Roundup
(1) Can it be that the delusional White House believes that the scenes of carnage in Afghanistan won’t prevent Americans from supporting the administration’s actions in Afghanistan? This article says so:
“The public opinion is pretty damn clear that Americans wanted out of the ongoing war and don’t want to get back in. It’s true today and it’s going to be true in six months,” said one Biden ally. “It isn’t about not caring or being empathetic about what’s going on over there, but worrying about what’s happening in America.”…
But White House officials believe Americans’ horror over graphic images of the chaos in Kabul and pleas from Afghans who fear they will be killed by the Taliban will morph into support for the president’s decision to pull troops from the country by Aug. 31 after a 20-year war.
Do they actually not understand that support for the pullout is not the same thing as support for their stunningly incompetent and destructive version of the pullout? And are they that cynical about the attention span of Americans? Of course, they may be correct on that. But in this case I don’t think so. If they are, then we are in even worse shape than I think we are – and I already think we are in exceedingly bad shape.
(2) So now the FBI tells us? I guess it’s okay to do so at this point, because the lies have served their purpose. But still, this is quite an admission from one of our favorite federal agencies:
The FBI has found scant evidence that the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was the result of an organized plot to overturn the presidential election result, according to four current and former law enforcement officials…
Though federal officials have arrested more than 570 alleged participants, the FBI at this point believes the violence was not centrally coordinated by far-right groups or prominent supporters of then-President Donald Trump, according to the sources, who have been either directly involved in or briefed regularly on the wide-ranging investigations.
I think their motive for leaking this information to Reuters has something to do with damping down lefties’ expectations that the trials will result in convictions (or, at the very least, charges) for some sort of conspiratorial insurrection, although they, the Democrats, and the press have been leading the public to believe that such charges would be filed. The disclosure also may have something to do with protecting the FBI’s own undercover agents who probably were the actual ringleaders and organizers, to the extent that such organization existed.
(3) Biden broke promises to our allies, and they are livid with anger, although Biden denied anything of the sort in his “press conference” yesterday. To Europe I say hey, you wanted this treacherous liar in office, now you’re got him. Unfortunately, we’ve got him also.
(4) Osama bin Laden had Biden’s number:
Osama bin Laden once warned al Qaeda not to target Joe Biden because he believed that his inheriting the presidency if something were to happen to Barack Obama would “lead the US into a crisis,” a resurfaced letter [from May 2010] shows.
Biden is the weak horse.
re: FIB, people are saying all the coordination involved govt infiltrators so the announcement is primarily to prevent agents from being outed by any investigation that gets launched.
re: A-stan, Instapundit and others have photos of Taliban wearing captured US gear and posed to mock our military.
Plus reports that Taliban burned a gay pride flag on the steps of the US embassy but social media is not allowing it to be seen
Yes on the FBI and covering for agents provocateurs.
On Afghanistan, I’m still stunned by the total idiocy of that US Embassy tweet with the rainbow flag for “pride month.” They evidently didn’t know what country they were in.
“White House officials believe Americans’ horror over graphic images of the chaos in Kabul and pleas from Afghans who fear they will be killed by the Taliban will morph into support for the president’s decision to pull troops from the country by Aug. 31 after a 20-year war.”
A perfect reflection of an absolute refusal to publicly admit to the reality they’ve created.
All the denial in the world won’t work and here’s why:
“Congressman: U.S. Embassy ‘Destroyed’ Afghan Allies’ Passports Amid Chaos, Leaving Them Trapped”
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/08/20/congressman-u-s-embassy-destroyed-afghan-allies-passports-amid-chaos-leaving-them-trapped/
“Ground Report: Kabul Airport Gates Are Closed, Taliban Confiscating U.S. Passports”
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/08/21/kabul-airport-gates-closed-taliban-confiscating-u-s-passports/
“Nearly Empty U.S. Flights Leave Kabul as Biden Abandons Americans in Afghanistan”
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/08/20/nearly-empty-us-flights-leave-kabul-biden-abandons-americans-afghanistan/
Yesterday, a CNN reporter on scene stated on the air that in 8 hours of observation, not one US Cargo plane left the airport…
“GOP Rep. Green: ‘Biden Has Created the Greatest Hostage Crisis in American History’
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/08/21/gop-rep-green-biden-has-created-the-greatest-hostage-crisis-in-american-history/
The Taliban are just getting started. Mercy a foreign concept. Iran’s Mullahs sophisticates in comparison.
When al Jazeera starts broadcasting Taliban demands backed up with the beheading of American citizens… it won’t matter who the democrats have in the oval office. Nor will it matter whether they blame Trump, Bush or Biden. Their job is to fix the problem and they will follow failure with failure because their lust for power has led them to their “position of incompetence”.
It may be true that Americans don’t really care about Afghanistan but they do care that their President is a bumbling idiot, a fact which some people are only now noticing. It is tragic that it took a fiasco like this to get people to see that Biden isn’t the product that was advertised but I don’t think he recovers from this. Unfortunately, I think we have only begun to see the horrific consequences of installing a man like Biden in the White House.
It would take a person deficient in rational processes to vote for Biden. To expect any of them to be rational enough to see the problem is irrational.
Indeed – the Euro media slobbered all over Obama, and welcomed Biden to the G-7 summit with cries of happy joy, that now the adults were back in charge, and that nasty obstreperous orange man was gone. Well … enjoy what you wished for.
Idiots.
It would help to know what sort of hanky-panky got Joe the Dem nomination, and caused everyone else to drop out in his favor. What did Klobuchar and Warren get in return? Who greased the skids for Biden, and why? My suspicion about Harris is that she dropped out when she did because her VP slot was pre-determined, so there was no need for her to campaign. At this point it is impossible to be sufficiently cynical.
Richard Aubrey:
On the contrary, I know a great many extremely rational and logical people who voted for Biden. They started from different premises than you and I did, and those premises were derived either from limited reading and information (only the MSM, for example) and living in an echo chamber of people with similar views.
Plus, I recently read something where Alan Dershowtiz ssid he voted for Biden (don’t have time to find it at the moment). Dershowitz is one of the most rational people I know. Not only that, he’s courageous – he defended Trump against impeachment, and drew great wrath from Democrats, the press, and the left for that. But there is a blind spot there in terms of political affiliation. In the article, he is quoted as having said, “I’m a liberal Democrat, and I voted for Biden.” Part of this is political identity that is deeply ingrained and difficult to cast off – take it from me, a person who did so. It was compared by Zell Miller to “a birthmark” – I wrote a post in 2005 on the subject.
Yes, its entirely possible for liberals to finally realize that Biden simply can’t handle the job, while still believing that the ‘values’ that the democrat party stands for (gag) are worthy of continued support.
In fact, since concluding otherwise would require a very long look in the mirror… it’s a certainty that the great majority of liberals will refuse to take a look at their core beliefs.
“In just three years, the share of Democrats and Democratic leaners who support government censorship of information has risen a remarkable 25 points, from just 40 percent in 2018 to 65 percent today, Pew revealed this week.”
Kate:
It is actually far more twisted and complex than that. Yes, gay people are hated and will be persecuted. And yet a certain type of male homosexual activity is practiced widely in parts of Afghanistan – not necessarily by gay people. When I saw your comment, I recalled reading about this long ago, but I thought perhaps my memory was faulty. But doing a search just now, I found this information, which is pretty much what I remember reading many years ago.
It’s kind of pointless debate to me whether loyal D Biden voters support him now or not because even if they say he has to go they would then whole heartedly support Harris and probably be more vehement because black/female/non dementia etc.
because black/female/non dementia etc.
She grew up in Toronto with her East Indian mother. Her father’s a West Indian mulatto. Both parents academics. Unlike Obama, she didn’t marry into the domestic black population. She did enroll at an HBCU, something Obama didn’t bother with (as he was a notably better student in late adolescence). She also put in time as Willie Brown’s sidepiece. Unlike Obama, her right to be called a natural-born citizen is properly questioned, as both parents were on student visas when she was born. I assume she’ll be at least notionally in charge ‘ere long. Then we’ll have had two ‘black’ presidents whose background bears scant resemblance to that of actual American blacks (And, to boot, both of whom have spent significant slices of time living abroad, and both of whom were sired by a foreigner).
Yes, Neo. Pederasty has long been practiced in Afghanistan, but they don’t consider it “gay,” because it’s only with young boys. On the other hand, same-sex activity between adults is subject to severe penalties, as it is in Iran. I don’t know about Pakistan, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
I have little respect for that Kabul Embassy tweet, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t pro-pederasty.
They evidently didn’t know what country they were in.
They know. They don’t care. They don’t respect the viewpoints of those who are notionally their countrymen (but culturally dissimilar to them). BTW, consider the possibility that the Foreign Service is shot through with homosexuals, who have a tendency to turn organizations into conduits for their hobbies when they reach a critical mass.
but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t pro-pederasty.
The distinction between a congenial attitude toward male homosexuality and a congenial attitude toward pederasty is pro forma.
In just three years, the share of Democrats and Democratic leaners who support government censorship of information has risen a remarkable 25 points, from just 40 percent in 2018 to 65 percent today, Pew revealed this week.”
They don’t think they’ll be the ones censored.
Do they actually not understand that support for the pullout is not the same thing as support for their stunningly incompetent and destructive version of the pullout?
They understand. They hope you (the public) do not.
Neo, I’d like to share a comment I made over at Power line (with an edit or two). Remember, it’s just (for now) a tongue-in-cheek-prediction. Maybe it should go in another comment section, but here goes
“I’m going to make an only slightly tongue-in-cheek prediction. Unless the DNC and their state media can get this conflagration contained, following powerful away-from-the-public-eye pressure from DNC/media/Big Tech power brokers, Harris announces that, after wrestling with her conscience, she is resigning “with my dignity intact,” but without any recriminations or finger-pointing (I suspect she’ll then run for governor of CA in their next general election, and an agreement to back her will be a huge part of the deal to get her to resign). Biden will wish her godspeed, and the same DNC/media/Big Tech power brokers will inform Biden who to choose as her replacement. It will be someone they choose, and then, after a sufficiently suspect period of time, Biden will also step down for health reasons, or we will then see the 25th Amendment evoked.
The Dems retain power and the media agrees to “move on” from Afghanistan.
Telemachus: Not so improbable. I am sure this plan of action is being discussed in the DNC. Who, in your opinion, would be the VP pick?
Pete Buttigieg. “Historic” and all that.
@ Telemachus – not an impossible scenario, under the circumstances.
Many people are speculating that Obama is the power behind Biden, and is angling to become his replacement, or at least determine that he will control whoever is chosen.
I was mostly in agreement with that, until I read this post by Taibbi and saw something that now cause me to doubt that Obama is either running the WH or trying to get back in it.
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-vanishing-legacy-of-barack-obama-147
The post is a no-holds-barred evisceration of Barack the Betrayer, and it is eye-opening to RTWT – but I want to focus on what Taibbi considers just a small, petty example of the character of the former president (thank Roosevelt for prompting term limits).
Remember the massive machine Obama created (or had created for him) to run both his campaigns, which morphed into an after-tenure political force?
All those people just got tossed by their hero.
Maybe he really is “so untouchable politically that it doesn’t matter anymore” and maybe someone else is going to make up for those aides and minions to get him back into the WH, but Obama obviously thinks he doesn’t need them anymore.
Who would work for him again, now, the way they did before (although some, no doubt, would, because that’s what cult followers do)?
The celebrities boozing it up while he danced are not going to be putting in any hundred-hour-weeks on phone lines or door-to-door canvassing, printing and hanging posters, trolling Facebook accounts, or any of the drudge work that pulls a campaign along and keeps an elected official raking in campaign funds later.
Why would Obama want to go back into the pressure-cooker of DC politics when he’s “made enough money” and can keep making more just on the strength of who he is, without ever again having to actually do anything.
Because, of course he did.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/not-made-in-the-usa-defense-contractor-sold-u-s-military-american-good
“A Virginia-based defense contractor has been sentenced to nearly five years in prison for selling more than $7 million in goods to the U.S. military that were labeled as having been made in the USA but were actually manufactured in China, the Department of Justice said.
Beyung S. Kim, 62, of Newport News, Va., the owner of Iris Kim Inc., admitted that he had imported items from China for years but then cut off their Made in China tags and replaced them with labels that said Made in the USA before selling the items to various branches of the military.”
Somehow this is emblematic of the entire Afghanistan debacle.
Brian Lovely: I was thinking the same. Another truly historic disaster waiting in the wings.
AesopFan said:
“…cut off their Made in China tags and replaced them with labels that said Made in the USA.”
This can apply to the entirety of the Biden administration and the Democratic Party too.
Plus, I recently read something where Alan Dershowtiz ssid he voted for Biden (don’t have time to find it at the moment).
–neo
I caught a recent mention of that in the great Larry David vs. Alan Dershowitz face-off in a Martha’s Vineyard convenience store:
________________________________________
Dershowitz has often cited the Constitution as his reason for defending Trump, notably during his regular appearances on Fox News. He’s also tried to appear nonpartisan by telling people he’s not a Trump supporter and voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020. Civil liberties and legal principles are “more important than politics,” Dershowitz told Tucker Carlson, to which Carlson declared, “Well, God bless you.”
In his column for The Hill, Dershowitz said his arguments about the Constitution didn’t sway his Martha’s Vineyard friends from engaging in their own form of “McCarthyism.”
“For them, it is enough that what I have said about the Constitution might help Trump,” Dershowitz wrote. “So they are shunning me and trying to ban me from their social life on Martha’s Vineyard. One of them, an academic at a distinguished university, has told people that he would not attend any dinner or party to which I was invited.”
https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2021/08/19/larry-david-vs-alan-dershowitz-mccarthyism-or-appropriate-public-shaming/
Re AesopFan: (figuerative) “evisceration of Barack the Betrayer”, that was scathing, and he deserves it and more!
Re huxley: Dershowitz’s Martha’s Vineyard friends “are shunning me and trying to ban me from their social life…” Why would this legal icon vote for Biden? Will he continue to vote Democrat? Has age clouded his judgement?
I’d say the FBI’s conclusion that 1/6 wasn’t “planned” is due to the fact that if you pull that string, you’ll find it WAS planned – by the FBI, etc.
“…don’t have time to find it at the moment…”
Newsmax interview:
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1412803478959837184