, August 16, 2021
Despite the Taliban's long history of oppression of women and iron-fisted rule, U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price Monday urged Afghanistan's new leaders to form an inclusive government that had women in it.
Price cited a United Nations declaration calling for "an immediate cessation of all hostilities and the establishment, through inclusive negotiations, of a new government that is united, inclusive and representative – including with the full, equal and meaningful participation of women."
The first photos have emerged of crammed US cargo jets with hundreds of terrified Afghan refugees on board after they ran onto the aircraft before military personnel could close ramps on them on Sunday in their escape of the Taliban. The US has so far flown at least two C-17 cargo jets out of Kabul and more flights are expected throughout Monday night and later this week despite chaos on the ground on Monday which involved eight people dying and flights being halted. On Sunday, one of the first flights out was the US Air Force C-17 numbered RCH 871, which flew from Kabul to Qatar.
After nearly a week of radio silence while the Taliban were undoing 20 years of American investment in Afghanistan, Joe Biden returned to the White House to read from a teleprompter for under 20 minutes. Given the predictable straw man he presented of an all-or-nothing binary choice between "forever war" and immediate abandonment, it was par for the course to see Biden try to blame his predecessor. Biden's tactless defense consisted of impugning Afghans. It was followed by his hasty departure without taking a single question from a group of reporters he hand-picked under the guise of "social distancing." (Washington, D.C.'s total COVID-19 death toll this month: one.)
The major broadcast networks continued their welcome stance on Monday afternoon of holding President Biden accountable for the embarrassing collapse of Afghanistan and the peril Afghans and Americans have found themselves in. After Biden’s speech, ABC, CBS, and NBC lambasted it for having “missed the moment” in failing to “accept responsibility” for this “catastrophe” he’s caused and explain how the U.S. and Afghan allies move forward.
ABC was by far the harshest, wasting no time to take Biden to task with senior foreign correspondent Ian Pannell in Kabul saying that while Biden leveled a “pretty harsh assessment” blaming the country’s collapse
The most valuable sports card of all time has been sold for a whopping $6.6 million. The card is a T206 Honus Wagner -- one of the move coveted sports cards on the planet -- that dates back to 1909. The bidding for the Pirates' legend's card began on July 23 and opened at $1 million.
The number skyrocketed from there.
"This is an incredible result that speaks to this card's status as one of the world's most iconic collectibles," Robert Edward Auctions President Brian Dwyer said. "The rarity and the legend of the T206 Honus Wagner, coupled with the quality of this example, excited bidders who recognized it may be
The incoming. It’s coming fast and furious for (at) Joe Biden.So much so that as I begin this article, the suddenly embattled president is about the speak to the nation, having cut short his Camp David “vacation” solely because his administration is at least “smart” enough to finally recognize they better do their damnedest to attempt to stop the bleeding — ASAP.They — he — will not succeed. It’s not just conservatives who continue to skewer the ever-loving crap out of the hapless Biden for his disastrous decision to withdraw American forces from Afghanistan — not because he withdrew them, but because of how he did it.
Following President Biden’s address to the nation in which he doubled down on his horrific failure in Afghanistan, MSNBC’s left-wing propagandist Nicolle Wallace was equally detached from reality as she falsely claimed the vast majority of Americans agreed with the disastrous policy – despite the opposite being true. She even attacked the media for not being supportive enough of Biden.“That was a consequential speech by an American president at a consequential time to, quote, toward the end, ‘I am the President of the United States. The buck stops with me,’” gushed co-anchor Brian Williams immediately after Biden concluded his defensive remarks.
Former President Donald Trump offered several pieces of life advice to the 11-year-old heiress of a scrap metal mogul aboard her father’s multimillion-dollar private jet. Trump was featured in a recently released video with Clover Wietsman, the young daughter of Adam Weitsman, discussing advice he as a parent gave his own children that stemmed from an April 30 interview related to a home-schooling project in which she sought to learn about various political perspectives and viewpoints.A clip of the interview, which her father posted on his Instagram page Aug. 14, shows Clover asking Trump what sort of advice he would give Adam “on raising my sisters and I?”
Fleeing Afghanistan
replies
The Biden administration’s feckless withdrawal from Afghanistan is sending the worst possible message to our enemies across the world. Our rivals are already convinced of our lack of morale and our fear of the consequences from a response serious enough to concentrate their minds. Twenty years after 9/11, and we still haven’t figured out the nature and aims of those who for decades have in word and bloody deed told us we are an enemy they want to destroy.
Instead we cling to our shopworn belief that “diplomatic engagement” can deter and stop a fanatic enemy, hoping words can substitute for deeds. But all we’ll achieve is further damage to our
This afternoon, Joe Biden tried to defend not only his decision to pull out of Afghanistan, but also the way his team carried it out. As to the former, Biden said, “American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves.”
But Afghans were willing to fight against the Taliban and to die doing so. That’s why the Taliban was never able to take over major population centers, not even when the U.S. force diminished to somewhere between 2,500-3,500. All they required of us was that we maintain something like that level of commitment.
The retired Navy SEAL who shot and killed Osama bin Laden in 2011 is calling on Mark Milley to resign over the US's chaotic evacuation effort from Afghanistan after the country fell to the Taliban on Sunday while his fellow veteran is also calling on the Secretaries of State and Defense to step down. 'There are Afghans falling to their deaths off of our retreating aircraft. Has @thejointstaff resigned yet?' retired SEAL Robert O'Neill wrote on Twitter Monday morning, tagging the official account for the Joint Chiefs of Staff led by Chairman Mark Milley. The post was bookended by two more also calling for General Milley to resign.
One of my first reactions to the fall of Kabul over the weekend was concern about what this would communicate to our other allies and enemies. It’s hard to look at our abandonment of allies in Afghanistan and not conclude this is bad news for a place like Taiwan which is dependent on the US for its continued freedom. As you’re probably aware, China’s Xi Jinping has recently vowed to reunify Taiwan by any means necessary. “Solving the Taiwan question and realising the complete reunification of the motherland are the unswerving historical tasks of the Chinese Communist Party and the common aspiration of all Chinese people,” Xi said.
Ouch: Biden Lost CNN's Jake Tapper After
Afghanistan Speech 'Full of Finger
Pointing and Blame' replies
Afghanistan Speech 'Full of Finger
Pointing and Blame' replies
Perhaps no other “journalist” epitomizes the anti-Trump media more than Jake Tapper. But even he didn’t swoon over Joe Biden’s speech addressing the fall of Afghanistan.
“You’ve been listening to President Biden speaking at the White House—forced to talk about the worsening crisis in Afghanistan. Forced to speak to the nation after the calamity of the Taliban, the takeover of Afghanistan. The president stated that he stands squarely behind the decision he made to withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan even though he has, in fact, been forced to send roughly 6,000 back in. The president saying in fact that, if anything, the events
President Biden defended his decision to withdraw American forces from Afghanistan during an address to the nation delivered Monday, one day after the Taliban routed government forces and took over the capital city of Kabul.
“I stand squarely behind my decision,” he said. “After 20 years, I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw U.S. forces. That’s why we’re still there, we were clear-eyed about the risks, we planned for every contingency. But I always promised the American people I would be straight with you.”
“The truth is, this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated,” he added.
While he had argued for months
Consider this a letter of congratulations. I address it to Democrats everywhere who told us that Joe Biden would return the United States to a state of normality.
I address it also to those, many putative Republicans as well as Democrats, who fought tooth-and-nail against Donald Trump because—well, because he was not a “normal” politician.
Donald Trump issued mean tweets. He made fun of the media, often singling out reporters by name.
He was bombastic (more bombastic than President Joe Biden?). (snip) There are several putatively conservative outlets—those that deserve Bill Kristol’s “elevated conservative” seal of approval—who worked overtime to disparage Trump.
Legendary crooner Bob Dylan plied a 12-year-old girl with drugs and alcohol before sexually abusing her at his Chelsea Hotel apartment in 1965, an explosive new lawsuit alleges.The “Blowin’ in the Wind” musician allegedly used his star status to groom, gain the trust of and control the victim “as part of his plan to sexually molest and abuse” her, according to the Manhattan Supreme Court papers, which only identify the plaintiff as “J.C.”“Bob Dylan, over a six-week period between April and May of 1965 befriended and established an emotional connection
The Department of Defense is preparing to house thousands of Afghan refugees on military bases in the US as the Biden administration scrambles to evacuate the Special Immigrant Visa applicants amid the Taliban’s rapid takeover of Afghanistan, according to reports.Up to 30,000 Afghans who worked with the US military over the 20-year war would be relocated to military bases in Wisconsin and Texas, according to a statement from the Defense and State departments, Fox News reported.“The situation in Afghanistan may lead to DoS [Department of State] allowing Afghan SIV applicants
President Joe Biden delivered a speech of quiet fury at the White House on Monday, defending his decision to bring home U.S. troops before blaming Afghan leaders for their failure to prevent the country collapsing. 'I stand squarely behind my decision,' Biden said. 'After 20 years I've learned the hard way. That there was never a good time to withdraw U.S. forces.' It was the first time the president had spoken publicly about the unfolding crisis in six days. He was forced to return from Camp David amid hostile headlines about his absence from Washington while Americans were being rescued from Kabul airport.
Back in April, Vice President Kamala Harris bragged that she was the “last person in the room” when President Biden had to make “big decisions,” including Biden’s decision to pull American troops out of Afghanistan by September 11.
Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union with” CNN’s Dana Bash, Harris preceded her remarks about Afghanistan by boasting, “When Joe Biden asked me to join him on the ticket, he did so with a sense of intentionality, of purpose, knowing that he and I may have very different life experiences, but we also have the same values and operate from the same principles."
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.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has not offered his resignation to President Biden following the complete collapse of the U.S.-trained and equipped Afghan military and has no plans to do so, Pentagon officials said Monday. A day after victorious Taliban forces rolled into Kabul with little opposition, Pentagon officials said they are now focusing their attention on securing Hamid Karzai International Airport so the remaining Americans in the capital can be safely evacuated. “It’s a fluid and dynamic situation,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters. “There will obviously be things that I don’t know because things are continuing to unfold.” There have been what Pentagon officials called “security incidents”
Brutal new rules have been drawn up by the Taliban which means women will face torture and death while targets on a 'kill list' could be murdered on their doorsteps.
Harrowing reports have already surfacing from Afghanistan as the government collapsed which paved the way for the Taliban to seize power nearly 20 years after being driven out by the West.
The Mirror understands there are claims of summary killings by the Taliban as fighters perform door-to-door searches throughout Kabul city.
They are hunting down former officials, ex police, soldiers and anyone who worked with the former Kabul government - or with coalition forces.
The utterly nauseating and unnecessary abandonment of Afghanistan to its fate recalls a similar humiliation at the hands of Islamist radicals in the Jimmy Carter administration.
President Biden’s profligate spending policies are unleashing inflation that is sparking voter distrust so noticeable that even NPR is sounding the alarm.
He is begging OPEC to come up with more oil while interfering with US production. He announced barely a month ago, with great confidence, “The Taliban is not the South — the North Vietnamese army. They’re not — they’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability.
“There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof
Scathing criticisms of Joe Biden’s disastrous cut-and-run in Afghanistan have been issued by even his media cheerleaders at CNN, NPR and the New York Times. Career diplomats including former Obama officials have publicly excoriated his administration for incompetence. Foreign leaders are baffled.
Only the Taliban is happy.
A withdrawal from Afghanistan may have been necessary, but it didn’t have to happen this way. Only 2,500 soldiers were there anyway – about the same as in Iraq.
White House picture of Biden on Afghanistan
video conference might have
revealed CIA operatives replies
video conference might have
revealed CIA operatives replies
A tweet Sunday by the White House showing pictures of President Biden hosting a video conference with other top U.S. officials about the Afghanistan crisis might have revealed the identities of CIA operatives, according to a former U.S. diplomat and other social media posters.
"This morning, the President and Vice President met with their national security team and senior officials to hear updates on the draw down of our civilian personnel in Afghanistan, evacuations of SIV applicants and other Afghan allies, and the ongoing security situation in Kabul," reads the tweet, which included a picture of Biden looking at a video screen with eight panels –
Strong Demand for Gas Vehicles Drives
Detroit Production Plans, Clouds
Biden’s 2030 Goal for EVs replies
Detroit Production Plans, Clouds
Biden’s 2030 Goal for EVs replies
Automakers in North America plan to build more pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles than electric vehicles well into the late 2020s, with strong consumer demand for gasoline-powered vehicles charting sales trends that run counter to the Biden administration’s goal of boosting electric vehicles (EVs) to half the market by 2030, according to internal production forecasts reported on by Reuters.
President Joe Biden signed an executive order earlier in August establishing the goal of making half of all new vehicles sold in the United States either hybrid or fully electric by 2030. Biden’s order also set a new schedule for the development of new long-term fuel efficiency and emissions standards
There were 52 people wounded, and nine killed, in the more than three dozen shootings reported throughout Chicago over the weekend, authorities announced Monday, as exasperated police brass say "senseless gun violence" has claimed the lives of "too many young people."
Chicago Police Department (CPD) reported 38 shootings citywide from 6 p.m. Friday to 11:59 p.m. Sunday. The murder victims include a 7-year-old girl who was fatally shot as she sat in a parked car next to her younger sister, police said.
The child was in the stopped vehicle in the city’s Belmont Central section, located in the northwest part of Chicago, around 2:50 p.m. Sunday when she and her 6-year-old
Taliban jihadists reportedly began seizing personal weapons from Afghans in Kabul on Sunday, claiming civilians “can now feel safe” and no longer need the firearms because the terrorists had taken over the country.
Taliban officials declared victory and the restoration of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan after occupying the presidential palace in Kabul on Sunday.
Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar appeared in a Twitter video alongside other Taliban leaders, in which he pronounced victory in the battle for Afghanistan.
Only hours after Minnesota GOP operative Anton Lazarro posted online DNA evidence that allegedly shows Rep. Ilhan Omar was once married to her brother, the FBI busted him. The test results stated there is a 99.999998 percent chance that Omar and her second husband, Ahmed Elmi, now her ex-husband, are siblings, according to an analysis by British company Endeavor DNA Laboratories. But before Lazarro could share the results with the media, he was arrested Thursday on underage sex-trafficking charges and jailed pending a court hearing Monday.(Snip)Special Agent Joy Hess, from the FBI’s Twin Cities field office, which investigated allegations that Omar married her brother
Jones was one of the county officials onsite at State Farm Arena on Election Night, as the counting of ballots continued past midnight.
Those hours became a fixation of the Trump campaign’s efforts to discredit Fulton County’s handling of the election. In his position, Jones became a target of the former president’s supporters who sought to prove an Election Night conspiracy at the arena.
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
‘I’m Hopelessly Stuck’: Stranded
Americans, Afghan Allies Plea for
Help as Taliban Conquers Kabul replies
Americans, Afghan Allies Plea for
Help as Taliban Conquers Kabul replies
In the chaos that has become Afghanistan following the Taliban takeover, stranded Americans and Afghan allies have been pleading for help on social media and through other channels in fear of being left behind.On Sunday, as helicopters airlifted U.S. Embassy personnel to safety, reports began circulating of Americans desperately seeking haven before the exit door closed. The moment became so dire that Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) tweeted out a number and an email address for stragglers to establish safe contact.“If you’re an American stranded in Afghanistan, or know one who is, please
NBC News complains the GOP has ‘seized’
on ‘optical comparison’
of the fall of Kabul and Saigon replies
on ‘optical comparison’
of the fall of Kabul and Saigon replies
NBC News White House correspondent Monica Alba noted on Sunday that Republicans “have seized on” the “optical comparison” of the hasty U.S. withdrawals from both Kabul, Afghanistan, and then-Saigon, South Vietnam, after photos of similar helicopters lifting off from the respective U.S. embassies in both countries 45 years apart went viral Sunday.CH-47 Chinook helicopters were seen ferrying American diplomatic personnel and Afghan allies from the rooftop of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul for much of the day Saturday and into Sunday, images that were broadcast by news agencies sent out over wire service reports.During her report, Alba noted that last month President Joe Biden assured Americans that the withdrawal
CNN reporter in Kabul asserted during a live shot that “they’re just chanting ‘death to America,’ but they seem friendly.”The ridiculous segment reminded many of when a CNN anchor reported that the riots in Minneapolis were “fiery, but mostly peaceful” as the city burned around him. (Tweet/Video) Afghanistan’s new de facto leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar issued a victory message to his fellow Taliban on the declaration of the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” on Sunday.Mullah Baradar’s statement was given from the presidential palace in Kabul.“We have achieved an unexpected victory,” he said. “Now is the time to test, to show how we serve our people and ensure their future
President Biden is scheduled to return to the White House from the Camp David retreat Monday afternoon to comment on the deteriorating crisis in Afghanistan.
Biden will deliver remarks at 3:45 p.m. from the East Room, he tweeted Monday.
The president released a statement Saturday reiterating his commitment to end the decades-long conflict in Afghanistan despite the Taliban’s rapid resurgence and recent military conquests.
“I was the fourth President to preside over an American troop presence in Afghanistan—two Republicans, two Democrats. I would not, and will not, pass this war onto a fifth,” he commented.
Since that press notice, the Taliban has toppled all major provincial capitals and cities in the territory.
While the disaster is unfolding in Afghanistan, Joe Biden is off on vacation at Camp David.
As we reported yesterday, his handlers said that he may deign to talk to us within in the next “few days.” If they can get him into a coherent position to respond to everything that has happened. The only thing they did was release a picture of him allegedly meeting with his national security team. But they forgot to obscure the CIA operatives on the screen. “This morning, the President and Vice President met with their national security team and senior officials to hear updates
Washington — President Biden is traveling back to Washington from Camp David on Monday afternoon to address the nation for the first time since the government of Afghanistan collapsed to the Taliban, prompting a chaotic effort to evacuate U.S. personnel from the capital. On Sunday, the Taliban assumed control of Kabul, the nation's capital, and U.S. troops have been scrambling to secure the city's airport to evacuate Americans and Afghan allies, as civilians desperately try to catch flights leaving the country.
The shocking fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban is such a failure that even the liberal networks on Monday have abandoned Joe Biden's decision making (at least for now), hammering the President as “completely wrong” and executing a Vietnam-esque Saigon “debacle.”
On NBC’s Today, Savannah Guthrie opened the show by blasting, “A catastrophe for its people and a debacle for the Biden administration. A triumphant Taliban storming the presidential palace in Kabul, seizing total control of the country.”
Guthrie piled, on: “And the President at Camp David standing by his decision but under fire for a botched withdrawal.”
Monday on CNN’s “New Day,” network chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward delivered a report from the streets of Kabul, Afghanistan, after Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani reportedly fled the country upon the arrival of Taliban forces.
Ward said it is “clear” the Taliban is now back in “charge” of Afghanistan.
“As soon as we leave our compound, it’s clear who is now in charge,” Ward stated in a report. “Taliban fighters have flooded the capital. Smiling and victorious, they took this city of 6 million people in a matter of hours — barely firing a shot. This is a sight I honestly thought I would never see:
The assault on conservative Americans began several decades ago with attacks on traditional principles and values. Belief in individual liberty and responsibility, free enterprise, and the rule of law was willfully conflated with “right-wing extremism.” Pride in America, a desire to protect our borders, and opposition to illegal immigration was branded as xenophobic. Championing the constitutional right to bear arms was decried as gun-crazed zealotry. Belief in religion, natural law, and the sanctity of human life was maligned as backward and anachronistic.
Sheer cowardice has always been a Biden hallmark, so it might at first glance seem to be why Joe Biden is now in hiding as Afghanistan's collapse, the biggest foreign policy failure since Vietnam, engulfs the news.
But evidence is mounting that something different is going on: the Biden team is splintering into some kind of internal warfare and trying to conceal its disarray. Victory, after all, has a thousand fathers, as JFK used to say, and defeat is an orphan. The Bidenites aren't stupid enough to believe their own propaganda about the Afghan horror being a news-cycle nothingburger,
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
People have fallen to their deaths after clinging to C-17 jets taking off from Kabul airport, in an attempt to flee the Taliban in Afghanistan, local media reported.
Footage posted on Twitter by the Afghan news agency Aśvaka appeared to show a person falling from a plane as it took off from the airport. Other photos — which Insider is not publishing due to their graphic nature — depict the bodies of people who had reportedly fallen onto the roofs of buildings in the Afghan capital from planes they attempted to stowaway on.
"Locals near Kabul airport claim that three young men who were holding themselves tightly in the tires
Embattled President Biden has been hammered by political opponents over the botched troop exit from Afghanistan that allowed the Taliban to seize control but something more concerning for the Democratic administration happened along the way: it lost the mainstream media.
Mainstream, corporate media outlets have long earned their reputation of leaning left, often overlooking potential damning headlines aimed at Biden while criticizing conservatives at every turn. But some of the media industry’s most outspoken liberal pundits and progressive news organizations have taken Biden to task over scenes of chaos and desperation as the Islamist terrorist group takes power.
CNN’s Jake Tapper opened Sunday’s edition of "State of the Union" by calling
A heartbreaking video shows a young Afghan girl crying about how “no one cares about us”—and expressing fears that the brutal Taliban rule will ensure they will “die slowly in history.” “We don’t count because we were born in Afghanistan,” says the unidentified young Afghan in a video shared by journalist and activist Masih Alinejad and seen more than 1.7 million times by Monday morning. “I cannot help crying. I have to wipe my tears to be able to film this video,” says the whispering girl, who appears to be sitting in a car. “No one cares about us. We’ll die slowly in history,” she says,
Our Military Is A Woke Joke
replies
Ignore those pictures of the Afghan army that our military senior leader geniuses spent 20 years and zillions of dollars on disintegrating in the face of a pack of glorified mountain banditos from the Seventh Century – the real story is that, finally, America’s fighting men and women are fully aware of the urgency of accepting and validating the trans experience. And it's even better if said trans people are BIPOC. Plus differently abled. (Snip) Yes, it is a joke, a sick one. Fire all the generals. Invite a few back, maybe a dozen. Clean out the Pentagon. Can all the “Diversity Consultants,” “Equal Opportunity Officers,” “Climate Change Mitigation Specialists,”
A little less than a year ago, a significant number of independent and Republican voters decided to trade bad tweets for bad policy. Today, your Twitter feed is void of President Trump's tweets. But the price was high. Gone are the good policies that drove the Trump economy and made the world a safer place. In their place are policies antithetical to prosperity, freedom and security.
You traded energy efficiency for dependency on the Middle East. Whereas a year ago you enjoyed inexpensive gas, high paying energy jobs, and fewer incentives to entangle ourselves in Middle Eastern politics, today President Biden is begging OPEC to produce more oil.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country with four vehicles and a helicopter full of cash, the Russian embassy in Kabul said Monday.
The embattled leader left the presidential palace in Kabul on Sunday to the insurgent Taliban fighters who had toppled his government. “To avoid bloodshed, I thought it would be better to leave,” Ghani, 72, said on Facebook in his first comments after his departure. The former World Bank academic—who holds a doctorate from New York City’s Columbia University—didn’t say where he was going, but Al Jazeera reported later that he had flown to Uzbekistan.(Snip)The spokesman confirmed his comments to Reuters, citing “witnesses”
Extraordinary footage of Afghans clinging on to a United States Air Force plane in a desperate bid to flee the country have been described as the “defining images” of the decades-long military intervention by Western powers.
Videos shared widely on social media on Monday showed hundreds of people running alongside a US military jet as it prepared to depart Kabul airport. One video showed several people climbing onto the plane as it progressed down the airport’s runway, some of whom appeared to be hanging off its moving front wheel.
Another horrifying clip appeared to show at least two people falling from the sky after the plane has taken off.
All U.S. evacuation flights from Kabul’s international airport have been temporarily suspended, the result of hundreds of Afghans flooding the tarmac on Monday, desperate to evacuate the country and escape the Taliban, according to reports.
A U.S. official reportedly told Fox News that the runway is “not secure” after hundreds of people “breached” the airport walls and filled the runway. All U.S. military and charter flights are suspended until the runway can be cleared.
The news came after at least three people were shot and killed Monday morning as chaos unfolded at the passenger terminal of Kabul’s airport as thousands of Afghans swarmed the airport hoping to escape the country.
Gen. Mark Milley, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Senators in a briefing on Sunday that terrorist groups are likely to return to Afghanistan sooner than anticipated, following the chaotic U.S. pullout and the collapse of the Afghan regime. The Times of Israel, reported: America’s top general said Sunday that the United States could now face a rise in terrorist threats from a Taliban-run Afghanistan. That warning comes as intelligence agencies charged with anticipating those threats face new questions after the US-backed Afghan military collapsed with shocking speed.
As Afghanistan crumbled on Sunday, the American people had one question on their minds: ‘Where is the president?’ [snip] One of the first things people noticed was the utter lack of Operational Security: It showed on the television that there were camera feeds from both the CIA and Doha Station. [snip] There is an issue with the clocks showing London and Moscow are three hours apart. Those two cities are two hours apart, so either the photo is wrong or the clocks at Camp David are wrong.
Why Vote Republican?
replies
Frustration over the mostly feckless national Republican Party is nothing new. Those of us on the political right have few electoral options given our two-party system. In some elections, the choice is stark and easy, as when Reagan or Trump were at the top of the ticket. Other years saw names like McCain or Romney on the ticket and many of us held our noses voting Republican only because it was the better of two lousy choices. The leftist agenda moves forward regardless of who is elected, at the presidential or congressional level, the only difference being the speed of decline.
Did you hear that Robin is bisexual? If you are a dedicated comics reader, it may surprise you, as it did me. In DC Comics’ anthology “Batman: Urban Legends issue #6,” Batman’s sidekick, Robin (the third one, Tim Drake), transforms into a bisexual.
While rescuing his old buddy Bernard, Drake finds himself smitten. Meghan Fitzmartin, the writer of the story, described to NPR that Drake finally admitting to being bisexual is his “light bulb moment.” The significance “has been others seeing themselves in the character and feeling seen and cared for in a way that speaks to something that they’ve seen for a long time,” gushed Fitzmartin.
Leading up to the Taliban takeover of Kabul in Afghanistan, analysts have been hailing the moment as President Biden’s Saigon, but some say the situation is far worse, including those who actually served at the fall of Saigon. Speaking with the Military Times, Larry Chambers, who served as a skipper on the aircraft carrier Midway during the fall of Saigon, said that while the two situations are strikingly similar, they are different in one key respect: Kabul is much, much worse. “To be perfectly honest with you, what is happening now is worse than what happened in Vietnam,” Chambers told the outlet.
Kandahar is fallen. Kabul, too. To hear again those names is to bring back a lost youth a lifetime of operations overseas. When I heard that Kandahar had fallen to the Taliban...I had a bad day. I did not think the news would hit so hard — but it did, and I thought to take a moment to give hard won advice to those who were there, as well as to reflect upon some of the reasons why the Taliban are on the cusp of victory. Think of those who served. First, this moment is a bad time...
The lightning advance of the Taliban in retaking the country has led Afghan Americans, former generals and leading statesmen to blame President Joe Biden for a hasty US withdrawal. But he appears to have the public on his side - for now.
Hadia Essazada wept as she recounted the horror the Taliban visited on her household, first beating her father, and then killing her brother.
The first time "they were beating my father with an iron rod because they were looking for my elder brother", who had fought to resist their rule in the 1990s, she told BBC Persian.
They fled their house in the northern city of Mazar-I-Sharif,
Afghanistan Takeover by Taliban Worries
Governments in the Region, Europe
That Chaos Will Spread replies
Governments in the Region, Europe
That Chaos Will Spread replies
The collapse of the Afghan government and takeover of the country by the Taliban is stirring concern in foreign capitals that chaos and instability engulfing the country could spill over to its neighbors and possibly drive a tide of refugees as far as Europe.
There was also an undercurrent of criticism of the U.S. for the speed of its departure after nearly 20 years, colored by Washington’s failure to establish a stable government that could stand without American military support.
Joe Biden made a big deal about his rigid, hasty, ill-planned, badly executed Afghan pullout not being another Saigon, a reference to the disgraceful final pullout of the U.S. presence in Vietnam in 1975. (Snip for tweet, quote) The more he says it, the less true it gets. His dishonesty is palpable. He seems to think that by making this claim, the press will repeat it ad nauseum and it will become standard wisdom.
But images don't lie, and here are the pictures and videos of horror rolling out this morning:
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.”
The Silence of the Shepherds
replies
Republican officials’ timidity with regard to the outrages that the Democratic Party is committing against the American people under the Biden Administration dampens the American people’s urge to resist. Their default of leadership helps the Democrats’ seizure of long-term oligarchic power. The people’s deep resentment, however, will follow whoever and whatever ventures offer protection. As ever, leadership falls to whomever actually leads.
Our despicable mainstream media did everything in its vast and coercive power to see Joe Biden elected president. (snip) In seven months, Biden has pretty much destroyed America! The open border has welcomed what will be a million migrants from around the world by the end of the year, many of them sick with a panoply of diseases long ago eradicated in America, and bringing in new variants of COVID. While Americans are ordered to mask up and be vaxxed, these people arriving at our southern border (snip) Did our left-media vet Biden? No. They covered up for him.
Eight people have died at Kabul airport where thousands of desperate Afghans have clambered onto moving military planes and U.S. troops have fired warning shots into the air amid a chaotic scramble to flee the Taliban. Three stowaways are believed to have plunged to their deaths, with footage showing bodies falling from the underside of a hulking USAF transport jet as it climbed into the skies over the fallen city on Monday. Further images later showed mutilated corpses strewn across a rooftop.
In early July, President Joe Biden said the sudden withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan wouldn’t cause a repeat of the Saigon disaster in Vietnam.
“None whatsoever. Zero,” Biden said in response to a reporter’s question about the chances of a repeat. “There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of a embassy in the — of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable.”
Five weeks later, that is exactly what happened, as the Taliban took over Kabul and,
Biden Can’t Stand Prosperity
replies
During an interview with William F. Buckley in 1977, Margaret Thatcher described the difference between American and British politics in this way: “American politics are very different [from Britain’s] because you have two parties based on a free society … and economic freedom. We have one party based on that … and another based on socialism.” Sadly, Thatcher’s observation about American politics is no longer true. A new Fox News poll shows that 59 percent of registered Democrats have a positive view of socialism. If you wonder why “moderate” President Biden has lurched so far to the left — it’s because it’s what his base wants.
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
The regime change in Afghanistan over the weekend has caused the US and its allies to go into full evacuation mode. Western embassies are closed. The US has confirmed its embassy has been evacuated. Only a toe hold of the once vast western presence remains at Hamid Karzai International Airport, where a chaotic evacuation is underway to flee the country.
Sixty-five nations have issued statements urging the Taliban to “to respect and facilitate the safe and orderly departure of foreign nationals and Afghans who wish to leave the country.” But not Russia or China.
According to the South China Morning Post, the Russian and Chinese embassies have no plans to leave Afghanistan,
Retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the White House national security aide who set off the chain of events that led to the investigation and first impeachment of President Donald Trump, recently told an interviewer that if there had been no whistleblower complaint against Trump in the Ukraine affair, Vindman would not have "let things stand." Instead, Vindman said, he would have devised some other tactic to protect Joe Biden, Trump's Democratic rival for the presidency, from harm by Trump's actions."What would have happened if there was no whistleblower? What would I have done?" Vindman asked himself
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
The US Ambassador to Afghanistan and some of his staff were seen fleeing their Kabul workplace Sunday, as the Pentagon increased the number of troops deployed in the region from 1,000 to 6,000. Ambassador Ross Wilson were both seen arriving at Kabul airport, as other Americans still in the country were ordered to shelter in place, after shots were fired at the city's airport.
Late Sunday night, the State Department announced all personnel had been evacuated from the US Embassy in Kabul and were at the airport.'We can confirm that the safe evacuation of all Embassy personnel is now complete.
A prominent Afghan filmmaker recorded her dramatic flight from Kabul as Taliban forces moved in on Sunday — and begged for help on social media, saying the militants were “coming to kill us.”“The Taliban entered Kabul, unfortunately, and we were detained,” Sahraa Karimi said in an Instagram video posted Sunday. “Pray for us.”The chilling footage shows Karimi, the director-general of the state-run Afghan Film, running through the streets of Kabul as Taliban forces took the city — the fear evident in her face.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki is taking the next week off work amid the crisis in Afghanistan. Joe Biden, who is on vacation, has still not addressed the public about the foreign policy nightmare underway in Kabul. Questions sent to Psaki are being met with an autoreply saying that she will be out of the office through August 22. “I will be out of the office from August 15th-August 22nd,” the auto reply email being sent to reporters reads. Apparently, the ultra-progressive press secretary has opted to throw Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who is black, to the wolves for the week instead.
In our new world of pandemic panic porn, it is important to remember that the word "case" is not a term of art. It is not a medical term or a legal term. It is just another word with a broad meaning that has been commandeered by people who want to control you.
This seemingly innocuous word is being used as a blunt instrument to stampede you into doing what the globalist elites want you to do. It is widely used when the media, Big Tech, and government experts (the "infomob") lie by omission.
When you hear that there are x "new cases" in any context, this should immediately
The death toll in Haiti’s powerful earthquake jumped to over 1,200 on Sunday, as crews desperately dug through collapsed buildings for survivors in the Caribbean nation still reeling from its president’s assassination.
In Les Cayes, as in other hard-hit cities on the southwestern peninsula, most of the population spent the night sleeping outdoors in front of their houses — or what remained of them — amid fears of new aftershocks.
The streets there were filled with the grinding sounds of heavy equipment lifting debris from collapsed buildings, as well as the quieter sounds of people pulling away rubble by hand in desperate searches for the missing.
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,
Videos uploaded from Kabul on Sunday showed chaos at the international airport as panicked people rushed to board aircraft ahead of the Taliban’s advance.
Gunfire was audible in the distance as refugees packed into transport aircraft. Operations at the airport were reportedly suspended for a time due to shooting nearby. Shots were fired by U.S. troops to control the panicked crowd as the situation deteriorated: U.S. officials confirmed on Sunday afternoon that only military aircraft are flying out of the airport. All commercial air traffic has been suspended. The Pentagon said at least 500 U.S. Embassy personnel were evacuated on Sunday but many more remain
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.
US president Joe Biden’s top advisers concede they were stunned by the rapid collapse of the Afghan army in the face of an aggressive, well-planned offensive by the Taliban that now threatens Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital.
The past 20 years show they should not have been. If there is a consistent theme over two decades of war in Afghanistan, it is the overestimation of the results of the $83 billion the United States has spent since 2001 training and equipping the Afghan security forces and an underestimation of the brutal, wily strategy of the Taliban. The Pentagon issued dire warnings to Biden even before he took office