Home » Another news day, another roundup

Comments

Another news day, another roundup — 36 Comments

  1. The Australia thing is ridiculous because of the last sentence ‘could happen by the end of the year’!!

    That’s four months away.

  2. Every statement by a Democrat or their staff must be scrutinized word-by-word for legalistic wordsmithing.

    “The U.S. priority mission was the evacuation of U.S. citizens, SIV, and vulnerable Afghans. However, to correct erroneous reports, the U.S. military did not leave any dogs in cages at Hamid Karzai International Airport, to include the reported ‘military working dogs,’” a Defense Department spokesman said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “Photos circulating online were animals under the care of the Kabul Small Animal Rescue, not dogs under the care of the U.S. military. Despite an ongoing complicated and dangerous retrograde mission, U.S. forces went to great lengths to assist the Kabul Small Animal Rescue as much as possible.”

    Oh. … not dogs under the care of the U.S. military. So these were dogs trained and cared for by contractors for military purposes? I’m so relieved.

    The trick is to look for needless specificity in these statements. Were “military dogs” left behind? Probably, but they weren’t under the care of the military.

    https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/08/31/biden-administration-gets-slammed-again-for-leaving-four-legged-heroes-behind-n1474546

  3. Corrupt, senile Biden has loosed the Dogs Of War: he’s “doing deals” with Iran, cannot stand up to China, Taiwan will be invaded, North Korea may be emboldened to invade South Korea.
    He is the only truly evil (and likely illegal, votewise) president this country has ever experienced.
    And what do you expect, leaving dogs behind? We left incredible military assets behind too.

  4. The original report on the dogs called them “U.S. military contract working dogs.”

  5. Honestly in America you will get in way more trouble from hurting or killing a dog than treating people badly.
    See Michael Vick of the NFL. NFL players often are know to beat there wives/girlfriends and that rarely is a problem for them Michael Vick hurt and killed dogs in a dog fighting ring and was out for years.

  6. Michael Yon’s dispatches will be worth following for the skinny on what’s actually happening in Afghanistan. You can find them on locals.com a/o in summary here – https://www.michaelyon-online.com/

    Yon has both the contacts and background to report on those events. His style is eccentric, for a reporter, but he’s good on the facts will ensure he sets the record straight.

  7. Kirby says U.S. will use “leverage tools” to get Americans out. That is Bidenspeak for ransom.

    Why is a USN Admiral the Pentagon press secretary? Asking for a friend. No, actually, it is just a rhetorical question used to highlight another bizarre situation, one among the plethora of bizarre situations in DC in 2021.

    How would a self-respecting Admiral respond when told, “We have a special assignment for you. Although it is not one typically worthy of Flag Rank, we think it is a good fit for your leadership ability.”?

  8. Exactly correct Martin,
    If the GOP had any smarts, and we know they don’t, they would get the truth on the dogs and hammer it home repeatedly.

  9. Can’t decide if it will be by Thursday or Friday when this entire Afghanistan thing will be totally gone from all mainstream media.

    Oh who am I kidding it’ll be Wednesday.

  10. Islam got a big boost with weapons, cash, a safe haven, no nearby base watching them in the region.
    It will be years until this gets played out, it’s not over like Sundowner says it is or wants it to be.

  11. Oldflyer,
    I didn’t know he was an Admiral. Did you hear him flatly state that all that abandoned weaponry won’t be of any use to the Taliban or others, or a threat to countries in the region. Why? Because he said so, I suppose. Question asked and answered. I’m relieved again.

  12. Griffin:

    Yes. The message is that it was a little blip on the radar screen, we’re out now and isn’t that great? That’s what they counted on, and although it went a bit worse than they expected, they are confident they can now turn the page and continue to dismantle the foundations on which this country has been built.

  13. The abandoned weaponry remains the most astounding part of this. Truly unbelievable.

  14. Griffin:

    Well, that was because of the speed on which Biden insisted, I think. Also, they really did think the Afghan military would last longer, and didn’t they leave most of it in the hands of the Afghan military? Just a series of abominable and incredibly stupid decisions.

  15. neo,

    But even that is stupid because they also claimed the Taliban would take over in months and then they would have got it all anyway plus I seem to remember something about the Afghan Army being unable to maintain helicopters and the like without the private contractors on site so why leave them there?

  16. ‘Pentagon spokesman John Kirby acknowledged Tuesday that Americans were “stranded” in Afghanistan…’

    I guess that “stranded” is now a permitted word (in Jen Psaki’s book).
    (Gosh, that was fast.)

    OTOH, it could mean that John Kirby is totally “irresponsible”, (in Jen Psaki’s book).

    Or both.

    …And so, once again (with spirit!): “Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia”….

  17. Kirby is another traitor who has now earned a military ‘funeral’. He is in effect rendering aid and comfort to the enemies of all that is good. As he’s purposely deflecting, minimizing and seeking to bury concern over thousands of American citizens abandoned to torture and death.

    Which makes him, along with all the rest of this administration… an accomplice to mass murder.

  18. “The government will drop most restrictions once 80% of adults are vaccinated”

    Translation, do as your told or the ‘restrictions’ will never end.

    Though only a fool would believe them.

    Australia’s next national election will determine whether it shall continue to be a police State.

  19. Big Country Expat:

    (Ex Enlisted, Ex Contractor, Full-time Full-on)

    Reckons that there’s a three-way war going on between Executive/State Dept — Dot Mil — Intel Agencies.

    Worth a read.

    https://bigcountryexpatoriginal.blogspot.com/2021/08/deep-state-war.html

    @Martin:

    Cruelty to Animals is one of the few ways left in which one can legitimately take down a Magic American like Vick. Everybody knows LaQisha or whoever the hell had it coming no matter-the-hell-what. But a Dog? No @#$%ing way man! Although I guess can’t be too long before Structural Racism for Dogs is a new thing.

  20. Dennis Prager tells a story of talking to a group of teenagers and asking them whether if they could only save one from drowning would they choose their dog or a total stranger and a troubling number say their dog.

  21. @Geoffrey Britain:

    Re: Australia’s Next Election.

    You’re assuming, My Good Man, that there’s any daylight between political parties in Australia on mundane stuff like personal liberty and rolling back the Nanny State. Wrong assumption.

    The last person to stick a head (her head, in fact) above the parapet and demand a slow-down of rampant immigration of incompatible folk got imprisoned on trumped up electoral fundraising fraud charges… said drive to hound and prosecute her led by one Tony Abbot — a now ex Prime Minister and kind of person the blah blah media would call a Conservative, nay a slavering Right Winger..

    The People of Australia will get what they’re going to get. And they’ll get it good and proper. Far too many of them for my liking will enjoy it. And that’s that.

  22. Good grief, does Prager need to be flogged with a wet noodle.

    Getting out of Afghanistan accomplishes…

    1. Saving trillions of dollars in future expenses, or at least the chance something will be done with that money toward some productive end.

    2. Saving some number of American lives. What did the 91 American soldiers killed in Afghanistan since 2015 give their lives for?

    3. Learning from our mistakes. Invading Afghanistan after 9/11 was probably not a mistake. Spending several years there trying to make sure it would be a future home for terror operations was probably not a mistake. Spending 20 years there WHILE THE PEOPLE IN CHARGE KNEW WE WERE ACCOMPLISHING NOTHING was a mistake.

    Mike

  23. MBunge,

    Yep, I’ve found myself disagreeing with our hostess and Dennis Prager on this one. Prager has had a weak spot for a few things over the years as he was also approving of a lot of the NSA spying that was all in the news about 10 years ago.

    Oh well, can’t agree with someone on everything and he has nailed the Covid lockdowns from day 1.

  24. These progressives are people who shrug, not merely at the deaths, but at the killing of their supposedly “fellow” Americans; and who indeed do more than that: they relish the thought of turning the American armed forces on traditionalist citizens committed to constitutional government.

    We have known this for some years now. We have seen them increasingly in action. The time for outrage, much less shock, is long past.

    The 56% [of progressive females who are mentally ill] , the soyboys, the crawling cucks, the progressive grannies and church ladies, and the sinecured inhabitants of the institutional niches have all made their moral choices known for decades now.

    What in the world did conservatives expect from them? A conscience?

  25. @Griffin:

    Thanks for the link. The author of that piece was in at the very beginning of political blogging and I recall following him for a while ca. 2003/4. He’s got a lot of background history as an Australian Liberal (the supposed ‘Conservatives’) Party staffer/operative working at ministerial level in Canberra… so it’s almost surprising that he’s on a personal liberty bent here. Suspect it’s his Polish emigre anti-communist family background. Anyway all to the good. Oh dear… Stereotyping people again. Oh my!

    I share his pessimism.

  26. MBunge,

    Do you agree that for the past 20 years, serious terrorist attacks on American soil have been prevented?

    So OK, what’s the alternative and how exactly does your suggested course of action protect America from future terrorist attacks?

    You do have an alternative to suggest, right?

  27. Zaphod,

    “You’re assuming, My Good Man, that there’s any daylight between political parties in Australia on mundane stuff like personal liberty and rolling back the Nanny State.”

    Your interpretation of my comment is mistaken. And my lack of familiarity with Australian politics prevents me from assessing your assertion of the reality of an Australian Uniparty. You’ll forgive me if I don’t just take your word for it?

    So what I meant is, if in the next election, the current government is reelected or a “new boss, same as the old boss” is elected and, at base the same policies remain in effect… then we will know that Australia’s police State continues.

    Because the majority of Australians are very unhappy with the lockdowns evidenced by the very low rate of citizens who have become vaccinated. That lack of vaccinations indicates that the great majority correctly assess the lockdowns as entirely unneccessary.

    In a free society of the self-governed, the next election will accordingly result in fundamental change.

    If Australia does have a Uniparty and those independent of the power structure are ‘dissuaded’ from harnessing the widespread dissatisfaction… that too is prima facie evidence of a Police State run by a Fascist Oligarchy.

    In this case, in the not too distant future the actual reality Australians face will not be up for debate. One way or the other the reality of it will be undeniable.

    So too here in America when the results of the 2022 and 2024 elections are revealed. Given the actions of the democrats, there is not the proverbial “snowballs chance in hell” that they will win honestly in 2022 or 2024.

    I wonder if the democrats realize how close to the edge of the precipice they are dancing?

  28. DNW,

    “The 56% [of progressive females who are mentally ill] , the soyboys, the crawling cucks, the progressive grannies and church ladies, and the sinecured inhabitants of the institutional niches have all made their moral choices known for decades now.

    What in the world did conservatives expect from them? A conscience?”

    I guess self-interest would be too much to ask?

    Apparently they’re too blind to realize that, “Any government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have.” earliest attribution 1952. Most famously used by President Gerald Ford using it in an address to a joint session of Congress on August 12, 1974.

    But if snowflakes, “soyboys, crawling cucks, progressive females & grannies, church ladies, and the sinecured inhabitants of institutional niches” make up the majority of those who voted for Biden… then other than their votes we ultimately have nothing to fear from them. In which case, it will be the progressive oligarchy that will rescind our liberties but then it would be time for “politics by ‘other’ means”… and the problem for them will be that there just aren’t enough thugs in America for that to work out well for them.

    “So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don’t even know that fire is hot.” George Orwell

  29. MBunge & Griffin. I would characterize the choices fraud with trade offs. Yet the central one is framed best by a book I’m sure neither you have read: “Future Jihad” by Walid Phares.

    Why Future Jihad? Because in this book, Phares takes you into the minds of Islamist Jihadi’s and tells us how they feel when historic events like this informs their ‘Great War for Allah because Mohamed’ imaginings. It’s the most disturbing book I’ve read during the 2000s decade.

    Inshallah – if God Wills It, has taken on a terrible new life. Which means reigning death upon the West and the US. And Biden did this appeasement of our terrorist enemies by Obamunists Third World Ism great destructive glee (as Dinesh D’Souza might say if his “Obama Unmasked” book were updated).

    If you love yourselves and are this informed, you could not be so damn callow.

  30. @ Griffin > “This article by an Australian pretty much says all you need to know. None of it surprising in light of the last 18 months but I have little faith anything will change there”

    I think Mr. Chrenkoff’s post overlooks some recent developments.
    This trucker strike was last week (8/22), but the news didn’t hit American outlets until 8/29:
    https://www.theepochtimes.com/australian-truckers-block-major-highway-protesting-mandatory-vaccines-lockdowns_3970773.html

    Australian truck drivers have blocked a major highway in the north-eastern state of Queensland in a protest against vaccine mandates and tough border restrictions, causing traffic to back up for several kilometres.

    The action marks a series of ongoing protests from Australians frustrated with state government COVID-19 lockdowns and mandated restrictions based on emergency public health orders.

    The drivers parked their prime movers at 5:30 a.m. on the southbound lanes of the M1 highway at Reedy Creek in the Gold Coast portion of the arterial on Monday. The highway is used by tens of thousands of Queenslanders each morning.

    A banner was unfurled and covered the front of both vehicles, reading: “Truckies Keep Australia Moving, Not Politicians.”

    “End all lockdowns, people go back to work, and kids go back to school,” Brock told Nine’s Today show. “That’s all we want out of it; we’ve had enough of it.

    “We’ve had a lot the support mate, the people that showed up today is amazing. We appreciate everyone that’s come down,” he added, saying the police had been lenient about the protest, and he respected what they did.

    “But it’s all about choice at the end of the day. If you don’t want to get the vax, don’t get the vax. If you do want to get it, get it. But just don’t keep locking up people.”

    The truckers’ rally comes a day before a planned Australia and New Zealand-wide protest on Aug. 31, that has been circulating on social media for weeks.

    “Block every hwy [highway] entering into every state all at the same time & take back Australia,” one post on Facebook read, while warning people to stock up on enough food for a couple of weeks while truckies aim to block supply routes across the country.

    Frustrations have begun boiling over in Australia over the COVID-19 lockdowns—which state government say are caused by the low vaccinations in the country—with protests against government-mandated lockdowns ramping up around the country in recent weeks.

    And yet, Chrenkoff says “the population is approaching an 80 percent vaccination-rate target” –

    Which is why the federal government—belatedly trying to orchestrate a return to some normalcy once certain vaccination levels are reached—finds its efforts contradicted by state governments and health experts arguing that the vaccination target actually needs to be (the unreachable and unrealistic) 90 percent or 95 percent, that lockdowns should continue even with a highly vaccinated population, and that international borders should stay closed indefinitely. That this is not great marketing—get vaccinated, but you still won’t be able to do anything!—needs no genius to recognize. Sadly, little evidence has materialized of any major shift in public sentiment. The powers that be still find it easy to taint the opposition to their “zero Covid” policies as callous, anti-science, anti-vax, right-wing extremists.

    However, when your callous right-wing extremists are your only source of food and TP, sometimes they get results.
    https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/stacey-lennox/2021/08/30/no-more-puppies-need-to-die-australia-is-finally-coming-to-its-senses-on-covid-19-n1474265

    Australia may finally put an end to its “Covid Zero” policy. Residents tired of an endless lockdown policy driven by CCP propaganda can thank the nation’s truckers. A viral video went out last week announcing that truck drivers in the nation were willing to shut down the country to end the authoritarian behavior of the government.

    The trucker in the video says: “It’s on. The truckies are doing it. We need you and everyone else’s support to watch this video, hand it up and let everyone in Australia know that the truckies are gonna shut down the country. What that means is you need to go shopping now, get what you can for the next week or two, load your fridge, freezers. The truckies are coming, and they’re going to pull this country down, and we’re all going to do it together and remove the s**t government.”

    He continues: “The vets are in. The truckies are in. I’m in. I am willing to go to jail to save my country and my children. If you want to do this, we got to do it together as one.”

    The trucker also criticized vaccinations, but the threat was clear: Supply chains for essential goods will come to a screeching halt if the truck drivers put their big rigs in park

    Perhaps the viral video made the Australian leaders look in the mirror and see Xi Jinping staring back at them. Or maybe they were terrified of the toilet paper shortages that plagued the country earlier in the pandemic. Whatever the reason, Prime Minister Scott Morrison emerged on August 23 to let Australians know the government had a change of heart.

    Australia had a policy of “circuit breakers” that required lockdowns whenever cases were detected. They believed this could stop the spread and eradicate the virus. The Delta variant proved this strategy was not going to work, as lockdowns were ordered all over the country when testing found cases of the variant. Positive tests rose despite the draconian stay-at-home orders and militant enforcement.

    Morrison said the government developed a national plan “to live with the virus” in a video address. “That is our goal, to live with this virus, not to live in fear of it,” Morrison said. He asserted that actions taken to contain COVID-19 to date had saved 30,000 lives and preserved 1,000,000 livelihoods. It is not clear how the government tabulated these figures.

    He went on to say that 70% of the country was now eligible to be vaccinated. He said that at 80% vaccination, the nation would have to move forward. Morrison added that the country must also change its mindset. Once it reaches the vaccination mark, cases will no longer be the governing metric. Instead, the health system will focus on severe illness and hospitalization. “And we will live with this virus as we live with other infectious diseases,” Morrison emphasized.

    Not sure how to square all that with Chrenkoff’s post, but he may have been talking about back-sliding by the government. I only know what I read in the newspapers.

    BTW – he joked about liberating Australians; the Master of Satire beat him to it.
    https://babylonbee.com/news/australian-citizens-ask-taliban-to-liberate-their-country

  31. Straw clowns in Afghanistan with catastrophic effects.

    Straw clowns all around with the vaccine(s) parade. The issue is immunity, not vaccination. The issue is adverse events, not infection. The issue is the durable effect of vaccines and short-term safety data. The issue is the pathogenic properties of the spike protein, the longevity of the mRNA mechanism, and the waning and dysfunctional (e.g. nonviable antibodies) effect of vaccinated immunity vs natural immunity. The issue is leaky vaccines and masks, and a false sense of safety.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>