Texas Tribune [Austin, TX],
by
Patrick Svitek
Original Article
Posted by
Dreadnought
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8/17/2021 5:34:06 PM
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Gov. Greg Abbott tested positive Tuesday for COVID-19, according to his office.
Abbott, who is fully vaccinated, is not experiencing any symptoms and isolating at the Governor's Mansion, spokesperson Mark Miner said in a statement. He is getting the Regeneron's monoclonal antibody treatment.
"The Governor has been testing daily, and today was the first positive test result," Miner said. "Governor Abbott is in constant communication with his staff, agency heads, and government officials to ensure that state government continues to operate smoothly and efficiently."
National Review,
by
Zachary Evans
Original Article
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Dreadnought
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8/17/2021 5:13:28 PM
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Americans who requested to be evacuated from Afghanistan received a note from the State Department informing them that the U.S. can’t “guarantee” their security on the way to the Kabul airport, CBS News reported on Tuesday.
The State Department has a list of roughly 5,000 Americans who have requested to leave Afghanistan and roughly half of them received the note, according to CBS.
“Thank you for registering your request to be evacuated from Afghanistan….Please make your way to Hamid Karzai International Airport at this time,” the note reads.
Reuters,
by
Valerie Volcovici
Original Article
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Dreadnought
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8/17/2021 5:05:46 PM
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WASHINGTON - The Biden administration on Monday challenged a federal judge's decision in June to block the Interior Department's pause on oil and gas leasing on public lands and waters - a critical piece of its climate change policy - but will proceed with leasing during the appeals process.
The Interior Department aims to overturn the decision of Judge Terry Doughty of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, who said Louisiana and a dozen states that sued President Joe Biden's administration established they would suffer injury
Breitbart,
by
Hannah Bleau
Original Article
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Dreadnought
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8/17/2021 4:47:30 PM
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Coronavirus hospitalizations have matched the 2020 summer high in California’s Bay Area, despite the area re-imposing mask mandates — even among vaccinated individuals — this month.
ABC 7’s Bay Area COVID-19 Tracker shows the Bay Area’s case peak exceeding the figures seen in the summer of 2020, despite a year of mitigation measures and strategies, including the recent reimplementation of mask mandates.
According to the data, the Bay Area — which includes Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Solano, and Sonoma — saw 2,484 daily coronavirus cases reported August 16, with the rolling average standing at 1.792/57 as of August 13.
Mediaite,
by
Jackson Richman
Original Article
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Dreadnought
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8/17/2021 4:44:19 PM
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The Taliban taking over most of Afghanistan, including Kabul and the presidential palace — where they posed with U.S. guns.
A helicopter rushing U.S. personnel from the embassy in Kabul.
Afghans running to and on the Kabul airport runway to flee the country.
Afghans hanging onto and falling out of U.S. military planes.
The pictures and reports of these events show the inevitable consequences of a withdrawal that President Joe Biden dismissed or disregarded. The first two being examples of the former and the last two as examples of the latter.
The U.S. efforts in Afghanistan have been undone so quickly after Washington spent trillions of dollars there over almost 20 years after 9/11.
Hot Air,
by
Ed Morrissey
Original Article
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Dreadnought
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8/17/2021 4:37:56 PM
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Perhaps Joe Biden’s speech turned out to be more inspirational than first thought. His incessant finger-pointing over the incompetent and catastrophic bug-out in Afghanistan certainly got everyone’s attention, even for a period of time on CNN’s home page (via Twitchy): CNN later changed the headline to a more anodyne “Biden stands behind his decision,” but the theme has clearly resonated — even within Biden’s own administration. CNN reports this morning that White House “factions” are doing some finger-pointing of their own in an attempt to scrub the stain of this shameful episode off of them:
Factions within the Biden administration are embroiled in a blame game
PJ Media,
by
Rick Moran
Original Article
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Dreadnought
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8/17/2021 4:33:54 PM
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Joe Biden will be haunted by those images of U.S. helicopters beating a hasty retreat from Afghanistan. But his Afghanistan nightmare is only beginning.
There are between 5,000 and 10,000 Americans still stuck in Kabul, according to the Pentagon. And the military apparently has no plan to evacuate them. The possibility, indeed, the probability, that the Taliban or one of its rogue offshoots will start snatching Americans has always been there. The reason is that the Americans will be huge bargaining chips — not just with the U.S. but with whatever government emerges in Afghanistan. Hostage takers will be able to barter for power
Red State,
by
Bonchie
Original Article
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Dreadnought
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8/17/2021 3:54:59 PM
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Yesterday, a disturbing video emerged from Kabul airport showing thousands of Afghans storming a C-17 transport aircraft. AH-64 Apache helicopters were being used to swoop down and clear a path so the plane could take off. That’s how ill-prepared the evacuation was. Other videos showed the scene after the plane rotated and began climbing, with at least two individuals falling to their deaths. Now, we are learning more about what transpired, including the fact that the deaths didn’t stop there. This is an inexplicable situation, not because the pilots did anything wrong, but because they were put in this position in the first place. They had to make
Red State,
by
Nick Arama
Original Article
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Dreadnought
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8/17/2021 3:51:43 PM
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During his speech yesterday, Joe Biden angrily blamed everyone else for the collapse in Afghanistan, including his predecessor, President Donald Trump, saying that he had to comply with the deal Trump had worked out, despite the fact that the Taliban had breached the agreement and despite the fact that Biden himself had tossed aside so many other deals that Trump had worked out.
But Politico has a great story that completely blows all this apart. The story basically indicates that this debacle was intentional — that Biden always intended withdrawal, nothing to do with Trump, and to heck with our allies.
They noted on the Afghanistan pullout, for example, Biden overruled
National Review,
by
Brittany Bernstein
Original Article
Posted by
Dreadnought
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8/17/2021 3:41:10 PM
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Pentagon press secretary John Kirby on Tuesday sidestepped questions about how the U.S. plans to respond to reports that the Taliban is stopping and beating people who attempt to acccess the airport in Kabul, where the U.S. military is facilitating evacuations from Afghanistan in the wake of a Taliban takeover.
Kirby said during a press briefing that U.S. military commanders at the Kabul international airport are in communication with Taliban commanders on the ground outside the airport. He declined to further detail those discussions, saying only that he would “let the results speak for themselves.”
Asked by a reporter if those discussions include talk of allowing Americans and
Red State,
by
Nick Arama
Original Article
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Dreadnought
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8/17/2021 3:38:36 PM
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As we reported earlier, the Biden team is saying that there may be up to 10,000 Americans who still need to be rescued from Afghanistan. I wrote previously about how they were begging people like Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) for help because our government wasn’t responding and had just told them to shelter in place and fill out a form.
But it may be even worse than that, according to Bush Assistant Secretary of State Robert Charles. According to Charles, he said there was a tally and it was between 15,000 and 40,000 people still waiting to be told when they’ll be saved.
Power Line,
by
Steven Hayward
Original Article
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Dreadnought
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8/17/2021 3:30:45 PM
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Once in a while during the Obama Administration some people liked to say that a re-run of the Carter presidency was a best-case scenario, but that is really coming true under President Biden. As mentioned previously, it took Carter three years to finally hit bottom, with the famous “Malaise” speech of July 1979 (which never actually contained the word “malaise,” but his press secretary accepted that characterization the following day in a press conference).
It was right after that astoundingly bad speech that Ken Bode wrote in The New Republic an assessment