Afghanistan and the Cost of Having
a ‘Normal’ President
Posted By: earlybird, 8/16/2021 5:45:06 PM
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.
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earlybird"
The Alabama Board of Education has decided to ban public schools in the state from teaching the Marxist-invented critical race theory, which critics say holds that white people and the nation itself are inherently racist.
The move comes as public resistance to critical race theory (CRT) grows and intensifies among parents in communities across the nation who are fighting back by protesting and taking over local school boards. In 26 state legislatures, bills have been introduced or other steps have been taken to prevent CRT from being taught, Education Week reported.
Critical race theory spreads a false and hateful narrative about U.S. history that exacerbates racial tensions, opponents say.
A spokesman for the Taliban warned that U.S. troops in Afghanistan have to leave by Sept. 11—the anniversary of the terrorist attacks that launched the United States into the war—after troops were re-deployed to the Kabul airport to oversee an evacuation.
Suhail Shaheen, a member of the Taliban’s political office, told Sky News on Tuesday that “we are committed not to attack them,” but he stressed they have to leave by that date. It’s not clear what will happen if American forces remain in Afghanistan after Sept. 11.
Fleeing Afghanistan
7 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
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.
Strong Demand for Gas Vehicles Drives
Detroit Production Plans, Clouds
Biden’s 2030 Goal for EVs 18 replies
Detroit Production Plans, Clouds
Biden’s 2030 Goal for EVs 18 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
Fauci Downplays New COVID-19 Vaccine Study
15 replies
White House COVID-19 adviser Anthony Fauci on Aug. 15 downplayed a recent study from a prominent medical research center that deemed the Pfizer vaccine less effective than the Moderna vaccine.
The Mayo Clinic and Cambridge-based biotech company nference, found in the study that both mRNA COVID-19 vaccines’ effectiveness dropped in the month of July. The researchers, while saying the vaccines provided good protection against the virus, found that Moderna’s vaccine effectiveness was 76 percent, as compared with Pfizer’s 42 percent.
“That study … is a pre-print study, it hasn’t been fully peer-reviewed,” Fauci said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” of the recent Mayo-nference study’s findings,
The Taliban has entered the presidential palace in the capital city Kabul and is now in control of the entire country, according to a highly placed source. The group is soon expected to declare the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
An anonymous source inside the Afghan Defense Ministry confirmed the high ranking source’s report of the seizure of the presidential palace, which The Times of India has also reported.
President Ashraf Ghani left Kabul after stepping down from power on Sunday. Rumors of his resignation had been circulating since Friday, while fears of the Taliban attacking the capital were also high that night.
Behold Barack Antoinette
9 replies
WASHINGTON — Jay Gatsby gave big, lavish, new-money parties at his sprawling mansion on the water because he wanted to seem cool. He wanted Daisy to notice him.
Barack Obama gave a big, lavish, new-money party at his sprawling mansion on the water because he wanted to seem cool. Being cool is important to him.
One difference is that Gatsby opened his house to the uninvited. Obama closed his house to many of the invited after getting flak for hosting “a celebrity mosh pit,” as Stephen Colbert called it, while officials were telling people to mask back up.
Killing Art
7 replies
I recently had occasion to quote Charles Péguy’s observation, from a 1905 essay called “Notre Patrie,” that “It will never be known what acts of cowardice have been motivated by the fear of not looking sufficiently progressive.”
The cowardice in question can be intellectual or moral as well as physical, something that is vividly illustrated by Holland Cotter’s moist, mincing, over-the-shoulder-glancing review for the New York Times of a small but exquisite exhibition of paintings by the great Venetian Renaissance painter we know as Titian (d. 1576). (Snip)Wafting off almost every syllable of Cotter’s summary is a timid ideological subservience that combines stunning historical obtuseness with a hothouse moral smugness
It’s been almost seven months since the FBI conducted a pre-dawn raid at the Virginia farm of Thomas and Sharon Caldwell. Dozens of armed agents broke down their front door, ransacked their home, and arrested Tom Caldwell on January 19. A week later, a grand jury indicted Caldwell and two other alleged Oath Keepers for various crimes related to their participation in the Capitol protest on January 6.
Despite the fact Caldwell never entered the building, carried no weapon, and assaulted no one, the Justice Department sought to keep the 66-year-old former Navy lieutenant with service-related disabilities in jail awaiting trial. (Snip)
February 12, Judge Amit Mehta ordered
CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, who has used his position at CNN to advocate passionately for face masks, was seen partying maskless at a crowded venue in the Hamptons two weeks ago, a newly emerged video shows. Human Events reporter Jack Posobiec on Thursday tweeted out a clip of Cuomo boogying down at the nightclub. (Tweet) This was not the first time Cuomo has flouted mask-wearing etiquette in public spaces.
According to Page Six, Cuomo was also spotted last October partying “at a downtown private members club, hobnobbing without a mask and acting like he was the mayor of the joint.”
Eleven Senate Democrats Vote Against COVID
Tests For Illegal Immigrants at the Southern Border 12 replies
Tests For Illegal Immigrants at the Southern Border 12 replies
Eleven Senate Democrats on Thursday voted against a modest and commonsense amendment to the Senate Budget Resolution that requires illegal migrants apprehended on the southern border to be tested for COVID-19 before they are transported into the country.
The amendment, introduced by Senator Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), a physician, establishes “a deficit-neutral reserve fund relating to protecting migrants and local communities against COVID-19.” Under the provision, migrants will be quarantined and not transported from the border until they tested negative.
This minor impediment to the Regime’s goal of fundamentally transforming the nation through mass immigration was supported by Majority Whip Dick Durbin, and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. The majority leaders urged
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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."
Former Vice President Mike Pence is ramping up his donor outreach as he weighs a 2024 White House bid.
Pence held a donor retreat late last week benefiting his newly formed nonprofit group, Advancing American Freedom. The event, held in wealthy Jackson Hole, Wyo., is the first such gathering the former vice president has hosted since leaving the White House in January.
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
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.
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.”
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,
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.
Joe Biden and his media acolytes call him Mr. Empathy and Mr. Compassion. His Afghanistan speech yesterday told a different story, and should end that phony spin forever.
My takeaway was how cold, and hard, and compassionless Biden was as he sought to extricate himself from the catastrophe of his own making. He blamed everyone but himself for his failure, particularly the Afghan army. He smarmily assured terrified Afghanis left behind he'd now speak out for their human rights instead of actually protect them. He effectively told U.S. servicemembers their service was for nothing. It was appalling.
The embarrassment that is Joe Biden
38 replies
Although the White House had intended to keep Biden under wraps for as long as possible, the demand that he say something – anything – about the unfolding debacle in Afghanistan forced him to leave Camp David for a 20-minute statement, after which he refused to take any questions. The important part of what he said boils down to one sentence: We had to leave and everything that went wrong was Trump’s or the Afghans' fault. Biden is a craven coward, a feckless fool, a dismal dummy, and a man who will soon have more blood on his hands than a thousand Lady Macbeths.
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 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.
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
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Kimball goes on to list, item by item, what he believes were President Trump’s achievements. Well worth a read.