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With Americans stranded in Afghanistan, the credibility of the United States is shredded by our inept exit there. And now we’ve suffered the worst loss of American military personnel in 11 years and the first casualty in Afghanistan since Feb of 2020. It is so bungled that the British Parliament did something it had never in its history done—it voted to censure the President of the United States. Think about that. Joe Biden has continued to pretend world leaders are standing with him, but not one world leader has said a public positive word. In fact, it’s been the opposite. The Germans have said that Biden has virtually destroyed NATO, the French—yes the FRENCH—have lectured us about “moral responsibility” to the people being held hostage there by the Taliban terrorists. Even the Belgians have condemned the way this mess has been handled.

And how has President Biden responded? By stepping to a microphone, screaming into the teleprompter words someone else wrote and he has trouble reading, boasting about Democrats going on a wild shopping spree with your tax dollars to spend 3.5 TRILLION dollars on give-a-ways to try and buy some more voters. It’s clear Joe Biden wants to talk about his domestic agenda so we won’t pay attention to the collapse in Afghanistan. We’re not about to forget about those Americans stranded in Kabul, but I’ll oblige him and talk about his equally disastrous domestic plan.

He insists that we keep paying people to not work and indefinitely extending unemployment benefits to people who refuse to take one of the jobs being offered by desperate employers who are having to close restaurants, lumber mills, and construction sites. As long as Uncle Joe will pay people more money to get up at the crack of noon and watch Netflix than to work, people will take the government hand-out. I think instead of giving non-workers an extra $300 to sit on their ample backsides and stay away from work, we ought to give that $300 as a bonus to the people who actually showed up for work! We tax the wages of the workers, but not the welfare of the lazy. I don’t begrudge people who can’t work, but I have no sympathy for those who simply won’t work and are willing to let others lift THEIR loads while the only thing they lift is their federally subsidized forks. Take the taxes off those who are sweating through hot summer days on the job, and if a person is capable of working and won’t take a job, cut the benefits to zero.

And Biden’s energy plan has resulted in your gas to get to work costing $1-2 dollars a gallon more than it did just a year ago. He killed an American pipeline and the thousands of jobs that died with it, but he turned around and approved the Russians’ pipeline which gave them great riches at our expense. He has turned our Southern Border into a free-flowing firehose of human beings rushing into America without us having a clue who they are, whether or not they are drug runners, human traffickers or criminals, and not seeming to care whether they have been vaccinated, wear a mask, or socially distance. While Democrats are shutting down churches for fear of Covid, they turn a blind eye to illegal immigration. Tell your pastor if you have an idiot for a governor or mayor who is forcing your church to close, have him announce that the church will “identify” as the Southern border, and tell the masses to come on in!

I’m not sure we’ll hold out until the 2022 elections, but if we miraculously do, please think about who you vote for in the next election. Because if you keep sending socialists and socio-paths to serve in Congress and on your school board, then you’ll deserve the mess. But frankly, I’ll never vote for people who hate this great country because I believe we ALL deserve better!

Of all the disturbing and heartbreaking stories coming out of Afghanistan this weekend, this might be the most infuriating of all.

Two highly trusted sources, investigative reporter Lara Logan and Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL who lost an eye in an IED explosion in Afghanistan, are independently reporting that over the past few days, Americans have been turned away from entering the Kabul airport. Logan tweeted this on Saturday: “Most Americans don’t understand what’s happening in Kabul – been on this all night with no end. US citizens are fighting through enemy lines to get to the airport. When they show their blue passport to 82nd [Airborne] soldiers at the gate, many are turned away and sent back to the Taliban.”

Later, she tweeted, “All that stands between these Americans and safety/home is the US govt and military.”

President Biden had supposedly sent the 82nd Airborne to Kabul to facilitate the mass evacuation. What in blazes is going on there?

Dan Crenshaw tweeted, “America, all you need to know is this: Biden is not letting US citizens through the airport gates. It has been impossible to get anyone through for the past 24 hours. This administration has been lying about their intent to save Americans. Unforgivable.”

Also unexplainable, in a sane world with a sane Commander-in-Chief. But that’s not what we have.

Weirdly, the Biden White House is also trying to say that ISIS-K is the enemy, not so much the Taliban. One Green Beret and others in a position to know report that they’re really one and the same. I was on the same track a few days ago when I called this “a distinction without a difference.”

Bryan Preston at PJ MEDIA wrote at greater length about this.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/bryan-preston/2021/08/29/dan-crenshaw-lara-logan-bring-the-most-disturbing-reports-out-of-the-kabul-airport-yet-n1473930

We don’t know how many Americans are stranded in Afghanistan. Some reports have said 350, but it could be thousands more. The Biden administration says it’s evacuated “thousands,” but it never says how many of these are Americans.

The State Department, officially in charge of the evacuation effort, apparently is not helping. If soldiers are turning away Americans, it is on their order, not the Pentagon’s. Texas Rep. Ronny Johnson tweeted this on Saturday: “I am furious!! My team has been on the phone all day trying to get AMERICAN CITIZENS out. They have been just outside the airport numerous times, but the State Department WILL NOT help them.”

Congress won’t be looking into this anytime soon. Speaker Pelosi has adjourned them.

American citizens aren’t the only ones being turned away at the airport gates. As reported in THE NEW YORK TIMES, students and alumni from the American University of Afghanistan were, too. This came after about 600 of them had gathered at a safe house and boarded buses to take them, they thought, to freedom. After waiting for several hours, they were told that evacuations had been called off. An email told them to return home. (“Home”?) Because the U.S. troop deadline for evacuation is August 31, it said, the U.S. military was turning from evacuating civilians to getting its own personnel out.

Think that’s bad? Oh, it’s much worse. They're terrified for their lives now, as they also also learned the U.S. military, “following protocol,” had shared a list of their names and passport information with the Taliban who were guarding the airport checkpoints. Their identities are now known, and there's no way to evacuate.

The Taliban have already taken over the American University campus. The staff got out in time and are now safely in Doha. The president of the school says they’re committed to “ensuring all students would finish their degrees remotely.”

Well, isn’t that nice. And how are these students going to be receiving their degrees? Posthumously?

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/08/29/world/afghanistan-live-news-updates#american-university-of-kabul-students-and-alumni-trying-to-flee-were-sent-home

Brad Slager at RedState.com has an excellent commentary on the total incompetence surrounding the withdrawal.

https://redstate.com/bradslager/2021/08/29/no-aspect-of-bidens-afghanistan-fiasco-was-handled-with-competence-n434910

Reading this, though, I have to wonder: Is this level of incompetence due to Biden’s lack of cognitive faculties, leading him to be fatally singleminded and stubborn about his arbitrary pull-out date, or is he actually an all-out traitor to his country? If he were the latter, what would he be doing differently? The one other possibility is that he is so monumentally stupid that...well, I have to wonder if even Joe Biden is THAT monumentally stupid.

It gets even crazier: As Nick Arama at RedState reports, at a time when military aircraft are at such a premium that commercial jets are being called into service, President Biden approved the use of a military plane by Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm to fly last Monday to a nonessential diplomatic summit in Ukraine. Why the frivolous waste of a military craft when it was so badly needed for the evacuation? This makes about as much sense as anything else going on right now.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2021/08/29/biden-diverted-military-jet-away-for-outrageous-reason-in-middle-of-kabul-evacuation-n434949

Also, recall the Marine officer who was relived of duty within hours of criticizing military leaders for the deaths of 13 service members last week? Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller had tweeted: “I have been fighting for 17 years. I am willing to throw it all way to say to my senior leaders, I demand accountability.” In case you missed that story, here’s a review.

https://redstate.com/mike_miller/2021/08/29/marine-officer-relieved-of-duty-for-slamming-leaders-over-afghanistan-debacle-issues-blistering-warning-n434835

Scheller has given an interview with the NEW YORK POST. They also spoke to his dad, who proudly called him “a Marine’s Marine.” Here’s the link; highly recommended reading.

https://nypost.com/2021/08/28/marines-praise-lt-colonel-fired-for-slamming-afghan-exit/

Although we praise Scheller to the skies for having the courage to do what even Biden’s generals couldn’t do but should have, we do have one small quibble with something he said, relating to the age of his superiors. “The baby boomer’s turn is over,” he told the POST. “I demand accountability, at all levels. If we don’t get it, I’m bringing it.”

Speaking as a baby boomer, I would say that most Americans my age are appalled at what is transpiring and want to “bring it,” too. Much of my readership, including many veterans, would be considered part of the “baby boomer” generation, and we are just as horrified as he is and also demand accountability. I would not be surprised if some of those officials, say, from the State Department, giving orders behind the scenes are closer to his age.

That said, Scheller, who received a Combat V for Valor and a Bronze Star, has exhibited perhaps an even rarer form of bravery by standing up to his superiors when such action was badly needed. He’s a hero for daring to say that the U.S. should never have abandoned the strategic Bagram Air Base. Some of his fellow officers, even though they were supportive, have urged him to take his video down. But over 30,000, some of whom served under him, have liked and commented on it.

Saturday, Michael Goodwin in THE NEW YORK POST asked the question, “What if Biden and his administration really are every bit as bad as they look?

https://nypost.com/2021/08/28/in-the-midst-of-a-white-house-breakdown-goodwin/

Finally, in her grief, the mother of one of the Marines killed at the airport checkpoint has spoken out. We’ll just let her tell you in her own words what she thinks of the current Commander-in-Chief.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9936483/Biden-flies-Dover-Air-Force-Base-receive-remains-13-American-troops-killed-Kabul-attack.html


Our prediction that President Biden would come out in his late-day press briefing on Thursday and blame everyone but himself turned out to be, sadly, correct.

If you didn’t see it, imagine at the podium the weakest, most feeble, most pathetic excuse for a Commander-in-Chief you can dredge out of the recesses of your mind, and then somehow dial it back even weaker. The real thing was worse than that.

Think I’m exaggerating? The British news organization DAILY MAIL was merciless.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9931085/Joe-Biden-tense-forth-interesting-guy-Steve-Doocy-Fox-News.html

Yes, Biden did blame Trump, again: “I bear responsibility for, fundamentally, all that’s happened of late. But [editorial note: there’s always a “but”] here’s the deal: You know –- I wish that one day, you say these things –- you know as well as I do that [the] former President made a deal with the Taliban that we would get all American forces out of Afghanistan by May 1. In return, the commitment was made, and that was a year before.”

Biden keeps going back to that, when it’s clear to all of us watching that he didn’t have to follow that timetable at all. HE’S our Commander-in-Chief; it's not the head of the Taliban. WE’RE the superpower, not them. WE say when we leave. And President Trump certainly would not have conformed to some arbitrary deadline it if it meant leaving Americans and friends behind. Until now, I’ve always tried to conduct myself with enough class to avoid telling the President of the United States to shut his yap, but Biden is making that extremely difficult for me now.

Here’s the carefully-considered plan President Trump had for leaving Afghanistan that Biden scrapped, simply because it was a remnant of Trump’s administration. Kash Patel, Trump’s chief of staff at the Pentagon, wrote about it for the NEW YORK POST last week, and WESTERN JOURNAL summarizes it here. Highly recommended reading.

https://www.westernjournal.com/remember-trump-saved-americans-afghanistan-biden-said-no/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=empowerconservatives

Biden acknowledged during Thursday’s briefing that Americans would be left behind after August 31. Jen Psaki said later that we would “need to coordinate with the Taliban to get those people to the airport and out of the airport.” That's like "coordinating" with an alligator to help you cross the river.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/08/26/joe-biden-admits-americans-will-be-left-behind-in-afghanistan-after-withdrawing-troops/

Katie Pavlich has a good commentary on how Biden & Co. are talking about getting those Americans out who are still there after the deadline.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2021/08/26/psaki-after-august-31-us-will-coordinate-with-the-taliban-to-get-americans-out-n2594829

Actually, Biden didn’t blame Trump for EVERYTHING. He blamed his generals for the (incredibly stupid) decision to leave Bagram Air Base before the evacuation. The generals gave him bad advice, so what could he do?

Perhaps most shockingly of all (and I would think criminal), Biden didn’t deny reports that the Taliban were given a helpful list of Americans stranded in the region. To, uh, help them get to the airport? Yeah, that’s the ticket.

https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2021/08/26/jbiden-blames-generals-for-abandoning-bagram-air-base-admin-may-have-given-taliban-a-list-of-stranded-americans/

Clearly, Joe Biden is not fit to lead. The problem is, those around him don’t seem fit to lead, either, and somebody has to. That vacuum of leadership at the top might be the main thing keeping Biden in the Oval Office right now. Last night on Shannon Bream’s FOX NEWS show, Democrat strategist Kevin Walling, when confronted by Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley’s call for Biden’s resignation, said that “this President absolutely has the will to lead,” pointing out that “this weighs heavily on the President’s heart” because he had a son who served in combat. He “has the will to finish this mission out in the next five days.”

Ah, so Biden is still planning to wrap this up in five days? Apparently so.

Walling continued: “Any calls for any kind of resignation or impeachment of him or his team, really, uh, are a distraction from this core mission that he is set to accomplish, uh, in these next couple of days. No one in the wake of 9/11 called for George W. Bush...to resign. This is just party politics, when we need to focus on the mission, supporting the troops on the ground, paying tribute to those lives lost, and supporting this effort in the waning days in Afghanistan.”

Well, if anyone knows about party politics, it’s a Democrat strategist. Okay, Mr. Walling, let’s all focus on the mission now that it’s been botched, support the troops now that they face new and unnecessary dangers, pay tribute to the lives that Biden needlessly put in harm’s way and got killed, and support this effort to dig out of the deep quicksand we’re in, thanks to our feeble-brained Commander-in-Chief.

Also, it doesn’t exactly instill confidence in our President when he reveals he’s been “instructed” to call on reporters from a list his helpful aides have given him. Not kidding.

https://redstate.com/tladuke/2021/08/26/joe-biden-reveals-in-latest-press-conference-he-is-instructed-on-whom-he-can-call-on-n433261

You might be able to tell that I and my research team have completely had it with the “leadership” of this administration –- on many fronts, not just this one –- and we have plenty of company. Thanks to Joe Biden and the people who put him in office, America has lost lives, experienced humiliation around the world, shocked and dismayed our allies, seriously risked our own national security, and now faces critical decisions on how to move forward from this.

Starting off our round-up is Spencer Brown, writing for TOWNHALL, who said, “[Biden’s] failure to successfully or safely bring the United States out of Afghanistan is squarely the fault of President Biden.”

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/spencerbrown/2021/08/26/biden-remarks-on-kabul-attacks-n2594821

Paula Bolyard at PJ MEDIA said he “stumbled badly...sounding more defeated and confused than resolute.” The quotes she included really show how incoherent he was at times. She noted the bizarre way in which he linked the loss of his son Beau (who did serve in Iraq but who died of brain cancer) to this situation. It WAS strange.

“Sadly,” she wrote, “we have a Commander-in-Chief who doesn’t seem fully able to grasp the gravity of the situation and the enormity of the disaster he’s wrought.”

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/paula-bolyard/2021/08/26/biden-finally-addresses-terror-attacks-in-afghanistan-we-will-hunt-you-down-we-will-make-you-pay-n1473233

Nick Arama at RedState.com was unsparing in his description of this slow-motion train derailment.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2021/08/26/biden-finally-acts-tough-in-emotional-but-empty-speech-gets-nailed-by-peter-doocy-n433248

Earlier in the afternoon, before Biden’s briefing, he had this excellent assessment.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2021/08/26/joe-biden-is-mia-on-suicide-attacks-now-state-department-is-playing-the-coward-too-n433063

Donald Trump, Jr.’s, tweet after the briefing shows what the world is seeing right now: profound weakness.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/08/26/donald-trump-jr-s-devastating-tweet-sums-up-how-horrible-bidens-address-to-nation-was-n1473244

Finally, I might have saved the best for last. Stephen Kruiser at PJ MEDIA says it all with his headline: “America is now actually the mess Dems pretended it was under Trump.” He tells us that he started writing it a few weeks ago as just a general commentary, before the evacuation of Afghanistan went bad. This new horror took his original point to the tenth power.

https://pjmedia.com/columns/stephen-kruiser/2021/08/25/america-is-now-actually-the-mess-dems-pretended-it-was-under-trump-n1470737?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=onsite&utm_campaign=582

You know, there aren’t many ideas from California that I give a thumbs-up, too, but in this situation, there’s one I dearly wish we could adopt (but we can’t): “recall election.” Do it over and get it right this time!

In a 4-3 ruling, with the three liberal Justices opposed, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s order to the Biden Administration to reinstate the Trump “Remain in Mexico” policy, requiring asylum seekers to stay on the other side of the border while their applications are considered. Border states sued, arguing that Biden’s move had brought back “catch and release” inside the US and spurred a massive wave of illegal immigration that endangers their citizens’ health, safety and security.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/supreme-court-reinstates-trumps-remain-in-mexico-policy

Biden’s laughably-named “Department of Homeland Security” expressed disagreement with the ruling, saying, "DHS has appealed the district court’s order and will continue to vigorously challenge it. As the appeal process continues, however, DHS will comply with the order in good faith.”

That would be a refreshing change, to see the Biden Administration actually complying with a Supreme Court order. FYI, the appeals process normally ends when the Supreme Court rules against you.

In the meantime, if the DHS actually has any real interest in homeland security, they might ponder on whether there are any negative ramifications to the current policies of having an open border, releasing illegal border crossers inside the US, and encouraging America-hating jihadists all over the world by surrendering to the Taliban.

In a related story: If you forgot about the massive security problem represented by our porous border, that’s not by accident. Even though the illegal immigration crisis is worse than it’s ever been, the Biden lapdog media have been doing their best to wish it away by simply ignoring it. Newsbusters reports that coverage of the issue on the Big Three networks’ nightly newscasts has dropped by 96% since March, even as the crisis worsened.

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/rich-noyes/2021/08/16/bidens-border-crisis-worse-ever-tv-coverage-drops-96-percent

The good news is that viewers are figuring out that they can’t rely on these sources to tell them the truth about what really matters, and they’re tuning out in droves.

https://redstate.com/bradslager/2021/08/24/some-very-odd-results-in-the-cable-news-ratings-following-the-afghanistan-implosion-n432227

In Sunday’s cable news ratings, normally a big day for news networks, Fox News had 16 of the top 17 shows, with CNN’s highest place being “CNN Newsroom” at #15. MSNBC didn’t place a single show in the top 30. It’s no wonder, considering the jaw-dropping ways they are trying to ignore, spin, rationalize or blame Trump for Afghanistan.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/cnn-mathew-dowd-biden-extremely-good-job-afghanistan

The Redstate.com article linked above includes a screenshot of a recent MSNBC web homepage that doesn’t mention Afghanistan at all. The big story isn't about American lives being in jeopardy but the host of “Jeopardy!” stepping down over some offensive jokes he made years ago.

I assume people who want to avoid offensive jokes are no longer watching MSNBC.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has a revolt on her hands that’s endangering her party’s plans to saddle the American people with more bloated government and trillions more in debt. Nine “moderate” center-left House Democrats are refusing to back the $3.5 trillion “budget reconciliation” bill unless the $1.2 trillion “bipartisan” “infrastructure” bill passes first. Meanwhile, the far-left “Progressives” are refusing to back the “bipartisan” “infrastructure” bill (I’m going to run out of quotation marks) until they get the $3.5 trillion spending orgy bill passed.

https://www.westernjournal.com/pelosi-forced-scrap-key-vote-internal-revolt-moderate-democrats/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

Personally, I’d be fine if they both canceled each other out and neither of these monstrosities passed. The Dems are desperate to shove them down our throats because they know their tiny House majority and Senate tie aren’t likely to survive the 2022 elections. But “moderate” Dems running in swing districts who have any hopes of being reelected don’t want to go on record as voting for that massive $3.5 trillion white whale of a bill before getting anything they want like the infrastructure bill.

Ironically, the $3.5 trillion bill may already be DOA because it needs all 50 Democrat votes in the Senate to pass, and Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema have already come out against it. President Biden is pushing hard for it, but his stock is, to put it mildly, going down the toilet fast. The fact that in his latest appearance, he hawked this bill before bringing up the crisis in Afghanistan didn’t do the bill, or himself, any favors politically.

Here’s some more on the politics of all this from Rick Moran at PJ Media.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2021/08/24/house-delays-action-on-bidens-3-5-trillion-budget-bill-as-moderates-revolt-n1472213

Here’s a message for members of the White House press corps: The President is looking you in the eye (when he’s not looking at the teleprompter) and lying to you. So is Jen Psaki, his smiling mouthpiece. Do you really think you’re getting the true story from the White House? After all you’ve done to help put Biden there and gloss over his monstrous shortcomings, his administration doesn’t have enough respect for you to give you more than a ridiculous fairy tale. When you play along, it makes you a national embarrassment, right along with them.

That’s what I would say to the reporters in that room.

“Spin it till we win it.” In the face of the total disaster they’ve caused, that’s the strategy the Biden administration has now adopted to make Americans think their inept retreat in Afghanistan is actually a brilliant success. In politics, who needs a real win when a perception of a win will do? But here's my point: it’s not working. Real reporters are risking their lives –- and sometimes losing them –- to get the real story out, which means our pampered press corps are just going to humiliate themselves when they try to morph Biden’s atrocious failure in Afghanistan into a win. We’re still managing to hear the horror stories about what’s actually happening there, from people who ARE there.

You’d think President Biden would be treating his loyal (for now) media friends with more respect. They’re trying their best, Mr. President! But, no, instead of answering a legitimate question posed by NBC News Chief White House Correspondent Peter Alexander, Old Man Biden made a bizarre wisecrack in his general direction, while the world looked on, aghast. Here’s how it played in Australia.

https://www.news.com.au/world/biden-smirks-at-reporter-who-asks-him-tough-question-on-afghanistan/video/b754f7325400d32992144928d76766bd

Before we relate to you some of what’s actually coming out of Afghanistan, I want you to know how sorry I am to have to bring you these stories. The Taliban are vicious, single-minded killers, apparently with no conscience and no other reason for existence. They glory in killing the infidel. They attack the vulnerable without the slightest pause. The only thing that can stop them from committing their atrocities is undiluted, unquestionable power, and President Joe Biden has abdicated that. We pray that our country will get it back, but in the meantime, there are stories that, sadly, must be told.

Of course, the magnitude of the tragedy in Afghanistan became clear when we saw planes take off from the airport in Kabul with desperate Afghans clinging to the outside. We saw, high in the sky, the tiny specks fall, realizing those people had chosen the likelihood of death to whatever they might face from the Taliban. Days later, now that the Taliban have cemented their control, we’re starting to see why those people might have made even that doomed effort to save themselves.

It has been revealed that several weeks ago, a 2018 Pulitzer Prize-winning Indian photographer, Danish Saddiqui, 38, was brutally killed after covering a fight between Afghan security forces and the Taliban near the border with Pakistan. He’d been working for Reuters since 2010 and had covered the war in Iraq, the Hong Kong protests and earthquakes in Nepal. At the time of his murder, he was embedded with Afghan special forces in Kandahar.

Saddiqui had been wounded by shrapnel and was taken to a nearby mosque for medical treatment. But word got to the Taliban that he’d been taken to the mosque, so they went there and attacked. They captured him alive, verified his identity and executed him, along with those with him. The rest of the team died trying to rescue him.

Two days later, his body arrived in Delhi, India, to be buried. And although photos of his proud killers with his body show that the body was injured but still intact at that point, somehow between then and its transfer to the Red Cross, while it was in Taliban custody, it had been severely mutilated. Saddiqui’s face was unrecognizable, he had been shot dozens of times, and there were tire tracks over his face and chest from being run over. Ironically, what they did to him simply confirmed the barbarism he was there to document.

A Taliban spokesman denied any wrongdoing, and I suppose that statement would be good enough for President Biden. Zabihullah Mujahid claimed they were under orders to “treat bodies with respect,” but they were the ones in control of the area where this happened, and we do have those pictures of Taliban fighters posing with his body. What? The Taliban lied?

The story at the DAILY MAIL also includes some of Saddiqui’s stirring photojournalism.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9847247/Body-Reuters-photographer-badly-mutilated-Taliban-custody-officials-say.html

Afghan authorities arrested a group of four journalists in Kandahar, purportedly to keep them “safe.” But one Interior Ministry spokesperson said the journalists had been arrested on charges of “propaganda to the enemy.” He said, “The Government of Afghanistan respects and is extremely committed to freedom of expression, but any propaganda in favor of the terrorist and the enemy, as well as against the interests of the country, is a crime.”

Don’t you love that? Oh, yes, we’re EXTREMELY committed to free speech, BUT…. It’s not much different from the view shared by Google and Facebook.

One might imagine how hard it’s going to be to get the real story out of Afghanistan. But at a time when we can’t trust what the White House tells us, it’s good to know that some actual journalists are finding it out on their own.. For example, here’s a story about the real numbers of people being evacuated from Kabul --- the relatively few Americans and the many thousands of Afghans. It’s an update on what we brought you yesterday. You won’t hear this from Jen Psaki.

https://americanconservativemovement.com/2021/08/25/94-7-of-people-evacuated-by-u-s-from-afghanistan-are-not-americans/

It’s gratifying, too, to see some real journalists here at home refusing to be taken in by the White House spin. Miranda Devine at the NEW YORK POST sees through it, and she doesn’t mince words about Biden’s conceit --- the feeble mind and prickly arrogance that his people had so hoped to keep under wraps.

https://nypost.com/2021/08/15/joe-bidens-defeat-will-echo-for-eternity-devine/

We had hoped to bring you updates from the White House and State Department this afternoon --- not that we trust anything they say, but we’d wanted to be able to report it --- but they’ve essentially gone silent. Their update earlier today was that there was no update. I am not kidding.

https://thelibertydaily.com/state-department-goes-into-hiding-following-kabul-airport-bombings/

But we do know that the situation keeps changing, hour by hour, and that it just keeps getting more grave. At the time of this writing, we can confirm that there two bombs were detonated. According to initial reports, four U.S. Marines were killed, but the death toll is now up to at least a dozen service members.

The suicide-bomb explosion closest to the airport entrance is described as a “complex attack.” The other explosion was outside the Baron Hotel, where Americans, Britons and Afghans had been told to gather in recent days in order to be evacuated. The only thing we’ve heard from the White House at this writing is that the President “has been briefed.” For more details on this poor excuse for an “evacuation,” here’s an excellent report.

https://www.q13fox.com/news/western-nations-warn-of-possible-attack-at-kabul-airport-amid-evacuation

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby did come out at 3PM Eastern Time to read a prepared statement and then take questions. He said they think there are “about a thousand” American citizens still in Afghanistan. He maintained that some of them do not want to leave. (!!!) He said they’ve screened “over 104,000 people.” He expressed pride in the actions of our service members and coalition partners and acknowledged that some evacuees have experienced “profound suffering.” In answer to a question, he said that, yes, they anticipated more attacks, perhaps rocket attacks. (Sure enough, later in the afternoon there were reports of another explosion.)

(We pause for this editorial comment: Hey, I thought the Taliban said they wouldn’t attack before the August 31 deadline! Does this mean they LIED? Ah, but, in breaking news, the attacks have been attributed not to the Taliban per se but to ISIS “K,” although this looks to us like a distinction without a difference.)

A bipartisan group of legislators has called on President Biden to extend his August 31 deadline to pull out U.S. forces. An excerpt from their statement: “As Democrats and Republicans, we stand united in our commitment to protecting U.S. citizens, diplomats, intelligence officers, and our foreign partners who are currently attempting to flee Afghanistan.” We’ll see if there’s any response to this from the White House, or if the President is just going to abandon all those people just to be able to say he obeyed the Taliban’s order.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/dozens-of-lawmakers-call-on-biden-to-extend-afghanistan-deadline-as-u-s-prepares-to-leave-thousands-behind

In another update just before our deadline, a reported 60 people have been killed in these bombings, including children.

Also, the White House announced mid-afternoon that our esteemed Commander-in-Chief will make an appearance later in the day, in which he will blame everyone but himself for this travesty. I made that last part up, but that's our prediction. We’ll have an analysis of that and full updates in our Friday morning newsletter.

In the meantime, our Thursday report wouldn’t be complete without this: Taliban fighters joyriding in a Black Hawk helicopter. Just a little something they picked up at Kandahar Airport.

Video appears to show Taliban taking joyride in US Black Hawk helicopter

https://nypost.com/2021/08/26/taliban-appear-to-take-joyride-in-us-made-helicopter-video/

A New Governor In New York

August 25, 2021

As of this morning, Andrew Cuomo is no longer Governor of New York, and that sound you just heard was millions of New Yorkers heaving a simultaneous sigh of relief. Cuomo being Cuomo, he couldn’t even leave without controversy, involving both his dog and his commutations of sentences for several convicted murderers.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/ari-j-kaufman/2021/08/24/andrew-cuomo-commutes-sentence-of-weather-underground-terrorist-father-of-san-francisco-da-on-final-day-in-office-n1472146

But I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he wasn’t trying to abandon his dog. As radioactive as he is in the Democratic Party, if he wants any friends at this point, he’s going to need his dog.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cuomo-responds-he-reportedly-abandoned-dog-captain-executive-mansion

Lieutenant Gov. Kathy Hochul is being sworn in today as New York’s first female Governor. As someone who also became Governor during a turbulent and divisive time, due to the resignation of a corrupt Governor, I know the challenges she’ll face and sympathize. While our politics are obviously not in alignment, I wish her well in repairing the damage and restoring confidence in the state government. I hope she will consider how both bad policies and arrogance brought Cuomo down, and that she will work across the aisle, listen to the people and hear their grievances, and try to unite rather than divide or dictate.

If I could offer her a piece of friendly advice, it would be to read this article from the Federalist:

https://thefederalist.com/2021/08/23/the-nine-worst-unemployment-rates-in-the-country-are-in-areas-run-by-democrats/

It’s about how new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics ranks New York as the fourth-worst state in unemployment. But beyond that, there’s a wider message. Note that the bottom nine states for employment all have Democrats in control of both the legislative and executive branches, while nine of the top ten states are run solidly by Republicans.

One of the first issues Gov. Hochul will have to deal with is the expanded federal unemployment benefits ending on September 6th. Many red states cut them off early because they were preventing people from taking jobs by paying them more to stay unemployed than to work. When they end, many New Yorkers will need to get back to work. That might be difficult if businesses are still being locked down, or ordered to turn away half their customers for not being vaccinated. Some harsh economic reality is barreling toward New York like a subway train. It’s best to start working to get off the tracks now.

FOR MORE POLITICS, GO HERE.

On Tuesday, former President Trump released a powerful new video message about the complete disaster in Afghanistan that comes courtesy of the Biden administration.

https://cdn.donaldjtrump.com/djtweb/lp/new_vid_0824.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=ncl_amplify&utm_campaign=20210824-new_save_america_launches_surrenderer_in_chief_commercial&utm_content=ncl-XGsPFJvQfv&_nlid=XGsPFJvQfv&_nsid=346ca468-51f9-4ebf-b774-82705aec8f57

The title could not be more fitting: “Surrenderer-in-Chief”

The drama in this video is no exaggeration. As Dan Bongino reported Tuesday, the information we’re receiving out of Afghanistan is getting even worse. In ten days, Kabul has fallen into chaos. Our remaining troops have already started withdrawing, I assume to make 100 percent sure we have enough time to get out before the Taliban’s deadline of August 31. After all, the Taliban are calling the shots now, and we wouldn’t dare go against their orders, would we? Biden confirmed on Tuesday that we will not be staying past that date. Golly gee, the Taliban told us they won’t let us, so...hey, what are ya gonna do?

The Taliban also announced they won't let any more Afghan nationals go to the airport. One might say that ship has sailed. It could be a bloodbath for our friends left behind.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/taliban-no-longer-allowing-afghans-to-evacuate

“They [the Americans] have the opportunity, they have all the resources, they can take all the people that belong to them but we are not going to allow Afghans to leave and we will not extend the deadline,” said a Taliban spokesman. They act as though they hold all the cards, because, with Biden nominally in charge of our side, they actually do.

As for U.S. citizens, they don’t know what to do now. The Embassy issued a “last alert” for them to leave right then or be on their own, but just 30 minutes later, they recalled it, essentially saying, “Never mind!” Just use your own judgment, they said.

As we've said, when Psaki admonished Peter Doocy as “irresponsible” for saying Americans were “stranded,” she was lying. Communications from panicked Americans say they absolutely ARE STRANDED. “Our lives are in extreme danger,” said one tearful American mom in a phone message. “We get more of the news to stay put than to be told that you are gonna be evacuated. This is not comforting at all. We don’t know if we’re gonna make it out.”

Obviously, Americans and our friends in Afghanistan made the mistake of awaiting instructions and trusting the U.S.military to evacuate them safely when it was time to go. They know better now.

The Taliban have surrounded the airport and control all comings and goings. As Sean Hannity put it Tuesday night, “Biden, he just signed the death certificates of every Afghan that, in fact, has helped the U.S. in the last 20 years…” Considering that the Taliban were able to retrieve computer data from the abandoned U.S. Embassy on the identities of all the Afghans who helped us, that is no exaggeration. Those friends of ours, and their families, remaining in the country will likely be tracked down and murdered.

Biden gave a scripted press conference Monday, bizarrely focusing mostly on vaccines and infrastructure. Later, White House press secretary Jen Psaki cheerfully praised the evacuation in Kabul as “the largest airlift in U.S. history” and said she wouldn’t characterize it “as anything but a success.” It was surreal. Psaki sported such a happy smile, it seemed at times she might burst into inappropriate laughter, just as Vice President Harris so often does. Perhaps laughter is contagious around the White House.

(It occurs to me that if masking-up wouldn’t stop the spread of inappropriate laughter, it would at least hide the maddeningly inappropriate smiles.)

Murders (at least 20 are known to have been killed), beatings, gassings, stabbings (including of children), and extortion --- this is what our “success” looks like, so far.

POLITICO national security reporter Alex Ward obtained a leaked report from the State Department saying that only 4,407 American citizens had been flown out since the evacuation began on August 14. This number is dwarfed by the “low-end” estimate of 10-15,000 Americans, and possibly many thousands more, who have actually been living there.

The number given by the White House yesterday was 21,600 people flown out from Monday to Tuesday. If that sounds impressive, keep in mind that this is not the number of American citizens but the total number of evacuees, period. We might never know WHO those people are who made it onto the planes, perhaps instead of Americans, their interpreters and other Afghan helpers. At this writing, officials still refuse to give an accounting of American citizens.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/leaked-cable-biden-afghanistan-evacuation

But on Monday, reporters received assurance from Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, that “we are actually overperforming in terms of evacuation numbers.”

Even President Obama’s former ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker, said on FACE THE NATION Sunday that Biden’s actions in that country have emboldened violent Islamists and created “a global crisis.” Specifically, he’s concerned about what the narrative of the Taliban defeating the “Great Satan” is going to do to rile up radicals in Pakistan, which is a nuclear power with 220 million people. Watch him here.

https://bongino.com/former-obama-afghanistan-ambassador-biden-has-created-a-global-crisis

“What’s happening in Afghanistan won’t stay in Afghanistan,” he said. “It will be felt around the world.”

The NEW YORK POST ran a scathing (but mercifully brief) editorial on August 21, saying this chaotic withdrawal shows a “disengaged, befuddled President.”

https://nypost.com/2021/08/21/bidens-afghanistan-withdrawal-shows-a-disengaged-befuddled-president/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=ncl_amplify&utm_campaign=20210825-icymi_bidens_afghanistan_withdrawal_shows_a_disengaged_befuddled_president&utm_content=ncl-aKHJ7Jynx7&_nlid=aKHJ7Jynx7&_nsid=2a44e4ec-d7f2-430b-a8de-59ac58cdaee8

Since their editorial appeared, conditions have deteriorated so much that even many on the left have joined in that opinion. And this still isn’t as bad as it’s going to get.

Of course, Biden has tried to shift blame to former President Trump, but this is all on him. In case you missed Margot Cleveland’s excellent piece on the 16th, I’ll link to that here.

https://thefederalist.com/2021/08/16/no-biden-cant-blame-trump-for-the-afghanistan-withdrawal-disaster/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=ncl_amplify&utm_campaign=20210825-icymi_no_biden_cant_blame_trump_for_the_afghanistan_withdrawal_disaster&utm_content=ncl-yMCyGAsudU&_nlid=yMCyGAsudU&_nsid=d85d1ce1-3cf9-40d7-a97f-484eb7a22de8

Cleveland points out a number of very effective Trump policies that Biden simply trashed once he got into office. Everything regarding Afghanistan was ultimately his call. Even if it’s in our country’s best interest to withdraw, the horribly failed execution of the withdrawal is his fault. Shame on him for trying to weasel out and blame others.

Watching President Biden and his team, the question more and more are asking is this: If these people were to deliberately set out to ruin America’s place in the world, to destroy America domestically and internationally, from within and without, what would they do differently? What would they NEED to do differently? I know, I can’t think of anything, either.

Absolute Chaos In Portland

August 25, 2021

By Mike Huckabee

If you’ve seen any video this week from the streets of Portland, Oregon, you could be forgiven for mistaking it for footage from Kabul. It’s a fascinating example of how far-left rule always ends the same way: in absolute chaos. In Portland, far left and far right groups are clashing in the streets with rising levels of violence. It started with property destruction and shooting paintballs, air guns, fireworks and chemical spray at each other, which escalated to baseball bats and on Sunday, gunfire.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/portland-police-hands-off-strategy-violent-political-clashes-criticized-praised-mayor

And where are the police during all this? Standing by and doing nothing, as ordered. They’ve been told to take a “hands-off” approach and observe the violence from a distance, only intervening when it got so out of control that actual shots were fired. This, “despite calls by officials and police to remain peaceful.”

Meanwhile, far-left Mayor Ted Wheeler insists this was the right strategy and is a success: “This time, violence was contained to the groups of people who chose to engage in violence toward each other. The community at large was not harmed and the broader public was protected. Property damage was minimal.” He said a larger police presence might have enticed Antifa into attacking police or damaging more property. (Hint: that would have been your cue to arrest them.)

So, just to recap: a weak leftist leader tried to stop violent radicals from doing what they do by begging them to be peaceful. He failed to use the force available to him to keep order for fear that the radicals might not like that. And now they’re trying to convince us that despite the evidence of our lying eyes, there’s no out-of-control violence or citizens feeling threatened. No, this strategy has been a whopping success.

If anyone can tell me any difference between how Wheeler is handling Portland and how Biden is handling Afghanistan, aside from the scale of the carnage, I’d love to hear it.

The Rolling Stones announced that their drummer of nearly 60 years, Charlie Watts, died peacefully Monday in a London hospital at age 80, with his family around him. No cause of death was given, but he had recently undergone an undisclosed medical procedure. Watts was the oldest member of the band, and along with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, one of the last three original members. He had previously beaten throat cancer.

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/charlie-watts-rolling-stones-dead-80

Watts wasn’t a flashy drummer like Keith Moon of the Who, and God bless him, he didn’t go in for 20-minute drum solos. He was known for his rock-steady beat, with a touch of swing that kept the Stones a “rock and roll” band instead of a “ROCK” band, and for his ability to anchor the songs and keep his sometimes undisciplined (to put it mildly) bandmates on track.

Full disclosure: I’ve never been a Stones fan (I’m a Kinks and Who man), mostly because of my distaste for Mick Jagger. But I’ve always admired Watts’ musicianship and his cool down-to-earth style that reflected his anchor role in the band. I’m not going to list all of the Stones hits he was on or recount the band’s familiar history, because that will be all over the news. I’d rather tell you some things you might not hear elsewhere. Like this:

During one period when Jagger was particularly full of himself, he sneered that Watts was “only my drummer,” and later placed a drunken call to his hotel room at 5 a.m. and repeatedly shouted, “Where’s my drummer?!” After stewing on that for a day, the next night, Watts turned off his hotel room TV, put on his shoes, walked down the hall, knocked on Jagger’s door, and when he opened it, punched him in the jaw and knocked him into a platter of smoked salmon. Keith Richards passed him in the hall and asked where he was coming from. He said, “I’ve just punched Mick Jagger in the face,” and kept walking calmly back to his room.

Jazz and blues were his first loves, and Watts taught himself to play by listening to jazz records by artists such as Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker. When he joined the Stones, he assumed the band wouldn’t last more than a week. He hated the rock star lifestyle and was said to have wished he could go home after every show. He collected cars but didn’t drive; he would just sit in them in the garage.

In recent years, he formed his own side group, the Charlie Watts Quintet, which played traditional jazz versions of the Great American Songbook. They released several fine CDs that are sadly out of print but you can find some of the music online. Here’s a taste of the other side of Charlie Watts, performing the music he truly loved, with “I’ve Got A Crush On You.”

https://youtu.be/PHcrrsDgkuo

You can find other songs and performances by them on YouTube. And if you have Amazon Prime Music, you can stream the album, “Charlie Watts Meets the Danish Radio Big Band,” featuring some great but pretty unrecognizable big band jazz arrangements of several Stones songs, including “Satisfaction” and “Paint It Black.”

Arizona Sen. Krysten Sinema announced Monday that she will not support the Democrats’ massive, transformative, $3.5 trillion spending bill, possibly killing their hopes for forcing it through with just 51 votes as a budget reconciliation bill (which is a total perversion of that process, by the way.)

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/sinema-dashes-house-dems-hopes-for-3-5-t-infrastructure-bill

Sinema supported the $1.2 trillion “infrastructure” bill, but her spokesperson said she won’t support a budget reconciliation bill that costs $3.5 trillion. Incidentally, supporters of that bill have now started calling it a “human infrastructure” bill, which is obviously a focus group-tested euphemism for “bill that has nothing to do with actual infrastructure, but people like spending money on ‘infrastructure’ so we’ll call anything that.”

Interestingly enough, while Democrats are telling us we need to pass these bills to spend trillions we don’t have in order to stimulate the economy, the stock market, which had been falling for days, turned positive as news came that Biden’s spending bills may be bogged down in Congress.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/stock-futures-higher-biden-infrastructure-plan-doubt

And if you’re wondering why businesses would be relieved to see that bill die, here’s why:

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/big-business-coalition-ad-campaign-democrats-spending-package

FOR MORE POLITICS, GO HERE.

This is one of those stories for which it would take a heart of stone not to laugh. The socialist magazine Current Affairs is on hiatus for a month after co-founder Nathan J. Robinson effectively fired the staff because they were trying to organize a worker’s co-op and assume collective ownership.

https://fee.org/articles/fired-for-doing-socialism-socialist-magazine-torn-apart-by-viral-drama-ownership-dispute/

After the staffers went public, Robinson took to Facebook to issue the standard groveling apology, and to insist that he is not a capitalist and that the magazine is run on “sound leftist values.” For instance, everyone is paid the same $45,000 salary, he never exerts authority or orders people around, and everyone works when they feel like it. But he felt he should be in charge because the organization had "developed a kind of messy structurelessness where it wasn't clear who had power to do what and there was not much accountability for getting work done. The organization had become very inefficient, I wasn't exercising any oversight, and we were adrift.”

Yes, and as the article at the link points out, those are the predictable results of running anything according to “sound leftist values” and socialist principles. Maybe Mr. Robinson should use that month-long hiatus to think about that.

He made the cardinal mistake any socialist can make: actually trying to practice the nonsense that you preach. Just as successful drug dealers won't use drugs themselves, all your really successful socialists just peddle that stuff to the suckers. That’s how you get three houses like Bernie Sanders, or a designer wardrobe like AOC, or billions in foreign bank accounts like the daughter of late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

If he wants to keep putting out a magazine full of socialist tripe and have it actually run efficiently, hit deadlines and show a profit, he’ll need to run it on sound capitalist values. After all, you don’t think the people who put out MAD magazine were actually insane, do you?

PS – Another piece of advice for Mr. Robinson: follow the example of Mathias Döpfner, CEO of the German media conglomerate Alex Springer. In fact, a lot of CEOs need to follow his example. After an outbreak of anti-Semitic attacks in Germany in May, he ordered the Israeli flag flown outside the company’s Berlin headquarters, alongside the German and EU flags (the company owns several Israeli websites.) Some employees complained about this. In response, Döpfner didn’t back down, grovel or apologize. Instead, he held a company-wide conference call and told the employees this:

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/doepfner-axel-springer-politico-james-kirchick

“I think, and I’m being very frank with you, a person who has an issue with an Israeli flag being raised for one week here after anti-Semitic demonstrations should look for a new job.”

And miraculously, the whining ceased…

Investigative reporter Lara Logan made a good point about the fiasco in Afghanistan on last night’s Tucker Carlson show. She said that “this doesn’t just empower al-Qaeda, and the terrorists’ offensive. It empowers every enemy the United States has.”

That observation might apply most specifically to China, which, according to China analyst Gordon Chang, has ties with the Taliban that go back over 20 years, to before 9/11.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/china-taliban-connection-hold-beijing-accountable-gordon-chang

Did anyone think it was odd that the Chinese Embassy in Kabul stayed open as the Taliban took over Afghanistan? The Taliban and the CCP must have had some sort of “understanding.” In contrast, we know what happened to OUR embassy as the Taliban advanced and Biden retreated and, in effect, surrendered. Our State Department abandoned their embassy building, the Taliban sacked it, and they took all the files left behind that identified Afghans who had helped America. God help those Afghans who were our friends.

As Chang reports, on July 28, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with senior Taliban officials in the Chinese city of Tianjin. The next step is for China to officially recognize the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.”

This association between the Taliban and China is nothing new. I wonder if we’ll ever know what role, if any, China might have played in the attack on the Twin Towers 20 years ago. Apparently, Huawei, along with another telecommunications company, ZTE, worked on Kabul’s telecom system two years before that. Right after 9/11, a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry said that China had no “formal relations” with the Taliban, that the only ties they had were on the “working level,” and that reports of China building telecom networks and dams for the Taliban were “unfounded rumors.”

Does anybody buy that? If recent events have brought about one thing, I hope it’s a total lack of patience with being LIED TO, over and over. Seriously, can we believe anything the CCP tells us about the virus? Can we believe anything the Taliban tell us about letting Americans into the airport? For that matter, can we believe anything our own administration tells us? Biden, Harris, Jen Psaki, the Joint Chumps of Staff? Tragically, no. As I said to Sean Hannity on his TV show last night, our administration is lying to us. Allies must assume they’re lying, too.

When Psaki, with a fleeting smile, can “call out” reporter Peter Doocy as “irresponsible” for suggesting that Americans are stranded outside the airport in Kabul, when we know that’s exactly what they are, then we can’t trust anything our leaders are telling us. When Biden assures us he’ll get all Americans out “who want to leave,” his implication that some Americans DON’T want to leave is such a huge whopper, it insults our intelligence. They all want to leave. I’m tired of being lied to.

Anyway, Chang says that ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING TIMES reported in the aftermath of 9/11 that Indian intelligence officials believed Huawei India (yes, there’s a Huawei India!) supplied communications surveillance equipment to the Taliban in Afghanistan. Huawei denied the charge, and a Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman called it “misleading.” Not untrue, it should be noted; misleading.

China has also been a main supplier of small arms to the Taliban and insurgents in Iraq, a vast array of weaponry and ammo, some of which were shipped by dirty arms merchants directly from China’s factories. Some weapons were routed through intermediaries in Iran and Pakistan, but central Chinese authorities had to know where they were headed, as there would have been government surveillance every step of the way. Chang singles out a “series” of U.S. Presidents, notably George W. Bush, for looking the other way.

So, why would our leaders just let this go on? Recall that at the time, the thinking was to bring China in to the international system, to “engage” China, to indulge China, to trade with China, to fund Chinese virology labs hard at work studying bat viruses. Well, I made that last part up, sort of.

It turned out we couldn’t trust China, and the optimism is gone when it comes to dealing with that totalitarian state. After what Chang calls “two decades of aggressive, malicious and provocative acts,” we can no longer overlook their dangerous conduct. It’s not just the Taliban who must be held accountable for their terrorist atrocities, but also their #1 sponsor: China.

I have to wonder what Chang, who wrote the book THE COMING COLLAPSE OF CHINA, is thinking of China’s position of power right now. Who, exactly, is collapsing? Our once-dependable power center, the Oval Office, is now a vacuum, a void, a cipher, a blank, a Black Hole in our universe that compares to nothing in our previous experience. So China is sitting in the catbird seat at the moment and will use this time as productively as possible.

China has also said it plans to coordinate with Iran and Russia on joint naval drills in the Persian Gulf, either late this year or early next year. The three countries pulled together for similar exercises in 2019. They plan to make it an annual event.

https://nypost.com/2021/08/23/iran-holding-joint-naval-drills-with-russia-china-in-coming-months/

The Russian ambassador said that these drills are being done “to practice actions to ensure the safety of international shipping and the fight against sea pirates.” Okay……

Iran’s new president, Ebrahim Raisi, met with the president of China, Xi Jinging, last week, reportedly to tell Xi that Iran was “ready to cooperate with China in establishing security, stability and peace in Afghanistan.” Ah, so this is who holds influence in the "new" Afghanistan as we depart. Raisi said, “We believe the departure of foreigners [NOTE: by “foreigners,” he means America], as well as past experiences in this country, has highlighted the need for the support and participation of all Afghans to ensure the security and development of Afghanistan more than ever.”

Raisi also spoke to Russian President Putin, saying much the same thing, that they should “make the U.S. withdrawal a turning point for lasting peace and stability in Afghanistan.” He’s also spoken with Japan’s foreign minister, who traveled to Iran for the meeting.

Incidentally, Iran’s nuclear program is chugging right along, with the U.N. confirming that they’ve produced uranium metal enriched to 20 percent for the first time and have upped their production of enriched uranium by 60 percent. Of course, Iran insists this is for its civilian nuclear program; they’re not interested at all in developing a bomb.

I wonder if even Jen Psaki could tell a lie that big. On second thought, sure she could.

China and its growing circle of friends need to know that Americans won’t stand for the current situation and will soon be tossing out our worthless “leaders.” We’d do it today, if we could. Time to admit the biggest national mistake in history. It’s obvious we need leaders like Trump, maybe Trump-to-the-tenth-power, to reassure our allies that we haven't lost our minds and impress upon our adversaries that there are consequences to stepping out of line with us.

After Monday’s commentary, “If only we COULD court-martial President Biden,” we received replies from readers essentially asking, “Hey, why can’t we?” Since Biden is Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces, they reasoned, he must be a member of our military, and we should be able to court-martial him. If only!

As the Constitution makes clear, the President of the United States is considered to be a civilian, not a member of the military. Yes, he commands the military, but he is “over” the military, not “of” the military. So he is subject to civilian courts, not military courts. It was important to the framers of the Constitution not to have the military itself in control of the government.

Article II, Section 4, of the Constitution specifies that the President (also the Vice President) shall be removed from office by impeachment and conviction for treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors. The President is not subject to court-martial or any other military discipline, much as we might like to see him get thrown in the brig and the door clanged shut.

There’s more information at the link, under the heading, “The Commander-in-Chief is a Civilian Officer.”

https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-2/section-2/clause-1/the-president-as-commander-of-the-armed-forces

By the way, Col. Kemp is a great friend of mine; I’ve been with him in Israel many times. He was Britain’s attache’ to the Israeli Defense Forces. Being British, he might not have the familiarity with our Constitution to know an American President must be tried as a civilian. Personally, in this situation, with the way Biden has misused and humiliated our military, it would be gratifying to see him “dishonorably discharged” from the Oval Office.

Here are a few more letters we received from readers who are as sickened as we are by what is happening.

From Morris S:

As a military Army infantry officer for 21 years that served two tours in Vietnam and one year in Africa, I am totally shocked, mad, hurt, embarrassed and sad for America by the actions or inactions by our supposed Commander-in-Chief. His total lack of leadership and understanding of what he is doing/has done to our country and the free world is absolutely dumbfounding!!!. I am especially sad for the Afghan people and the families of Afghans and Americans who have lost love ones fighting for freedom. The most precious thing in the world. I am one of the lucky ones.

From Carl S:

As a veteran, I'm beyond disgusted! The words I have for the best of the Democrats are not printable on this site. If we had a CIC and not a placeholder, the Embassy would be leveled and our jamming capability employed, and [we’d] open Baghram Air Base with both carrier groups launching a few hundred sorties a day to keep the Inbreds hunkered behind their rocks.

From Sharon:

Thank you for expressing everything that is in the hearts of true Americans. What a total disaster and disgrace this is, and, meanwhile, how many other things are being ignored while this horror is going on? This administration is a disaster for our country. Bring back America and our freedoms and our compassion and our strength. We have always been the greatest country in the World.

Reeder: RIP Don Everly

August 24, 2021

We’re all very sad to have to report that Don Everly died at home in Nashville Saturday at 84.

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/don-everly-everly-brothers-dead-84

Along with his late brother Phil, who died in 2014, they formed the Everly Brothers, one of the most important early rock groups. Their famous harmonies influenced many performers, particularly the Beatles. Paul McCartney once said that when he and John Lennon first started singing together, “I was Phil, and he was Don.” Keith Richards also called Don Everly “one of the best rhythm guitar players I’ve ever heard.”

Their original hits remain some of the most-played classics of the ‘50s and early ‘60s and have been covered by countless other artists, including “Bye-Bye Love,” “Devoted to You,” “All I Have to Do Is Dream,” “Till I Kissed You,” “Cathy’s Clown,” “When Will I Be Loved?”, “Let It Be Me,” “Crying in the Rain,” and of course, “Wake Up, Little Susie.” That song reached #1 on both the Billboard Pop and Country charts, despite being banned in Boston due to its “suggestive” lyrics about two teens who ruin their reputations by falling asleep at the drive-in and not waking up until long past curfew. When you look at what’s on the charts now, you can tell that was a very different era indeed.

The pressures of show business, drugs and personal issues caused acrimony between Don and Phil, who each went solo and didn’t speak to each other for years before they reconciled in the early ‘80s. It was such a thrilling turn of events in the music world that their comeback album, “EB84,” was produced by Dave Edmunds with songs contributed by such famous admirers as Jeff Lynne of ELO, Nick Lowe and Paul McCartney, who wrote their comeback hit, “On the Wings of a Nightingale.”

As another duo, the Righteous Brothers (who weren’t actually brothers) once sang, “If there’s a Rock and Roll Heaven, well, you know they’ve got a hell of a band.” Now, that band certainly has two great harmony singers.

This week President Joe Biden, Sec of Defense Austin Lloyd and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley should do our nation a favor and resign and let us replace them with Moe, Larry and Curly. Forgive my bluntness, but our nation stands in humiliation and dishonor before the world for the inept, incompetent, and disastrous manner in which this administration exited our 20 year involvement in Afghanistan and allowed the Taliban to take full control in a matter of mere hours. Getting out of there wasn’t the controversy. Most Americans felt 20 years of war there were more than enough and all 4 Presidents who oversaw our involvement wanted to bring the troops home. But this week, our exit from Afghanistan was a goat rodeo. The worst wasn’t that the ill-prepared Biden team embarrassed us; it’s that the sloppy way in which they did it put thousands of Americans’ lives at risk, and created an almost certain death sentence to the Afghans who fought alongside of us these 20 years and who were promised safe passage to America only to be betrayed in spectacular fashion and left behind like worn out shoes. But it’s not all we left behind. Over $83 BILLION worth of US taxpayer funded Blackhawk helicopters, airplanes, Humvees, and every kind of weapon and ammunition imaginable weren’t brought back to the taxpayers or even left in the hands of the Afghan freedom fighters. It was hurriedly abandoned and fell into the hands of the Taliban. It would be bad enough if they had actually defeated us to win such prizes, but it’s much worse. We just gathered it up and left it under the Christmas tree, wrapped and with a ribbon!

We betrayed the trust of more than the Afghans in spectacular fashion. We betrayed the trust of our NATO partners and signaled to our adversaries like China, Russia, Iran and North Korea that with Joe Biden in the White House, our word is dirt.

Did you see President Biden’s speech that he came out of hiding to deliver? After pointing fingers at the Afghan army, the Afghan people, and of course Donald Trump, he pretended to take responsibility for the messed up mission but you can’t blame everyone BUT yourself and then say “the buck stops here,” after you’ve passed the buck to everyone and anyone in sight.

Most disgusting was his flippant response to a question as to what he felt when he saw people lose their grip on the outside of a C-17 who were so desperate to get to the American safety and freedom they had been promised that they physically held on to the plane’s fuselage as it took off only to plunge helplessly to the earth. When asked what he felt when he saw those pitiful souls beg for passage out only to die a gruesome death of spiraling to the ground, he angrily retorted that that was 3 or 4 days ago. As if time will erase those images of human beings risking death to escape the brutality of the Taliban.

Sadly, no one has been fired for the dumpster fire that substituted for diplomacy in this Biden bungling. And probably no one will. But I hope whether you’re a Democrat, Republican or Independent, you will objectively be outraged by the incompetent failure of those entrusted to protect our nation and in whose hands our young servicemen and women live or die. We are a better nation than this. We can elect better leaders than these. And it’s time we purpose that we’ll repent of our sins against the civilized world and never let something so inexcusable disgrace our nation again.

“President Biden humiliated the United States [and] the United States Army. In my opinion --- and I don’t say this lightly and I’ve never said it about anybody else, any other leader in this position –- people have been talking about impeaching President Biden. I don’t believe President Biden should be impeached. He’s the Commander-In-Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces who’s just essentially surrendered to the Taliban. He shouldn’t be impeached; he should be court-martialed for betraying the United States of America and the United States Armed Forces.”

That was Ret. Col. Richard Kemp, former chairman of the Cobra Intelligence Group and commander of British forces in Afghanistan and other terrorist hotbeds, in an appearance on LIFE, LIBERTY & LEVIN Sunday night. He might not be aware that under our Constitution, a U.S. President cannot be court-martialed, as he is a civilian. That’s not to say he doesn’t deserve to be. We can joke all we want about taking the keys away from Grandpa, but it’s too late for that. He has already crashed the car.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/former-uk-commander-in-afghanistan-says-biden-shouldnt-be-impeached-he-should-be-court-martialed

“I think I would say that I’ve never heard such a disgraceful speech from the President of the United States of America as I heard the other day,” Kemp said earlier in the interview, “when he said ‘the buck stops with me,’ but he then went on to explain how the buck actually stopped with everybody else --- it wasn’t him to blame; it was everybody else, starting from President Trump. And suggesting for one moment that he was bound or was forced to carry out a policy because of President Trump’s policy is simply laughable, a pitiful excuse for what he did and what he’s now being humiliated [for].”

“It’s the greatest foreign policy disaster that I have seen in my lifetime,” he said, “of any nature, from any Western country.” Probably since World War II. It has “unbelievable strategic consequences,” he said, much more so than our withdrawal from Vietnam.

Col. Kemp pointed out that Biden focused in the first seven months of his presidency on reversing so many other Trump policies. When he came into office he was presented with various options; he did not have to do this. “It is not anyone else’s fault,” he said. “It is the fault of the President of the United States of America.”

It was in accusing Afghan forces of cowardice that Biden --- “a man who’s never fought himself, I should add” --- committed “a national disgrace,” Col. Kemp said. Fifty thousand Afghan fighters have been killed in action against the Taliban over the past seven years. That’s about two-thirds the size of the current British army, he said. Those fighters were doing most of the dying in Afghanistan.

He accused Biden of “pulling the rug out from under the feet” of the Afghan soldiers. They had depended on our air and logistic support. Biden abandoned them, and that was a devastating blow to their morale. They knew at that point that they would never prevail. It was after doing this to them that Biden accused them of cowardice. As a former fighter himself, Kemp said he was “horrified” by that.

He sees the consequences of what Biden has done as “absolutely devastating for the whole of the Western world," singlehandedly destroying the credibility of NATO at a time when the terrorist threat is greater than it was at 9/11. “Jihadists around the world have been celebrating,” he said, adding that includes the president of Pakistan, “who SHOULD be celebrating, because Pakistan significantly funded the Taliban throughout the conflict, while at the same time being paid vast amounts of money by America and Britain.”

They are reinvigorated by this, he said, and will launch attacks around the world. “They know there’s no fear of Western intervention now,” he said. “That’s finished; that’s history...They know that, and so they’ll be even bolder than before.”

Col. Kemp also noted two other powers who are celebrating: Russia and China. They’ll be emboldened, too. “They will see that they’ve got pretty much an open field to do almost whatever they like.” As for other nations we might want to bring to our side, he said they would see us as “fair-weather-friends.” Tragically, they’ll see Russia and China as more reliable allies than we are. He said the president of Taiwan has reacted by saying they need to look at strengthening their own defenses. They should, of course, but they’re not capable of defending themselves against China unaided. Ukraine and Israel are also in grave circumstances.

Col. Kemp noted the irony that one reason Biden has given for pulling out of Afghanistan is that he needed to focus more on China and Russia. “This is completely the reverse of what he expected to happen.” China, Russia, Pakistan and Iran will be more demanding now, to enrich themselves and “to use what they have there to hit against the West.”

It’s not America alone who brought this about, he said; there are European nations, including Britain, who could have done more to try to influence Biden in his decision. But America bears most of the blame. He also made it clear that he meant no disrespect whatsoever toward the American fighting forces, just the leadership.

The stability we’ve grown used to has been shaken by the actions of the United States, he said, in a way that’s “far more consequential” than threats from covid and climate change. He sees the U.S. going into “deep decline” after this. China will be more dominant. “Our world just became vastly more dangerous.”

Col. Kemp does believe the situation can and must be righted, though it might take several decades. He believes that America is the greatest country in the world. And here’s one final quote for all those young Americans being taught in American schools that America is evil:

“The world cannot afford for that status [of the United States], and that position of leadership, and all the good it’s done around the world, decade after decade, I don’t think we can allow it to go, so...I, as a Brit, would certainly encourage the people of the United States of America to turn the situation around, and you ‘ain’t’ gonna turn it ‘round with the people at the helm who are there now.”

Court-martialing Biden would be a great start, and I wish we could do it. But it’s that whole disreputable crew –- the Democrat leadership –- that is responsible for getting Biden (and Kamala) nominated, for knowingly covering up his cognitive inadequacy, for changing rules to make it easier to elect him (I won’t even go into the various means of suspected cheating), and to essentially run his administration. As far as I’m concerned, they have all betrayed America and need to go.

…………………………….

For when you have time for more in-depth reading, I highly recommend this piece by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. It offers a historical perspective and is very much in keeping with what Col. Kemp has said.

https://institute.global/tony-blair/tony-blair-why-we-must-not-abandon-people-afghanistan-their-sakes-and-ours

Friday morning, Reuters released an investigative report into the violence in the Capitol on January 6th, and it obliterates all the tearful tall tales from the left about the giant Trump-led conspiracy to overthrow the government. It was more like the story of the dog that chased cars and didn’t know what to do with one when he caught it.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/spencerbrown/2021/08/20/fbi-january-6-findings-n2594466

According to officials quoted in the Reuters report, the FBI “at this point believes the violence was not centrally coordinated by far-right groups or prominent supporters of then-President Donald Trump." It has also “so far found no evidence that [Trump] or people directly around him were involved in organizing the violence.” Up to 95% of the cases are “one-offs” (i.e., someone saw the door open and wandered in.) Maybe five percent involved organized groups like Oath Keepers or Proud Boys who allegedly had planned to break in, but “they found no evidence that the groups had serious plans about what to do if they made it inside.”

This is why most of the charges have been things like “conspiracy” instead of really serious counts like racketeering or insurrection: because there’s no evidence of any broader plot than that they talked in advance about their plans to trespass.

It kind of throws a monkey wrench into all the Democrat histrionics about it being the biggest threat to the federal government since the Civil War. Say what you will about the over-matched and out-gunned Confederates, but at least they didn’t show up at Gettysburg unarmed, wearing T-shirts and Viking helmets and shooting nothing but selfies.

Quorum Achieved

August 20, 2021

One of the stupidest and most futile political stunts of all time, the Texas House Democrats who ran away to DC to block passage of an election integrity law and spread COVID, has ended the way anyone with a brain always knew it would: enough of them have given up and gone home that there’s now a quorum to pass the bill in the heavily GOP legislature.

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2021/08/19/breaking-texas-democrats-fold-and-its-all-over-but-the-crying-n429830

On the bright side, if they intended to spread COVID, they did accomplish that.

And in a somewhat related story: after hearing for months that Georgia’s new election integrity law was “Jim Crow on steroids” and would suppress the minority vote, new data shows that 95% of eligible voters over 18 are now registered, giving Georgia one of the highest voter registration rates of any state.

https://redstate.com/sister-toldjah/2021/08/19/stacey-abrams-hardest-hit-as-media-dem-narrative-about-georgia-being-a-jim-crow-state-crumbles-n429757

And for those crediting the high registration rate to Stacey Abrams, sorry: it’s actually mostly due to the automatic DMV voter registration system that Georgia’s had since 2016.

Rating Kamala Harris

August 19, 2021

Vice President Kamala Harris has a pretty dismal approval rating, but she’s still popular on America’s college campuses, where young people who don’t know any better get spoonfed daily doses of leftist indoctrination that can’t hold up to facts or logic. To prove it, Campus Reform took its camera to Georgetown University to ask students’ opinions on Harris.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/kevindowneyjr/2021/08/17/watch-students-praise-kamala-harris-but-cant-name-a-single-achievement-n1470271

Not surprisingly, they gushed about how “amazing” it is to have a woman of color as Vice President. They were asked if they approved of her achievements and the policies she champions. Oh, yes, those are great, too! Then came the killshot: Could you please name a few of her policies you agree with and her achievements you approve of?

“Uh…could we cut this part out?” No, they couldn't name a single achievement.

Harris certainly won’t be able to cite “good timing” as one of her accomplishments, since she’s already taking flak for her plans to go ahead with a scheduled Asian trip that will include a stop in (déjà vu) Vietnam.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/kamala-harris-vietnam-afghanistan-comparisons-fall-of-saigon

But in her defense, and I mean this sincerely, Harris may have one accomplishment to point to, and that’s her refusal to let Biden throw her under the bus on Afghanistan. There were stories that she was involved in the botched pullout planning, and she was reportedly being set up to give a press conference on Afghanistan on Sunday, while Biden was still hiding out at Camp David. That never happened, and an inside White House source told Becker News that Harris was overheard yelling, “They will not pin this (BLEEP) on me!”

https://beckernews.com/you-will-not-pin-this-sht-on-me-kamala-harris-refused-to-face-american-people-as-afghanistan-collapsed-40878/

Other liberals, from Nancy Pelosi to Stephen Colbert (who obscenely tried to concoct a moral equivalency by comparing the handful of unarmed jerks in the Capitol on January 6th to the Taliban), are twisting themselves into pretzels and setting fire to their own reputations trying to paper over Biden’s tragic incompetence. But if Harris really had nothing to do with his Afghanistan debacle, and she had the spine to refuse to take the blame and save Biden from responsibility for his own actions, then that’s something I can actually respect.

Afghanistan Roundup

August 19, 2021

The adults are back in the room, the best and the brightest are once again in charge, and competence and normality have returned. At least, that’s what we were told when Mr. “40 Years in the Senate and Never Right About a Single Issue” replaced Trump as President. Here’s today’s round-up of how well that’s going:

We now know more about why Afghanistan’s government and armed forces collapsed so swiftly, and it wasn’t inevitable at all. It was due to catastrophically dumb decisions made by Biden and his crew, who ignored warnings from military experts, closed down Bagram air base and pulled all the US air power and maintenance support that the Afghan forces needed before Americans were out or the nation was secured. He also did it during what’s known in Afghanistan as “fighting season,” when the Taliban are primed to attack, rather than waiting until the bitter winter was starting, when they tend to go home and hunker down.

In short, the disaster wasn’t necessarily in the pullout, but in the way the pullout was handled. Biden can point all the fingers on both hands, but this tragic and humiliating military, security and humanitarian catastrophe is his to own.

https://www.westernjournal.com/recent-biden-blunder-wrecked-afghan-army-doomed-rapid-defeat/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=empowerconservatives

And here’s some more on that from Austin Bay…

https://strategypage.com/on_point/202108172241.aspx

There are as many as 15,000 Americans essentially trapped behind enemy lines in Afghanistan, and the Biden White House apparently has no plan to get them out.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/no-plans-to-evacuate-americans-outside-kabul-report-says

Well, other than assuring us everything will be fine and assuming the Taliban will keep its promises. That’s already working out just great…

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2021/08/17/planes-flying-out-of-kabul-half-empty-as-taliban-beat-people-on-road-to-the-airport-n428460

I particularly enjoyed this statement:

"Our message remains for American citizens and for others who have expressed interest in relocation out of Afghanistan: shelter in place until and unless you receive a communication from the U.S. embassy." Yes, I’m sure a number of people have “expressed interest in relocation out of Afghanistan.” They make it sound like they're looking for a real estate agent.

Here’s some info on the billions of dollars’ worth of US military equipment that’s being left behind for the Taliban to use against us.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/victoria-taft/2021/08/18/left-behind-billions-in-u-s-equipment-for-the-afghanistan-taliban-to-use-against-us-n1470346

Another thing Biden was supposed to return to the White House was the respect of other nations. That’s going just swimmingly…

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/asia-pacific/nato-allies-urge-rethink-on-alliance-after-biden-s-unilateral-afghanistan-exit-1.4649515

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/politics/15901759/boris-johnson-takes-swipe-at-joe-biden/

https://www.westernjournal.com/israeli-publication-slams-biden-afghanistan-issues-warning-americans-need-hear/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=empowerconservatives

It appears likely that the Biden White House inadvertently revealed the identities of CIA operatives in dangerous places for the sake of a photo op.

https://www.westernjournal.com/white-house-makes-massive-mistake-1-photo-outs-intelligence-officials-twitter/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=empowerconservatives

One of the current leaders of the Taliban that helped it rise back to power is a familiar name, since he’s one of the five terrorists released from Gitmo by Barack Obama in exchange for Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl.

https://www.westernjournal.com/mastermind-behind-taliban-takeover-part-gitmo-5-released-obama-2014/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=empowerconservatives

China, seeing Biden’s obvious weakness and reluctance to stand by our allies, is setting the stage for war and threatening to retake Taiwan.

https://www.westernjournal.com/china-thrilled-bidens-afghanistan-disaster-immediately-sets-stage-war/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=empowerconservatives

So all told, the country’s in the very best of hands! Well, if voters wanted "normal" back, they got it. Personally, I preferred prosperity, secure borders, energy independence, Middle East peace and the occasional mean tweet.

Former US women’s soccer team goalkeeper Hope Solo said she believes star player and leftist activist Megan Rapanoe bullied some of the other players into taking a knee during the National Anthem.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2021/08/18/megan-rapinoe-bullied-other-players-to-take-a-knee-for-the-anthem-teammate-says-n1470489

It would be ironic but par for the course for leftists to virtue-signal opposition to “oppression” by oppressing other people into knuckling under to their views.

Solo said there are “so many political issues for athletes” and they feel like they’re “carrying the weight of the world on their backs…There’s been a lot of pressure, and ultimately at the end of the day, our number one focus should and has always been to win first.”

Except that Rapanoe’s divisive influence and political grandstanding might have helped the US team that was favored to win first come in third instead. The best response to anyone, on your team or off, who tries to pressure you to take political stands that you think don’t belong on the field isn’t to get disheartened or to cave in. It’s to tell the agitator, “Politics belong off the field. We’re here to win. If you can’t contribute 100% to that goal, then leave and make room for someone who can.”

No matter how we feel about social media or what our level of awareness is about how it operates, its algorithms still manage to shape our conversations, if only by inspiring us to find work-arounds against the political censorship we know is happening.

In time, it starts to become second nature to refrain from using “trigger words” and go only so far, not over the line on certain subjects, even if we have solid reasoning behind what we want to say. Over time, we start to build a lawyerly sense of where that line is. The distinctions can be very subtle. For example, a person comes to understand that it’s permissible to say there was some evidence of voter fraud in the 2020 election, but not that there is evidence that Trump really won the election. That will be labeled by agenda-driven “fact”-checkers as “misinformation” and “conspiracy theory” and get that person suspended, demonetized, perhaps cast adrift to find an “alternative” platform.

To cite another example, for a long time, it was not permissible to say there was evidence that COVID-19 originated in a virology lab in Wuhan, China, where they were studying bat coronaviruses, rather than a nearby “wet market” as the CCP continued to insist. That would have been labeled by “fact”-checkers as “misinformation” and gotten a person similarly suspended, demonetized, etc.. If a person wanted to communicate candidly about this, it was necessary to find another platform, one with far less reach.

Oh, but then it turned out that this “misinformation” about the origin of the virus was most likely true.

Were the “fact”-checkers chastened by this turn of events? Did they say, “Oh, we’re so sorry! We realize the error of our ways and from now on will respect your free speech rights and leave you alone to present your own opinions and evidence, and just stay the heck out of it”? No, they went right on as they had. No apologies.

And the scrutiny never stopped. Over time, we of the conservative persuasion gradually learn to sense automatically when we need to pull back from what we wanted to say. If we’re still going to be on, for example, Twitter, we know this is what we have to do. It becomes an unconscious process.

And that’s exactly what Big Tech wants of us, especially if we are conservative. Their goal is for us to exercise self-censorship, as automatically as Winston Smith did in front of the telescreen. (I know, I apologize for yet another Orwell reference.) They’re training people to do it. It makes their job SO much easier.

Even some people on the left have figured this out, after becoming victims of the left's obsession with ideological purity and its inclination to eat its own. Glenn Greenwald and Naomi Wolfe are two who come to mind. And that’s what makes them worth reading. This link introduces you to Wolfe, if you don’t know her, and also provides links to various alternative social media platforms.

https://www.nationandstate.com/2021/07/30/naomi-wolf-on-censorship-vaccine-passports-and-the-reversal-of-my-body-my-choice-teaser/

All of the above is primarily to set the stage for a story in the WASHINGTON FREE BEACON about a function of social media that apparently is not being interfered with at all: organized Islamic terrorism. As this report says, Taliban leaders have had no problem spreading propaganda and establishing control over Kabul as they continued their takeover of Afghanistan. It was easy; they used Twitter. Also WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook.

https://freebeacon.com/national-security/taliban-leaders-used-twitter-and-whatsapp-to-help-capture-kabul/

While conservatives on social media were busy trying to find a way just to say what was on their minds, members of the Taliban were using it to pave their own way into Kabul after President Biden abruptly left it to them, boldly spreading lies to the citizens there to get them to give up with little resistance. As they entered the city, a Taliban spokesman tweeted out that the residents of Kabul were welcoming them in.

Their propaganda apparently even snowed observers in our own country and around the world. As Ned Price, our State Department spokesperson, shakily announced, the U.N. Security counsel issued a joint press statement calling for a new government that was “inclusive” and involved the “full and meaningful participation of women," as if that's going to happen. He went on to say that “the Council spoke with one voice, to underscore that Afghanistan must abide by its international obligations, including international humanitarian law for the safety and security of all Afghans and international citizens.” Also, pigs must fly.

I wonder what President Biden is going to do when the Taliban fail to follow instructions. Make them pay, after we just pulled out? After they've taken all the military equipment we just left there? Biden won't do anything. The Taliban knew Trump would've hit them hard, but, as with China regarding Taiwan, they don’t have to worry about him now.

But back to social media, and the role it plays here. As the FREE BEACON reports, the Taliban have been using WhatsApp and Twitter for years, to share their official statements. Now, they’re using these platforms to announce new rules to the people of Kabul. They even used WhatsApp to set up an emergency broadcast system. Isn’t technology wonderful?

Twitter and Facebook regularly ban ISIS from their platforms, but they appear to be letting the Taliban broadcast without incident. This is happening even though Twitter has a policy banning “hateful conduct” as well as “threatening or promoting terrorism.” The spokesperson who told this to the FREE BEACON did not say whether or not they consider the Taliban to be a terrorist organization. A Facebook spokesperson weaseled out of a specific answer, saying that they take action against accounts belonged to “sanctioned” groups but refusing to comment on specific cases.

To quote the BEACON: “Several Taliban spokesmen have maintained Twitter accounts for years, regularly tweeting updates on negotiations and regional battles. The accounts often post photos and videos from frontlines, which are then copied and shared by pro-Taliban accounts.”

The ultimate irony: This is going on while former President Donald Trump continues to be banned by both Twitter and Facebook, who blame him for the unrest at the Capitol Building on January 6. The reason: “incitement to violence.”

Immediately after Monday’s brief speech, President Biden went back to his Camp David vacation, and the White House continued its silence. For those who wonder how the Administration can just shut down at such a time, conservative commentator Ian McKelvey believes that both the Afghan debacle and the silence are intentional.

https://twitter.com/ian_mckelvey/status/1427232830103371778/photo/1

McKelvey unearthed an article in The Atlantic magazine reporting that Biden had always been the strongest advocate in the Obama White House for pulling out of Afghanistan, regardless of the consequences for the Afghan people because he didn’t think there would be any political price to pay for it. Obama’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, wrote in his diary in 2010 that when he reminded Biden of America’s obligations to Afghans like the girl in the Kabul school, Biden replied, “F--- that. We don’t have to worry about that. We did it in Vietnam; Nixon and Kissenger got away with it.”

So if he seems uncaring about the fate of the Afghan people who trusted us, he is. And if he refuses to talk to the media for a week or let anyone in his Administration talk, maybe it’s because he thinks that after a week of silence, the lapdog media will just let this story “blow over” and forget about it.

You know who won’t forget that we have a weak President who puts political calculations ahead of principle and commitment to our allies? Every enemy we have on Earth, starting with China, which claimed it shows that the US abandons its allies and pointedly asked, “Is this some kind of omen for Taiwan’s future fate?

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/afghanistan-withdrawal-china-taliban

As the Taliban zeroed in on Kabul, Afghanistan, in one of the most distressing examples of American military failure in our lifetimes, it was interesting to find out what the Department of Homeland Security is really concerned about.

It appears they’re worried about you and me.

On Saturday, conservative writer/news editor Jack Posobiec tweeted a screen shot of an NBC graphic that showed the DHS’s list of “Potential Terror Threats” in a “national terrorism alert” in advance of “the 9/11 20th anniversary.” Funny, this list of terror threats didn’t mention the Taliban or any other militant Islamists. Here’s what it listed as tip-offs that someone might pose a terrorist threat:

1. OPPOSITION TO COVID MEASURES

2. CLAIMS OF ELECTION FRAUD, BELIEF TRUMP CAN BE REINSTATED

3. 9/11 ANNIVERSARY AND RELIGIOUS HOLIDAYS

The DHS is warning of the danger posed by “grievance-based groups.” As reported in BREITBART NEWS, an ABC news bulletin said that DHS’s National Terrorism Advisory System bulletin, issued on Friday, warned of threats from common domestic terrorists --- individuals engaged in grievance-based violence, “including grievances over public health safety measures and perceived government restrictions.”

Wait a minute. “PERCEIVED” government restrictions? There have been some very real restrictions on personal behavior, but you’d better not chafe at them, even just a little bit. or the government might "perceive" you as a threat.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/08/14/dhs-labels-opponents-of-covid-measures-as-potential-terror-threats-during-protests/

Let’s take a look at just the first two of these bullet points. (NOTE: I'm prefacing the following analysis with a strong sarcasm alert.) First, “opposition to covid measures.” I assume this would include any such measures that the government chooses to impose or even talks about imposing, including lockdowns, restrictions on the size of gatherings, “vaccine passports,” and face masks. In Philadelphia, starting September 1, the city government will be requiring unvaccinated employees to wear TWO masks, a cloth one OVER a surgical one. I am not kidding. (I guess they should just be glad they aren’t getting fired; must be a contractual thing or you could safely bet they would be.) And new employees will have to show proof of being fully vaccinated as a condition of their employment. I assume that policy applies whether or not they’ve already had covid.

Here’s the report in the WASHINGTON EXAMINER. The city also announced that all Philadelphia health care workers and all university students, staff and faculty must be vaccinated by October 15.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/philadelphia-all-employees-vaccinated-two-masks

If you have a problem with such requirements, you just might be a POTENTIAL TERROR THREAT.

On Friday, flag-waving protesters showed up at the Washington State Capitol building for a protest against Democrat Gov. Jay Inslee’s forced vaccine mandate for local healthcare systems. Similar protests occurred in Kentucky and Tennessee, over both vaccine and mask mandates. “We want to have our own right and have our own decision...to wear a mask or not,” said one woman in Tennessee.

Well, I just don’t know about this lady --- she sounds pretty dangerous to me. And they were waving American flags, like those "insurrectionists" at the DC Capitol Building, so they must be hotheads. It’s a good thing Homeland Security is monitoring people like this woman who dare to question official mandates instead of just quietly falling into line.

And if you agree with her, you just might be a POTENTIAL TERROR THREAT.

Let’s move on to the second indication of potential threat: “claims of election fraud, belief Trump can be reinstated.” The HHS sees danger signs in “conspiracy theories on perceived election fraud.” (There’s that pesky word “PERCEIVED” again.)

Well, apparently “the MyPillow Guy,” Mike Lindell, is on HHS’s terror watch list. Don’t you feel safer knowing the Department of Homeland Security is keeping their eye on him, and people like him? I wonder if he gets subjected to enhanced security measures at the airport or perhaps is on the no-fly list. Come to think of it, he has his own plane. That might be the only way he can get around.

Recall that we were one of the few news/opinion sites that gave Lindell the time of day; we covered all three days of his conference as objectively as possible and kept an open mind about the evidence he presented. And there IS a lot of evidence suggestive of fraud. Though we never for one minute thought that Trump could be reinstalled as President –- the Constitution doesn’t provide for that –- we know there was fraud. Heck, there probably has been some amount of fraud in every big election since the Flintstones voted on stone tablets. This time, though, with all the mail-in balloting and rule changes (let alone any problems with the electronic voting), there was a lot. Did it change the outcome? We can’t say for sure, but as observant and thinking human beings we do have our doubts about how it turned out.

Uh-oh...we just might be a POTENTIAL TERROR THREAT!

As startling as it was to see this graphic, the Homeland Security's focus on those of its own citizens who dislike unproven and punishing covid restrictions and have doubts about the 2020 election is not new. In a DHS advisory about Domestic Violent Extremists (DVE’s) posted in January –- on the heels of the January 6 debacle at the Capitol Building –- they singled out “anger over COVID-19 restrictions” and “the 2020 election results” as motivating issues.

https://www.dhs.gov/ntas/advisory/national-terrorism-advisory-system-bulletin-january-27-2021

Ned Ryun, founder and CEO of American Majority, called this new DHS bulletin “a read-between-the-lines threat” on Tucker Carlson’s Monday show. He saw it as “targeting Americans for ‘wrongthink.’” He observed that “the elite deeply resent us questioning their narrative.” He personally has questions about the obstacles being placed in the way of election audits, for example, and also about the real covid mortality rates for younger people who don’t have a serious co-morbidity. Should he be considered a potential threat just for asking the questions? When you’re trying to make half the country be defined as domestic terrorists, he said, it “does not end well." They would understand this, "if they would actually study history, instead of gender studies...”

Uh-oh; he’s probably on the watch list, too. Rest assured that even at a time when Biden’s total debacle of a Presidency makes us weaker and more vulnerable to terrorist attacks --- REAL terrorist attacks --- the Department of Homeland Security is keeping us safe from the MyPillow Guy and plain-spoken conservatives like Ned Ryun. And you, and me. And about half the country, for one thing or another.

History Made

August 17, 2021

The Biden Administration now has a humiliating, tragic, international disaster on its watch that will go down in history (if we still have any honest historians) alongside the Bay of Pigs, the fall of Saigon and the siege in Benghazi. If any book is written about Biden’s handling of this latest and most tragic of his string of disasters, it could easily be named “Profiles in Fecklessness.” Biden has ordered 5,000 US troops in to help evacuate people, and there are reports of attacks by US bombers, but not on the Taliban. They're blowing up our own military planes and other weapons that the Afghan forces abandoned before the Taliban can seize them.

Biden was on vacation at Camp David when Afghanistan began to fall apart, and his silence was deafening (even his spokesperson, Jen Psaki, is gone for the week.) Filling the void were replays of his now-notorious July 8th press conference in which he assured us his Afghanistan pullout would be orderly and it was unlikely the Taliban would come back. Other high Administration officials also assured us that a Taliban takeover could be repelled because it wasn’t the type of thing that could happen between a Frida and a Monday --- which is precisely what happened.

https://www.westernjournal.com/former-cia-officer-looks-back-bidens-july-speech-infamous-devastating-news-conference-us-president/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

https://www.westernjournal.com/biden-lying-just-ignorant-said-asked-taliban-takeover/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

Biden is facing heavy criticism from across the political spectrum in the US and internationally.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/biden-admin-faces-bipartisan-criticism-over-collapse-of-afghanistan_3949755.html

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/boris-johnson-blames-us-and-biden-for-afghanistan-collapse

Former President Trump called on Biden “to resign in disgrace for what he has allowed to happen to Afghanistan, along with the tremendous surge in COVID, the Border catastrophe, the destruction of energy independence, and our crippled economy.” There have also been calls for the resignations of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley for bungling Afghanistan while focusing on wokeness in the military, Trump’s nonexistent “coup” plot and Tucker Carlson. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was reduced to imploring the Taliban to act civilized, which is like begging a charging rhinoceros to behave itself and not trample you.

https://redstate.com/jerrywilson/2021/08/15/secretary-of-state-antony-blinken-embarrasses-us-in-front-of-the-taliban-again-n427090

In return, Biden tried to blame Trump for sticking him with the Afghanistan pullout decision, which I guess was the only Trump policy he thought was not reversible.

https://thefederalist.com/2021/08/16/no-biden-cant-blame-trump-for-the-afghanistan-withdrawal-disaster/

But while it would be easy and politically expedient (and not unfair) to blame Biden for this catastrophe, the truth is that the real failure here is of our “intelligence” agencies and the current military leadership. Trump also planned to remove troops from Afghanistan, and his plans also relied on the “intelligence” he was receiving about the relative strength of the Taliban (although I assume that unlike Biden, he would have paid attention to military leaders who’d actually been there.)

Those agencies were completely blindsided by the Taliban’s swift advance and by news that they already had shadow governments set up in various cities and were paying off officials to surrender. Any President’s decisions are only as sound as the “intelligence” he’s given, and both Trump and Biden were assured that the Afghan government was strong enough to hold and any assault would take months and could be repelled. They were devastatingly wrong on every count, and a lot of people should lose their jobs over it, not that anyone is ever held to account anymore.

Biden’s not responsible for the failure of intelligence, but he is responsible for being caught flatfooted and freezing when things began to spiral out of control.

Countless lives will be lost and innocent people tortured, raped and enslaved, and other nations will hesitate to trust us again, because our CIA and top military brass failed miserably. Maybe they were too preoccupied with trying to frame the last President and his associates, or focusing on the “real” threat to America (white supremacists), and couldn’t be bothered to notice what was happening in Afghanistan. In a better world, they’d be going to prison, but let’s hope and pray that the next Republican President – in 2024 – will at the very least issue a blizzard of pink slips to the FBI, CIA, NSA and Pentagon, and have these deadly incompetents and useless political operatives forcibly escorted off the premises.

Evil Triumphs

August 17, 2021

The horrific military and humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan is unfolding so rapidly that by the time you read this, it’s likely the situation will already have greatly changed. Simply having to write about it is one of the most difficult things I’ve had to do since getting into the media.

It sickens me to think of the magnitude of this disaster: the swift triumph of evil and the Taliban’s humiliating mocking of America as they seize our advanced weapons and vow to spread radical Islam worldwide from the Presidential palace on the eve of the anniversary of 9/11 (yes, the Taliban was speaking to the press while President Biden was hiding out)…

https://www.westernjournal.com/absolute-victory-taliban-boldly-proclaim-new-direction-islamic-law-will-come-not-just-afghanistan-world/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

…the pain that our soldiers who sacrificed so much to help the Afghan people must be feeling as they watch everything they fought for unravel within days; and most of all, the terror of the people of Afghanistan, especially those who helped and trusted us, abandoned to face the wrath of pitiless conquerors. Some were so desperate to escape, they tried to cling to the sides and landing gear of an American plane taking off from the Kabul airport. There were reports that at least three fell to their deaths.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2021/08/16/horror-at-the-kabul-airport-n427145

https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/live-updates-taliban-gain-more-ground-in-afghanistan-as-they-close-in-on-kabul

And of course, as the Taliban took control of Kabul, one of their first orders of business was to release imprisoned al-Qaeda and ISIS terrorists so they could go back to killing and enslaving innocent people.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/terror-on-the-rise-taliban-frees-thousands-of-prisoners-from-former-u-s-base

Afghanistan’s first female ambassador Roya Rahmani tried to reassure American soldiers that their sacrifices were not in vain. She told Fox News, “You made a huge difference…in lives of people you haven’t met and will never meet," reminding them that Afghan girls were once banned from going to school or leaving the house without a male escort. Sadly, I fear that will happen again.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/afghan-ambassador-roya-rahmani-veterans-devastated-taliban-insurgency

She also noted that 70% of the population is under 30 and has only known life under the protection of the US forces. That makes it even more tragic to think what might happen to them with the return of the brutal Taliban. It should send a chilling lesson to every over-privileged, Ivy League, America-hating socialist that if you tear down this country and its institutions that give you a level of freedom unprecedented in the history of the world, you may be shocked at how swiftly things can change for the worse. If you think you're "oppressed" in America, try Afghanistan under the Taliban. We already have China and Russia as threats, and now it appears we’re about to have a newly-empowered Taliban armed with our weapons. Do you still think Trump voters and the weather are our biggest worries?

Last week, the Texas Supreme Court made news when it ruled that the nearly 60 Democrat state legislators who ran away to Washington, DC, to prevent the vote on a Texas election integrity bill could be civilly detained and returned to the Texas House chamber.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/texas-supreme-court-allows-for-arrest-of-democrats-who-dont-show-up-to-legislature

They lifted a district judge’s temporary protection order that had blocked the threat of arrest for those legislators. Not only had they been lying shamelessly about the bill, calling it “the voter suppression bill” and, of course, “Jim Crow” when it is nothing of the kind, but they were staying away from the Capitol so the Republicans wouldn’t have the requisite 51 Democrats for a quorum. The Court made it clear, however, that in evading their responsibility, they were in the wrong. Abbott spokesperson Renae Eze said, “We look forward to the Supreme Court upholding the rule of law and stopping another stall tactic by the Texas Democrats.”

The Democrats had said that while they were in DC, they would be busy lobbying for federal election legislation. As we’ve discussed here, the Constitution clearly intends state legislatures to run elections, not the federal government. But since when have Democrats cared what the Constitution intended when that was at odds with what THEY intended?

Anyway, now to the breaking news, which again involves the Texas Supreme Court. On Sunday, they issued another ruling, this time regarding the ongoing power struggle between Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who has been fighting for personal choice in the response to COVID-19, and Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, who has taken just the opposite tack with his reimposition of compulsory mask-wearing in schools, government offices and indoor business locations. To cut to the chase, Abbott won this round.

https://trendingpolitics.com/breaking-texas-supreme-court-sides-with-gov-abbot-and-says-mask-mandates-illegal-knab/

I’ll walk you through the legal steps that led us here.

On July 29th, Gov. Abbott issued an executive order that “removed local authority over measures to lessen the severity of the pandemic,” effectively prohibiting local mask mandates throughout the state. Importantly, the ban didn’t prohibit anyone, anywhere in Texas, from wearing a mask if they preferred to; they just couldn’t be MADE to. Parents who wanted to mask-up their kids before sending them to school were perfectly free to do so.

Judge Jenkins, set on requiring masks for everyone, declared a “local emergency,” which he argued gave him the power to issue such a dictum. (You’d think everyone would see the problem with one person, a county judge, being able to hand himself the authority to exert that level of control on personal behavior.) He did this on the basis of a reported surge in covid cases and the threat of the new “Delta” variant, which, though apparently more contagious than the original covid, has not been shown to be more virulent.

On Friday, a decision by the 5th Court of Appeals allowed local officials such as Judge Jenkins to require masks in schools and indoor spaces, so Dallas businesses geared up to enforce mask-wearing with their customers, some of whom they knew would be angry about it. But what could they do? For your entertainment pleasure, here’s a portion of a message one exasperated Dallas business owner sent out to his clientele and posted on the door of his building...

“Dearest Clients:

"On Wednesday, August 11th 2021 at 2:11 PM, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins issued an executive order requiring all commercial businesses to develop and implement a health and safety policy. This policy must require at a minimum universal indoor masking for guests and employees alike. This notice will serve as [our] health and safety policy.

“In accordance with the above executive order, effective the moment we swing open our doors on Thursday, August 12th, all team members and clients will be required to wear a mask while inside the [building]. Don’t give us any sh** when you come in, don’t complain and don’t start trying to enlighten anyone about the risk/reward of wearing masks.

“We don’t care. We’re as sick of wearing and talking about them as you are. However, we have neither the time nor inclination to mount any kind of resistance.”

This message should give you some idea of how divided and on-edge the citizens of Dallas are about this issue. For many months, business owners bent over backwards to comply with lockdowns, “distancing” and mask-wearing. Many Americans lost their businesses, some for good. And after all that, after a year-and-a-half, when people seem to have pretty much come to terms with the risks and were starting to live their lives somewhat normally again, a local judge acts all by himself to slap them down once more.

There’s one big problem, though, with using covid infection rates to declare a state of “local emergency” in Dallas County. Judge Jenkins is also welcoming immigrants who cross illegally at the Texas-Mexico border, many infected with COVID and not being tested, let alone vaccinated, before they arrive in Dallas. They are being bused here from the Rio Grande Valley, and Jenkins apparently has no problem with the threat posed to public health by this.

It’s happening because the border city of Laredo, Texas, sued President Biden’s Department of Homeland Security in July in the Laredo Division of the Southern District Court of Texas for making them accommodate thousands of people crossing illegally in the Rio Grande Valley. Their city just wasn’t equipped to do this, they argued. So they reached a settlement with the DHS --- which I assume pleased Laredo but which involved busing the immigrants to Austin, Dallas and Houston instead! Buses reportedly arrive throughout the day now in Dallas, with no word on when this might ever stop.

https://myrgv.com/local-news/immigration/2021/08/10/laredo-dhs-reach-compromise-on-migrant-lawsuit/

If Jenkins wants to argue that rising COVID rates are causing a “local emergency” in Dallas County, doesn’t he also have to do something about the busloads arriving there every day filled with untested, unvaccinated migrants, many of whom are surely infected and highly contagious with the “Delta” variant? Mexico’s infection rates are very high.

https://www.infobae.com/new-resizer/dP_PAg_9vWWCtE7YBXtiwoViURM=/1200x628/filters:format(jpg):quality(85)//cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/infobae/KYYQAVEXL5CS7HX4XUQGI5PYXQ.jpeg

And yet the buses keep rolling into Dallas. Austin and Houston, too.

Either we are fighting a pandemic, or we’re not. Either covid is an emergency, or it’s not. I hope that in making their final ruling in this case, which could take weeks or months, the Texas Supreme Court will think about that.

From the border to the economy to America’s energy independence to Middle East stability, the Biden Administration has been acting like a giant wrecking ball, from day one reversing every policy Trump put in place, even if it was working perfectly, because “TRUUUUUMP!!!!” And now, with the disasters starting to pile up, it appears that President Biden can’t even keep track of all the messes he caused himself.

https://www.westernjournal.com/humiliation-biden-stopped-trumps-insulin-executive-order-now-scrambling-make-things-right/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=empowerconservatives

On Thursday, Biden gave a speech lamenting that “right here in America, we pay the highest prescription drug costs of any developed nation in the world.” As an example, he went on at great length about a diabetic small business owner named Gail from Denver whom he met recently, and who has to pay high prices for insulin.

He used that as a springboard to talk about the 34 million other Americans suffering from high insulin prices and his plan to lower the cost.

It didn’t take long for many people online to remind him that one of his first actions as President was to inexplicably reverse a Trump executive order that would have lowered the cost of insulin and EpiPens by making clinics pass discounts on to patients that usually went to middle men.

There are more details at the link. The excuse was that Trump’s order was facing lawsuits by drug makers and had to be vetted to ensure it was lawful. Question: would ANY policy that lowers drug costs not face lawsuits by drug makers? Instead of fighting the lawsuits, Biden reversed Trump’s policy that would have lowered insulin prices, and now he’s lamenting high insulin prices. It’s possible he did actually forget that he signed that. Still, I find his concern about this issue about as convincing as his concern about our porous Southern border that only became porous after he took a wrecking ball to it.

Related: Ironically, considering Biden claimed he was bringing back respect for the law by reversing all those Trump policies, a federal judge Friday ruled that Biden acted illegally and harmfully in reversing the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy on migrants.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/judge-biden-admin-trump-era-remain-in-mexico-policy-texas-missouri-lawsuit

With the US facing record numbers of illegal border crossings, the judge sided with Texas and Missouri in their lawsuit against Biden and ordered the Administration "to enforce and implement” the Remain in Mexico policy in good faith until it has been "lawfully rescinded" in compliance with the Administrative Procedures Act, and until the federal government has enough detention capacity.

Now, let’s see if President “Restore Respect For Law and the Constitution” will flagrantly ignore this court order the way he ignored the one on the rent moratorium. I can only imagine what Democrats would have done if Trump showed such utter contempt for the courts, considering they impeached him twice for (A.) making a phone call and (B.) making a speech.

We should all give a big thanks to Sen. Ted Cruz for being awake and alert at 3:30 a.m. Wednesday morning and saving American democracy.

https://www.westernjournal.com/sleeping-ted-cruz-saved-america-democrats-election-takeover/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=empowerconservatives

After 15 mind-numbing hours of amendment votes on the Democrats’ $3.2 TRILLION spending orgy bill, Senate “Majority” Leader Chuck Schumer attempted to sneak the “For The People” Act (aka, the “Legalize Vote Fraud” Act) into the mix, in hopes that sleep-deprived Republicans wouldn’t notice and would fail to object, thereby approving it by unanimous consent. But Cruz rose and objected repeatedly, stopping Schumer in his tracks.

Cruz called the bill a “federal takeover of elections” and a “massive power grab by Democrats” that would do the opposite of its title by ensuring that the people can’t vote politicians out of office. He elaborated that it would “strike down virtually every reasonable voter integrity law in the country, including voter ID laws supported by the overwhelming majority of this country, including prohibitions on ballot harvesting, again widely supported by people in this country. It would mandate that felons be allowed to vote, and it would automatically register millions of illegal aliens to vote. It would profoundly undermine democracy in this country…”

Yes, but “for the people!”

The defeated Schumer hilariously grumbled, “Let there be no mistake about what is going on here. We have reached a point in this chamber where Republicans appear to oppose any measure — any measure, no matter how common sense — to protect voting rights and strengthen our democracy.”

That’s funny, because if you replaced the word “Republicans” with “Democrats,” that would be a perfect description of what Democrats are trying to do all over the nation to block common sense election integrity measures and to destroy them completely with the “Legalize Vote Fraud” Act.

Weekend Reading

August 15, 2021

While we take a little time off, here are a couple of articles to provide food for serious thought. First, Scott McKay at The American Spectator assesses how badly the Republicans and conservatives have failed in stopping the far-left from overwhelming America and argues that if we are going to save this nation and restore our founding principles, we need a new movement. In that regard, he says the media were wrong about Trump. He wasn’t a “messiah” figure to his supporters. He was more like John the Baptist, sounding the alarm and setting the table for what’s coming.

https://spectator.org/revivalists-conservatives/

And Deborah Bucknam at the American Thinker has an article that should be required reading for every American, but especially those who live in cities and states ravaged by decades of one-party Democrat rule, but who keep reelecting them because no matter how badly they ruin people’s lives, they say you can’t vote for Republicans because they’re “racist.”

It’s a detailed look back at the long, deep, ugly history of racism in the Democratic Party (the Republican Party was actually founded to force the Democrats to give up their slaves.) But it’s not just 18th century racism. Like the Energizer Bunny, Democrat Party racism just keeps going and going, from the Civil War to the KKK to Jim Crow to the poll tax (that Republicans tried to end) and right up to today, when they want to defund the police in crime-ridden, riot-torn black neighborhoods while keeping their own private security; bring back segregation in schools; and judge people solely by their skin color, only they now call that “Critical Race Theory” rather than what it really is: racism.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/08/a_racial_reckoning_for_the_democrats.html

I hope minorities who keep reelecting Democrats because they believe the endless lies that Republicans are “racist” will read this and consider Einstein’s rule that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

I should start a regular segment called “Fact-checking the ‘fact-checkers,’” but I’m afraid it would be all I’d ever have time to do. Today’s subject is the (ahem!) non-partisan fact-checking site, Snopes.com. I’ve already covered this story, so I won’t go into detail on that (you can find the correction and follow-up here):

https://www.mikehuckabee.com/latest-news?id=CAC940AD-EB17-4615-8CE7-8C6771A1D289

But the Snopes article contains a couple of glaring errors that need to be corrected.

This involves the story of the alleged Dallas black radical group that sent a letter to wealthy white liberals, claiming they made their money by oppressing minorities and to repent, they should not send their kids to Ivy League schools so there would be more room for minorities. That was so ridiculous, I assumed it was a hoax at first and ignored it. After it was covered by a number of news outlets that I assumed checked it out, and everyone was talking about it, I figured, “I guess we have to mention it,” but I was still dubious enough to voice my concerns that it might be a prank or hoax in the first sentence.

Because of that, I deliberately chose not to go into detail about the particular group that allegedly sent it. I just briefly recounted the story, told a few jokes about how dumb such notions are, and finished by saying that “While everyone is having a good laugh over this,” the parents should thank the group that sent that letter for doing them a big favor by scaring them into not sending their kids to an Ivy League college so they won’t come home as “insufferable, useless little socialists.” I thought that made the point that I wasn’t taking this very seriously.

When it started looking as if that was indeed a hoax, we immediately ran a correction with more info, as is our policy. Well, Snopes.com has now run a long piece looking into the story, and for some reason, among the thousands of conservative commentators who spent far more time on this, they chose to single me out for attack. They claim I “railed” against the group.

(Dan Bongino pointed out that this is the new liberal cliche: claiming that conservatives "railed" about something, implying that it was all angry emotion so people won't look at what was actually said. They had to come up with something new after everyone caught on to the "Republicans pounce" meme. The story is never the stupid things Democrats did, but that "Republicans pounced" in response to it. We've gone from "pouncing" to "railing," apparently.)

Of course, those who watch me on TBN know I’m famous for my angry rants. Actually, I’m not. I don’t “rail” at anybody. I prefer to use good-natured humor to point out the absurdity of leftist positions. I do this for three reasons: (1.) it’s more civilized; (2.) it’s more persuasive; and (3.) it drives them nuts.

Leftists have zero sense of humor about themselves. They think comedy is Stephen Colbert spewing DNC talking points while the studio audience claps instead of laughing. Dictators rule by fear, and nobody’s afraid of someone who’s being laughed at, which is why the wannabe dictators on the left have done everything in their power to terrify comedians into not making fun of them or their wacky ideas. Therefore, I consider it my patriotic duty to ridicule them. They want to be the Spanish Inquisition, and I say they should be treated the way Monty Python treated the Spanish Inquisition.

To me, the most interesting aspect of this story is the fact that Snopes and other "fact-checking" sites had to go to so much effort and research to try to debunk the story. That means if it was a hoax, it was a darn good one because it was virtually indistinguishable from the actual racist, divisive, self-serving horse droppings that are generated by real groups like this on a daily basis. Hardly anyone questioned it because as ludicrous as it was, it was actually pretty unremarkable as these things go.

Incidentally, most of my commentary wasn’t even inspired by that story, but by a friend of one of my writers. He’s an immigrant who found success in America, sent his American-born kids to what he thought were the best schools, and now he’s distraught because the older one came back home from college as an America-hating socialist.

So, Snopes.com, if you actually are interested in “facts,” I would appreciate it if you would get a few facts straight:

1. I did not “rail” against this particular group. I laughed at the entire idea.

2. I implied from the first sentence that it smelled like a hoax and used it only as a jumping-off point to mock leftist, race-mongering political hustlers in general.

3. You state at the end of your article that “As of Aug. 5, 2021, the following outlets had not corrected or updated their coverage of Dallas Justice Now, which still unquestioningly presents and describes Dallas Justice Now as a good-faith campaign or ‘Michele Washington’ as a real, sincerely-motivated person,” and you include my website on your list.

Our update/correction ran on July 29th, a full eight days before your article was posted. I also never mentioned “Michelle Washington” at all. And that’s a “fact.”

Maybe spend a little time checking facts before you make sloppy false accusations, mmm’kay?

Antifa Are Cowards

August 11, 2021

MUST READ Article: I’m not going to recount in full detail the story of the Antifa attack on innocent Christians who were holding a prayer service in a park in Portland, Oregon. If I did, I fear it would make me so furious that I might say things I would later regret putting on the record (although I wouldn’t regret thinking them.) And I don’t want to become someone who is fueled by rage, like Antifa. So I will direct you to this link and urge you to look at the photos and videos, and read every word. And please watch your blood pressure.

https://www.westernjournal.com/watch-suspected-antifa-agitators-sabotage-prayer-event-attack-worshippers/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

I will note that the black-masked, cowardly thugs were throwing rotten eggs and flash bombs, even into a group that included children as young as four months. When a pastor asked them not to throw things at children, they sprayed him with mace. One was heard taunting, “Where is your God now?”

More to the point, where were the Portland Police? Standing by and doing nothing. They allowed this outrage to go on and didn’t step in to stop it or to arrest anyone. I don’t know if this is because the police have completely abdicated their responsibility to protect public safety, or they were directly ordered by the leftist idiots running Portland not to touch the little anarchists, or if they have just been so cowed by previous incidences of the city’s political leaders siding with the criminals that they’re afraid to step in and do their jobs.

To those who did this, I issue a warning: the day of reckoning is coming. Where is our God? You’ll find out soon enough when you are standing before Him and have to answer for your hateful behavior, and He’s not a leftist Portland judge who will let you off easy. Until then, let this story be a warning to law-abiding people that in some places – those run by leftists, or as they laughably call themselves, “progressives” – the police and elected officials will not protect you, your families, your businesses or your churches, so the job is up to you.

Be alert, and be prepared to take defensive action. Antifa are cowards; pretend “warriors” who hide behind masks and attack the weak and those whom they know will not or are not allowed to fight back. In short, they’re terrorists. If we had a “Justice” Department that was interested in stopping real domestic terrorists, they’d be in federal prison by now. Sadly, we do not.

It’s been said many times before, but it bears repeating: Society didn’t invent police to protect the people from criminals. It invented police to protect criminals from the people. We have a justice system to protect the rights of the accused and to prevent people from taking the law into their own hands. By seeking to destroy those systems, Antifa are ripping apart the thin curtain that’s currently protecting them from the coming consequences of their vile actions.

Eroding Trust

August 11, 2021

When future historians (if we still have any honest ones) look back at 2021, they might pinpoint this past weekend as the exact moment when the public’s long-eroding trust in elite institutions and authority figures finally imploded into a cloud of dust like an outdated Vegas hotel. And the triggers for that big bang will be Barack Obama’s 60th birthday party and the media’s reaction to it.

With fellow Democrats demanding returns to masking and other pandemic measures in light of the new variant wave, the Obamas said they would scale back their party to just family and close friends. But that was just "boob bait for the Bubbas." The opulent A-lister bash went on pretty much as planned. A few names got cut from the guest list, but it was still a mass gathering of the biggest liberal celebrities partying like it was 1999, all in close proximity inside large tents while being served by 200 caterers and wait staff, who were apparently the only ones wearing masks.

But that’s okay because it turns out that the virus only attacks “unsophisticated” people, like service workers. Vaccination might not give you 100% immunity, but being rich, liberal, well-connected, famous, fabulous - or as the New York Times’ Annie Karni infamously put it, “sophisticated” – apparently does.

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/466686/

Candace Owens had a great line on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show: “Hydroxychloroquine doesn’t prevent (COVID), but ‘sophistication’ does.”

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-sophisticated-or-superspreader

As the Obama guests danced and ate cake (and probably wondered why the grumpy peasants didn’t just eat cake, too), Dr. Fauci and CNN were ignoring Obama and the glitterati’s glaring hypocrisy while they relentlessly bashed participants in the Sturgis motorcycle rally for allegedly creating a deadly superspreader event. Well, that’s what they get for being so unsophisticated. Don’t they realize the virus only attacks unsophisticated people, non-celebrities, Trump voters and crowds that aren’t protesting police or looting stores? Follow the science, people!!

Music superstar/activist John Legend was, of course, at Obama’s party, and he provided the dictionary with a Legend-ary new illustration of the word “hypocrisy,” thanks to this pair of tweets. Just one week ago, he tweeted, “Being unvaccinated and/or unmasked at a large indoor gathering is like literally begging to get COVID.” The other tweet shows him arriving with his model wife Chrissy Teigen to attend Obama’s soiree, where people went unmasked indoors.

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/466833/

That will forever make it clear what “hypocrisy” means, but I don’t know if the word “sophisticated” will ever be the same again.

Columnist Jim Treacher may have hit the nail on the head when he wrote last week, “Democrats don’t need masks because they’re better than you.”

https://jimtreacher.substack.com/p/democrats-dont-need-masks-because

After this, it’s entirely possible that the establishment elites of politics, the media and the entertainment industry will never regain any credibility with the public, and will be viewed with as much contempt as clueless 18th century French aristocrats. On the other hand, John Nolte at Breitbart.com has a different take (Warning: Profanity alert!)

https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2021/08/09/nolte-barrys-60th-birthday-bash-was-an-appropriate-fck-you-to-joe-biden/

He thinks we should all thank Obama for throwing that party because it shows that he doesn’t take Joe Biden seriously and he also refuses to be cowed into giving in to the fear and control effort. Nolte thinks both those views are absolutely right, and Obama sent those messages in the most public, in-your-face way possible.

He writes that this may be the first time Obama has actually done anything positive for America and its people: he sent the message, “If you’re vaccinated, this pandemic is over. Don’t listen to the fear merchants. Don’t listen to Joe Biden. Go and live your life.”

I think “I live in a clueless bubble of wealth and privilege” is probably the more likely explanation, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s not the message most Americans take away from this.

As predicted, the ratings for the Tokyo Olympics have been pretty dismal. While the media try to blame it on COVID or the lack of cheering crowds, viewers have made it clear that they have no interest in seeing US athletes use their spotlight to make leftwing political statements and disrespect their own country. This latest iteration of “Get woke, go broke” forced NBC to rerun commercials free of charge to advertisers, to help make up for the lower-than-promised viewership.

https://www.westernjournal.com/woke-politics-backfire-nbcs-olympics-coverage-hits-ratings-rock-bottom/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

It is a shame that the angry grandstanders cause people to miss some truly inspiring moments by great, patriotic young Americans. But as is often said, “Leftism ruins everything it touches.”

In a related story, Subway Sandwich shop owners, all of whom are independent franchisees, are begging the woke corporate office to yank the commercials featuring radical US women’s soccer team leader Megan Rapinoe. Store owners say they’re been flooded with complaints from customers who say they will never eat at Subway again as long as it's represented by that “anti-American” “creep” who kneels during the National Anthem.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/subway-franchisees-megan-rapinoes-tv-ads

Corporate didn’t respond to requests for comment from Fox Business News. But they’d better respond to their franchisees.

As for Rapinoe, if she loses the Subway gig, don’t worry about her. Victoria’s Secret recently signed her, and I’m sure that will work out much better.

In the most underreported story of the week, Mike Lindell’s three-day cyber web symposium on 2020 election fraud kicked off Tuesday morning. Have you heard much about it yet?

Lindell is hosting the event from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and says it will feature 65 forensic cyber experts who are challenging the official results of the Biden/Trump presidential election. It will include a recreation of the vote count “in real time,” he says, so viewers can have a better understanding of what unfolded on November 3 and into the wee hours of November 4.

He’s offering $5 million to anyone who can show that the evidence he presents is “not cyber data from the November 2020 election.”

https://xyz.frankspeech.com/content/mike-lindells-cyber-symposium-2021

Let me say up front that we have no advance knowledge of the evidence Lindell plans to present at his event. I know Mike and he’s been a guest on my TBN show, but we promise to analyze his evidence as independently and objectively as possible (we’re not cyber experts) and report the findings as honestly and spin-free as we can.

We’d like to think Lindell has the goods, but whether or not he can show that voting machines were, or even could be, hacked (we have no idea), there’s plenty that still arouses suspicion about hanky-panky on Election Night. And, no, it has NOT been “debunked.” That doesn’t mean it’s been proven –- it has not –- but it can’t just be discarded, either, unless one’s agenda depends on it being discarded.

Some of Lindell’s critics wish he’d concentrate on those other reasons to suspect cheating, such as problems with mail-in ballots, and view the voting machine issue as a distraction. I see their point, but have a question for them: If there ARE security problems with electronic voting, shouldn’t we find that out before the next election?

Anyway, Lindell has invited people from across the political spectrum –- some reports say thousands of invitees –- and at this writing, we don’t really know who’s going to be there. He says he’s invited cyber experts, politicians and media. One we do know: Nancy Pelosi said she had a scheduling conflict and won’t attend. (Those hair appointments are hard to change!) But I don’t think anyone will miss her.

Lindell is hoping the event will attract hundreds of millions of viewers and be “the most watched live event in history.” That will be a good trick with the almost-total news and social media blackout on it. “I believe people are going tune in,” he said. “I want them to watch whether they’re a Democrat or Republican, or liberal or conservative. This is America, and we, and every person needs to see this, and say, ‘What are we going to do about it?’”

Of course, that’s the big question. Lindell actually has claimed that he can show the election should have gone the other way, but what he’s taken the most heat for is his prediction in March that former President Trump would be re-installed as President by August. For one thing, it’s already August, and for another, it just doesn’t work that way. For one thing, there would have to be formal impeachment proceedings in the (Democrat) House and removal of Biden by two-thirds of the (barely Democrat) Senate. And we know how the Democrats would react to even the most compelling proof: by draping it with the Cloak of Invisibility.

NEWSMAX, which --- unlike FOX NEWS --- did agree to run Lindell’s ad for the symposium, issued a statement that it does not endorse ads and that it accepts the 2020 election results as “legal and final.”

Predictably, left-wing news outlets such as MEDIA MATTERS made fun of Lindell as a right-wing conspiracy theorist and criticized him as a threat to democracy itself. Some on the right are exasperated, with Matt Margolis at PJ MEDIA saying he should “go back to selling pillows,” expressing admiration for his vocal support of Trump while saying he “jumped the shark” when he said Trump would be President again by August.

As you might know, Lindell pulled his “MyPillow” advertising from FOX NEWS after they wouldn’t run his ad for the symposium. The ad doesn’t make any claims about election fraud, only about the importance of this event, and it invites everyone to tune in –- and tell everyone they know to do the same. Then it offers some great deals on pillows and other MyPillow products, which, as you might imagine, are more challenging to sell these days.

https://www.ispot.tv/ad/O3_q/frank-speech-cyber-symposium-featuring-mike-lindell

So let’s tune in to as much of this symposium as we can and see what he’s got. I promise you a full report. And let me just put in a word for MyPillow and, especially, Giza Dream Sheets. Those sheets are fantastic to sleep on and oversized to fit the thickest mattress.

Just like he says.

By the way, here’s an example of problems on election night that have nothing to do with wilder claims of foreign countries hacking the voting machines to make Biden President. When a ballot shows that more than one candidate in the same race has been marked, it is deemed an “overvote” and is handed over to an election worker to review. JUST THE NEWS has seen what was going on with some of these “adjudicated” ballots in Fulton County, Georgia, and it’s not pretty.

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/georgia-ballot-adjudication-spoiled

Every election has ballots that have to be adjudicated –- remember the nightmare of the “hanging chads” in Florida in the Bush-Gore race –- but in 2020, hundreds of thousands of people in Georgia were voting absentee for the first time and that meant many more ballots were mis-marked and, shall we say, open to interpretation. And in Fulton County, the rules apparently weren’t clear and consistently applied, and they weren’t even in writing, but passed along verbally.

JUST THE NEWS got ballot images through an open records act request; Fulton County officials would not respond to questions regarding what they found. More than 5,000 of the 148,000 absentee ballots processed through Fulton County --- about 3 percent --- required “some form of human intervention,” they report. "Mistakes" in the adjudication process alone were not enough to have changed the outcome of the election, they say, but this is one more potentially contributing factor. We’d second what they conclude, that “[these ballots] reveal an imperfect system vulnerable to chaos, subjectivity, or political dirty tricks, especially in a county like Fulton where state officials documented widespread irregularities and misconduct and now want to take over election counting.”

Ever since the Biden Administration declared domestic extremists and white supremacists to be the biggest threat facing America, the Department of Homeland Security has issued various warnings of a rising, possibly imminent threat of violent rebellion from the right. So far, most of the violent rebellion I’ve seen has been from leftist idiots like Anitifa.

The DHS just issued another warning that because of “an increasing but modest level of activity online” by Trump supporters who believe Joe Biden won the presidency due to fraud, “some conspiracy theories associated with reinstating former President Trump have included calls for violence if desired outcomes are not realized.”

https://www.westernjournal.com/dhs-warns-increasing-threat-violence-trump-conspiracy-admits-no-evidence-plot/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=huckabee

Even scarier, “Over the last few days what has occurred is there’s been much more public visibility, meaning the discussions and these theories have migrated away from being contained within the conspiracy and extremist online communities, to where they’re being the topic of discussion on web forums, or more public web forums, and even within the sort of media ecosystem.”

We routinely cover investigations of voter fraud in the 2020 election, but our report today points out that there is no mechanism for reinstating Trump. But gosh, I’d feel terrible if I thought that simply reporting and commenting on a news story was somehow whipping up a violent insurrection! Oh, but wait: further down in the report, we learn that the DHS has no actual proof that there’s a “plot imminent.” Whew!

In other words, what they have is a few hotheads blustering on the Internet. Well, there’s some major news.

The linked story also recounts some previous incidents in which these authorities have warned ominously of a “perfect storm” for mass violent rebellion by rightwing extremists, which never materialized. Just a suggestion, but maybe they should reevaluate their threat assessment and start paying attention to things that actually are a threat to America, like radical Islamic groups, China, and yes, the violent leftwing extremist terrorists known as Antifa.

I have a suspicion that the real fear in the White House isn’t that masses of violent rightwing extremists will try to forcibly remove Biden and other Democrats from office but that tens of millions of ticked-off voters will go to the polls and figuratively give them the boot.

RELATED: The GAO just slammed the DHS for failing to pick up on the signals that violence might break out on January 6th and prepare for it. So the one time there actually was an imminent threat, they missed it. So is their obsession with the right a justifiable security decision, a politicization of homeland security, or an overreaction because of how badly they blew it on January 6th? Or maybe a combination of two or more of those?

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/gao-bombshell-dhs-blew-it-on-jan-6-cant-adapt-to-security-threats

As the 20th anniversary of the September 11th attacks draws near, a group of about 1800 survivors, family members of victims and first responders are telling President Biden to stay away from the commemorative ceremonies unless he keeps his promise to them.

https://www.westernjournal.com/9-11-families-tell-biden-stay-away-memorial-events/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=empowerconservatives

They want to know what, if anything, the leaders of Saudi Arabia knew about the planned attacks and if they had any involvement with the 9/11 terrorists. Candidate Biden said, “The 9/11 Families are right to seek full truth and accountability…I will direct my Attorney General to personally examine the merits of all cases where the invocation of privilege is recommended, and to err on the side of disclosure in cases where, as here, the events in question occurred two decades or longer ago.”

The 9/11 group says investigations have implicated some Saudi government officials in supporting the attacks, but Biden hasn’t kept his promise and has turned a deaf ear to them since taking office (he seems more concerned with directing his Attorney General to target his political opponents.)

A man who lost his father in the Twin Towers said they are “frustrated, tired and saddened” by how the government continues to keep information about the deaths of their loved ones under lock and key. He said, “We had great hope that President Biden, who campaigned on bringing truth and trust back to the Oval Office, would value the lives and sacrifices of America’s citizens over diplomatic relations with a country accused of mass murder.”

I’m sure a lot of Americans are disillusioned about Biden’s promise to restore “truth and trust,” but there are few people who have as much moral high ground to stand on in demanding that Biden deliver on his promise to them.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo continues to resist stepping down, even as the threat of impeachment grows after the state Attorney General’s report detailing multiple accusations of sexual harassment. But that might be only one of his problems, since one of his accusers has dropped her anonymity protection and filed a criminal complaint against him with the Albany sheriff’s office.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cuomo-executive-assistant-brittany-commisso-interview-harassment

In an interview with CBS, Brittany Commisso explained why she hadn’t spoken up before. She said, "People don’t understand that this is the Governor of the State of New York. There are troopers outside. They are not there to protect me, they are there to protect him. I felt as though if I did something to insult him, especially insult him in his own home, it wasn’t going to be him that’s going to get fired or in trouble."

Ms Commisso also probably assumed that the media would cover for the popular Democrat Governor and attack his accuser, smearing her a “nut or slut.” Even now, when forced to face the truth, they still won’t own up to their shameful, partisan actions.

https://redstate.com/joesquire/2021/08/09/on-cuomo-the-media-owes-its-audience-an-apology-and-some-reflection-n423341

Why is this all so sickeningly familiar to those of who lived through the 1990’s?

Here’s a lesson in why it’s so hard to tell real demands from “social justice warriors” from hoaxes created by people mocking social justice warriors. It’s almost impossible to make the hoaxes more ridiculous than the real thing. But craven leftists filled with white liberal guilt don’t care out ludicrous they are; they just hear “Jump!” and ask, “How high?”

My question: How high were the officials at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who approved urinating away $50,000 on this?

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2021/08/08/youre-not-going-to-believe-why-a-wisconsin-school-spent-50k-to-move-a-rock-n1467973

They actually spent 50 large to move Chamberlain Rock, a 42-ton boulder that had been sitting on campus since the dawn of time, after some leftwing activist students declared it a "racist monument." Why? It’s named after Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin, former university president and geologist. He’s never been accused of anything racist (although I’m sure he was a racist, as was everyone who isn’t in 100% agreement on all things with a 2021 social justice warrior.) But one newspaper article, one time way back in 1925, referred to the rock by a racist name. That's it: that's the extent of this rock's connection to racism. But naturally, that’s so triggering to students who know zip about history and have never even read a newspaper that $50,000 had to be spent to haul it off campus lest it start them literally shaking with moral outrage.

The college says private donations paid for it, but so what? That doesn't make it any less of a pointless waste of money. If they really wanted to help black Americans, why not give those 50,000 smackers to, say, the United Negro College Fund? But that would be missing the point, as any attempt to apply common sense to modern leftism is bound to do. The money is gone, the rock is gone, and people who might have actually benefited from that cash are left like Charlie Brown on Halloween, moaning, "I got a rock." But the leftists can enjoy their own 42 tons of self-satisfaction.

As Daniel McLaughlin at National Review Online observes, the point is power. The loud activists wanted to see just how far they could push the college leaders and still get their way. And it worked: they caved (a perfect term for people who just moved a giant rock, which I think was also Fred Flintstone’s job.)

If you wonder where the “woke” left is taking America, there’s your answer: back to the Stone Age, thanks to people like this who kowtow to stupid, childish demands. If these administrators want to remove any more rocks, I respectfully suggest they start with the rocks in their heads.

Obama's Birthday Bash

August 10, 2021

Happy 60th birthday to former President Obama. And I’m sure it was happy, since it was marked with a lavish party for hundreds of celebrities at his Martha’s Vineyard estate.

https://www.westernjournal.com/dj-leaks-pics-obamas-opulent-birthday-bash-quickly-deletes-not-truth-got/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=empowerconservatives

Wait, what?! I thought that was going to be radically scaled back to only family and close friends after he got so much criticism for holding a mass gathering while the rest of us are being threatened with more COVID lockdowns if we don’t put on at least two facemasks even while we’re home alone? (Oh, forgot to mention: photos show the Obamas’ guests weren’t wearing facemasks.)

I’m not going to criticize Obama for holding whatever size party he wants to hold, or his guests for attending. It’s a free country (still, I think), and that should be their choice. But if that’s his attitude, then it should apply to everyone. He should stand up for every American’s right to make that choice, and not publicly side with the control freak health officials while privately doing whatever he pleases.

Or to be fair, maybe he wasn’t trying to fudge the truth. Maybe he just really does have several hundred “close friends.” I might find that believable considering the one person he did cut from the guest list: Nancy Pelosi.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2021/08/08/hundreds-at-obama-party-but-one-important-person-got-the-brush-off-n423192

Related: The New York Times tried to defend the Obama bash as being okay because it was a “sophisticated, vaccinated” maskless crowd “following all the safety precautions” (except social distancing, avoiding large crowds and wearing masks even if you’re vaccinated.) Meanwhile, Dr. Fauci was bashing participants in the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally for not doing their part to stop the pandemic.

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/466686/

Well, the difference is obvious. Just as the virus didn’t spread at BLM rallies, it also doesn’t spread at posh gatherings of sophisticated, A-list liberals. The COVID virus is not merely a Democrat, it’s an elitist, limousine liberal Democrat. Maybe we could finally get the pandemic to end if Netflix and Warner Books would just offer the coronavirus a few multi-million-dollar book and movie production deals. Then, like other wealthy leftist elitists, it could retire to its own mansion in Martha’s Vineyard and stop ruining the lives of the rest of us.

Naked Hypocrisy On The Left

August 10, 2021

Far-left Rep. Cori Bush didn’t do the Democrat propaganda machine any favors by going on an impassioned defense of defunding the police (a movement they’re trying to claim doesn’t exist, or if it does, uuuuh...the Republicans did it! – Yeah, that’s the ticket!) She made it worse by declaring, with zero self-awareness, that defunding the police has to happen now, while defending her own heavy expenses on private security because she’s so worth it.

She claims she’s gotten threats (like people surrounded by gangs and Antifa thugs thanks to police defunding aren’t under constant threat), and she needs security because her work in Congress is so important (she has to keep “protecting” people by making them less safe.) She declared, “I have private security because my body is worth being on this planet right now.”

https://redstate.com/jeffc/2021/08/08/watch-cori-bush-gives-pathetic-defense-of-defund-the-police-video-n423169

I was on Jesse Watters' show on Fox News over the weekend to talk about this stunning display of naked hypocrisy (we’ll overlook the fact that she also threw in her continuing fight for justice for Michael Brown, even though the Obama DOJ found that the “hands up, don’t shoot” story was fiction and Brown was fighting the police officer and trying to take away his gun when he was shot.)

Personally, I’m stunned that America made it for so many years before Cori Bush arrived in Congress to do the great work that’s so important that it makes her life more valuable than her own constituents’ lives. I award her my “Gavin/Cuomo Award for Ultimate Hubris and Hypocrisy” for those who impose rules on others that they would never inflict upon themselves.

Obviously, if the people of St. Louis value their own lives, they will quickly correct the dumb mistake of sending Cori Bush to Congress. But don’t count on it.

I’ll just conclude by pointing out that Cori Bush happily accepted the enthusiastic endorsement of the pro-abortion group NARAL, which said she would be a champion of “reproductive justice,” which is their latest phony euphemism for killing innocent children in the womb.

Why am I not at all surprised that a strong defender of abortion believes that her life is sacred, valuable and worth protecting, but other people’s lives aren’t?

Recall Gavin Newsom

August 9, 2021

You don’t have to wait until 2022 for some big political drama and major elections. Sept 14 could be an election that will deliver a Cat 5 hurricane, a 10 on the Richter Scale earthquake, and a F-5 tornado all on the same day. It’s the date of the CA election to recall Governor Gavin Newsom. I recently spent a few days out there working with the campaign to recall him and traveled the state from top to bottom. I was asked why it even mattered to me since I didn’t live there. First, there’s my personal disgust with someone who wears the title “governor” but who abuses the trust he was given by acting in hypocrisy and hubris. As someone who was a governor for nearly 11 years, I am appalled if someone believes being governor is equivalent to being a King and who arrogantly imposes rules on others he doesn’t apply to himself. No true leader asks others to do what he is unwilling to do. After imposing strict mask requirements on gatherings and closing restaurants for indoor dining, he hob-knobbed with mask-less swells at the most expensive restaurant in CA, the French Laundry. “Rules for thee, but not for me” has been his motto and practice. Maybe it’s time CA voters send the guy who dined at the French Laundry to the cleaners.

But there’s another reason what happens in CA matters to me and should matter to you as well. It’s been long said that whatever starts in CA becomes a trend across the country, whether trends in entertainment, fashion, language, music, or even politics. The same state that gave us Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom also gave us Ronald Reagan. But CA holds distinction as the most important agricultural state in the nation. The farmers and ranchers of CA, mostly in the San Joaquin Central Valley supply over 17% of the entire nation’s ag products, and produces over 400 different commodities. It’s truly the salad bowl of the world. But the overreaching taxes and idiotic regulations and restrictions that CA farmers and ranchers live with along with the lack of leadership in ensuring a stable water supply means that it costs a lot more to grow and harvest food in CA than anywhere else in the country. And that means that a man in Mississippi standing on a concrete floor all day lifting heavy things and sweating through his clothes, will go home bone-tired and sit at his dinner table with his wife and kids and the cost of the food on his table costs more than it should—and CA politics are to blame. You might live in one of the other 49 states beyond CA, but you are directly affected by the nutty policies imposed in CA when you buy food, fuel, or even footwear. And now, Gavin Newsom’s CA has really gone too far. They want to impose strict limits on how many pigs or chickens can be kept in a space because CA wants pigs and chickens to have more space. The same state that turns a blind eye to homeless people packing into a public park or business district and who doesn’t believe we ought to control the border and limit illegal immigration, wants to make sure Porky Pig and Foghorn Leghorn have room to roam. And that means bacon prices are likely to increase by as much as 50%. It was bad enough that Gavin Newsom was a gun-grabber and shut down churches but not strip clubs. But now he’s really done it. He’s messed with the price of bacon and where I come from, them are fighting words that’s a food fight for sure!

I felt pretty good that even liberals in CA would vote to get Gavin Newsom’s noose off their necks, but now I’m really confident. On September 14, voters will be able to tell Gavin Newsom not to let the door hit you where the good Lord split you!

Some observers have described what we’re living in now as a “post-Constitutional America.” Okay, we still technically HAVE a Constitution, and we can go to Washington, DC, and look at it under glass at the U.S. National Archives, but it gets ignored by the government so often that it feels as if we might as well not have one at all. It often seems the only people reading the Constitution these days are the ones looking for loopholes.

Never mind that during the 2020 campaign, Biden vowed to honor “the rule of law, our Constitution.” And never mind that he constantly trashed President Trump’s “assault on the rule of law.” Jonathan Turley has a new article about what Biden is actually doing in office to violate the Constitution and how the left cheers him on when he does it. Case in point: Biden’s extension, in a “knowingly invalid” way, of the moratorium on evictions.

https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/566836-canceling-the-constitution-biden-hailed-for-violating-rule-of-law?rl=1

Set aside for a moment the concern for those who can’t pay their rent --- there should be concern on both sides, for the lessees and the lessors, who in many cases are barely hanging on –- and take a look at this issue from the standpoint of the rule of law. That’s what the Supreme Court had to do a few weeks ago, when they ruled on the authority of the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) to impose such a moratorium. The CDC had argued that federal law gives them the authority to “make and enforce such regulations as in [its] judgment are necessary to prevent the introduction, transmission or spread of communicable diseases.”

(This seems like a good place to mention that if the Biden administration were really trying to prevent the introduction, transmission or spread of communicable diseases, they wouldn’t be welcoming in thousands of covid-infected immigrants at our southern border. But I digress.)

Anyway, Turley severely criticized the CDC’s argument, saying it would give that governmental agency “authority over huge swaths of our economy to avoid even the possibility of the ‘introduction’ or spread of a disease. It means that a Constitution designed to prevent tyranny and authoritarianism becomes largely irrelevant if you put on a white lab coat.”

In the case Alabama Association of Realtors v. Department of Health and Human Services, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the moratorium could be kept in place but, according to Turley, “left no question that a majority of justices ultimately view the CDC order as unconstitutional.” Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch and Barrett had wanted to suspend the moratorium immediately, to make it clear that it was beyond the CDC’s constitutional powers. The fifth vote to do that would have come from Brett Kavanaugh, but he decided that since the moratorium was set to expire soon, anyway, he would just allow it to expire in order to facilitate an “additional and more orderly distribution of the congressionally appropriated rental assistance.” It was an odd move, motivated, it seems, by practicality, but he was still agreeing with the minority on the larger point that this is supposed to be done only by act of Congress, not CDC order.

Most of even the most left-wing legal scholars who advise the Biden administration –- including Biden's own White House counsel –- said that giving the CDC this authority was unconstitutional. But Biden was not put off, and said he had found “several key scholars” who thought trying again with another order might “pass constitutional muster” and would be “worth the effort.”

The “several key scholars” are thought to be just one, actually: the unhinged, Trump-hating Harvard law weasel Laurence Tribe, whose superpower is being able to rationalize any abuse of office, no matter how objectionable, from packing the Supreme Court to spending billions under Obamacare without congressional approval to impeaching Trump as a racist and domestic terrorist. I am not kidding. If anyone reads the Constitution looking for loopholes, it’s him.

https://jonathanturley.org/2019/08/06/laurence-tribe-calls-for-the-impeachment-of-trump-as-a-terrorist-and-racist/

Tribe apparently assured Biden that even though the Court believed the original order by the CDC was unconstitutional, this would be a NEW, different order and thus would have to be ruled on again. So it would buy time for the CDC to do as Biden wanted and issue an other order before SCOTUS could rule on that one. It’s hard to imagine anything more disingenuous.

As Turley explains, “It is like being given a parole for stealing a BMW and then immediately stealing a a Lexus because it is a different car. The problem was the act, not the make of car.”

For doing this, Biden was praised by leftists for his strong leadership and “commitment to social justice,” even though his act put a few more frays and tears in the already-worn Constitution. He took an oath to preserve, protect and defend it, but he’s doing exactly what he said he wouldn’t do: use a pandemic as an excuse to abuse the law.

If Biden really wanted to help renters who still lack income, he could have done a lot for them without ripping at the Constitution and shelling out more mega-billions. How about using some of that great “leadership” ability to create conditions favorable to getting back to work and school and other normal activities? That would, OF COURSE, include closing the southern border to keep the spread of covid to a minimum and avoid undue strain on our medical facilities. But no.

Here's another example of the Biden administration trying to build up its own power by tearing down the Constitution: the relentless attack on former President Trump, meant to destroy him by any means necessary. John Eastman and John Yoo have written a good opinion piece about this for FOX NEWS.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/democrats-trump-presidency-constitution-eastman-yoo

This effort has been going on since he first became a candidate, but the latest encroachment is especially shocking: they’re intent on waiving Trump’s right to confidential communications with his closest aides while in office. Democrats who run House and Senate committees want to know everything in every conversation having to do with election fraud and have issued subpoenas to former Justice Department officials such as then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, then-assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark, and U.S. Attorneys for Georgia and New York.

Under Article II of the Constitution, the Justice Department should be able to reject these demands, as the President has the right to obtain frank opinions from his principal officers. This has been very well established in the courts. In other words, butt out, Congress.

Eastman and Yoo write: “While Congress has the right to investigate the events leading to the terrible riot of January 6, it does not have a right to override the constitutional prerogatives of an independent branch of government.” Indeed, they say that if Congress gets away with this, they might just as easily force the Supreme Court justices to reveal their deliberations about election fraud cases. Why not?

If Biden’s “Justice” Department refuses to withdraw its waiver of executive privilege against President Trump, then Trump needs to fight back in court with everything he’s got, to protect that right for himself and future Presidents, such as the Republican one who will win in 2024.

Why do Democrats even run for office? Their record on border security and crime proves they have no interest in actually governing.

It’s disturbingly appropriate that Vice President Kamala Harris, whose entire career in public "service" has been little more than an exercise in self-aggrandizement and ego boosting, is the Democrat Party’s point person on illegal immigration and border security. Since taking on the role, all she’s done is hold press conferences designed to boost her own public profile while completely ignoring the problem she’s supposed to solve.

Indeed, to the extent that she and the rest of the Biden administration have done anything at all, it has been to dismantle successful Trump-era policies that were effectively holding illegal immigration at bay, such as the "Remain in Mexico" policy. Her lips may be telling would-be border crossers "do not come," but her actions are sending exactly the opposite message.

The results are as distressing as they are predictable: a historic surge in illegal border crossings, along with the accompanying human misery in the form of crime, exploitation, and disease.

In the El Paso Sector of the border, Border Patrol agents have apprehended or encountered more than 135,000 illegal immigrants over the past nine months – equivalent to about 20 percent of the entire population of El Paso, Texas. Across the entire southwest border, nearly 189,000 illegal immigrants were apprehended in June alone, and Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Vally sector reported a 900 percent increase in the rate of COVID infection among those they encountered.

The public health implications are certainly alarming, especially as the country grapples with a resurgence of the pandemic brought on by the Delta variant. But disease is not the only consequence of Democrat policies that encourage hundreds of thousands of people to pour across the border. As has always been the case, floods of undocumented migrants also bring crime with them – motivated by both desperation and opportunity.

The cartels that effectively control large portions of Mexico have for years been infiltrating American cities, using the violent tactics they’ve perfected at home to displace the criminal gangs that once controlled the distribution of narcotics in our inner cities.

That’s a terrifying prospect under the best of circumstances, but it’s being made far worse by the abdication of another core governing responsibility by elected Democrats.

Driven by the irresponsible "defund the police" rhetoric of the Party’s far-left wing, Democrat leaders in cities all over the country have been tying the hands of law enforcement and leaving their own citizens to the mercies of violent criminals.

In Oakland, California, where the City Council has voted to reduce police funding despite the strenuous objections of the city’s mayor, former U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer was recently mugged in broad daylight.

Another city that has defunded its own police department – over the strenuous objections of Republican Governor Greg Abbott – is Austin, Texas, which just so happens to be right on the front lines of the border crisis. Last August, the Austin City Council voted to cut the police department’s budget by a whopping $150 million, resulting in the elimination of the department’s gang unit.

"Public safety is job one, and Austin has abandoned that duty," Abbott said in response to the defunding, adding that the decision "paves the way for lawlessness."

That’s exactly what happened. In June, 25-year-old Douglas Kantor was caught in the crossfire of a gang shootout while visiting Austin. Had the police gang unit still been operational at the time, it’s likely that officers would have been in position to put a stop to the shootout before it even began, because they would have been monitoring the communications of known gang members who posted their intention to be at that location on social media.

Kantor’s family is now suing the Mayor and City Council of Austin, arguing that their decision to slash funding for the police department was a purely political decision with obvious and predictable consequences for public safety.

This wasn’t about balancing a budget or adjusting policy priorities; it was about tying the hands of the police department as a means of making a public political statement.

I spent a great deal of my adult life in public service. It’s unbelievable to me that anyone could ask voters to entrust them with such a grave responsibility and then use their power to prevent the government from doing its most basic duty to keep citizens safe. But that’s exactly what today’s Democrats are doing.

This op-ed originally ran on FoxNews.com.

In a special election in Ohio’s 15th Congressional district, Trump-backed candidate Mike Carey beat 11 others for the Republican nomination, which in that red district pretty much means he’ll win the seat.

https://redstate.com/setonmotley/2021/08/05/oh-15-trumps-guy-wins-soros-and-steyers-guys-come-in-fourth-and-dnf-n421438

But the most interesting news is who didn’t win. At least two candidates described as “conservative environmentalists” were backed by leftist mega-donors George Soros and Tom Steyer. It was seen as a trial stealth effort to see if they could fool GOP voters into “flipping” a safe seat without realizing it.

It didn’t work: one candidate dropped out before the vote and the other came in fourth with 12.6%. But as Seton Motley at Redstate.com points out, Republicans now know that far-left power brokers are trying to meddle in GOP primaries to elect their candidates in red hats. It means from now on, Republicans will have to be even more careful to research the backgrounds of candidates before they mark their ballots.

You might not want to hear anything about the US Olympic women’s soccer team, but you should see this story about star player Carli Lloyd. Considering the pressure she must be under, this took guts. Let’s hope she inspires others to start literally “standing up” against political demonstrations in sports, so that sports can get back to being something that we all enjoy together instead of one more thing that divides us.

https://www.foxnews.com/sports/carli-lloyd-us-womens-soccer-teammates-kneel-bronze-medal-match

Not that some politicized sports moments aren’t truly great and inspiring. Congratulations to the Taiwan duo who won the gold in badminton, meaning that for the first time in history, Chinese athletes had to stand during the playing of Taiwan’s national anthem and the raising of Taiwan’s flag.

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4262639

Among the many nasty surprises buried in the 2700-page “barebones” compromise “infrastructure” bill is a provision to establish a pilot program to examine the feasibility of a national, per-mile “user fee” on all motorists – i.e., a tax on every mile you drive (since Biden hasn’t made driving expensive enough already.)

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2021/08/05/infrastructure-bill-has-provision-that-could-lead-to-big-fees-on-americans-and-blow-up-bidens-promise-on-taxes-n421952

Democrats are trying to brush off questions about this by claiming it’s not a tax hike, it’s just to study the possibility of a mileage tax in the future that might not ever be imposed. If you think that Democrats will go to that much trouble to workshop a big new tax and then not impose it, I have some oceanfront property in Kansas I’d like to sell you.

Here’s more waste stuffed into that bill…

https://redstate.com/heartlandinstitute/2021/08/06/bidens-infrastructure-bill-includes-massive-slush-funds-for-green-energy-boondoggles-n421817

It also includes a piddling $1 billion for a commission headed by Sen. Joe Manchin’s wife…

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2021/08/03/one-payoff-in-the-infrastructure-deal-is-so-blatantly-corrupt-that-you-almost-have-to-respect-the-hustle-n420584

And blogger Lawrence Person also lists some not-very-infrastructurey items hidden in that bill, from state-mandated carbon reduction programs to racial quotas on broadband.

https://www.battleswarmblog.com/?p=48841

Person also includes this quote, which every Republican who supports this bill should be required to respond to, from two researchers at the Texas Public Policy Foundation: “It has just $110 billion, or less than 10% (of its spending), for what’s historically been considered infrastructure – roads and bridges. The other 90% is to fund mass transit waste, green energy nonsense and more items that the states or the private sector could do.”

I often wonder, if leftists are really that concerned about carbon emissions, why don’t they stop burning massive piles of our tax money?

Here’s how you know you’re over the target: Rhode Island mom Nicole Solas wanted to know what her daughter was being taught in kindergarten, so she asked for a copy of the public school curriculum, which she has a right to see. For some reason, they refused to hand over the document. That made her suspicious, so she starting filing Freedom of Information Act requests for more documents. They fought those, and even tried to make her go away by billing her $74,000 for their alleged efforts at having to compile those documents.

Now, the powerful teachers’ union, the National Education Association-Rhode Island, has declared full-out war on Solas and is suing her, claiming they’re trying to protect “private” information. But the emails Solas is seeking were sent on public school servers, which makes them public record (anyone else getting a Hillary Clinton vibe here?) For the record, the NEA backs teaching Critical Race Theory in public schools and boasts that its president, Becky Pringle, is a “fierce social justice warrior.”

Bryan Preston at PJ Media has lots more details at this link:

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/bryan-preston/2021/08/05/gigantic-teachers-union-sues-mom-for-asking-what-the-local-public-school-is-teaching-her-daughter-n1467245

If the intent was to try to intimidate Solas into backing down, it didn’t work. She’s now represented by the Goldwater Institute, and her response to the NEA lawsuit was, “Game on.” If they were trying to hide public information from FOIA requests, then they’re not going to enjoy the discovery phase of this lawsuit.

Sounds like the self-flattering “social justice warriors” are about to discover what a truly fierce warrior looks like. And by that, I mean a mom who’s being told that she has no right to know what’s being taught to her kid.